SMS Scharnhorst

SMS Scharnhorst

:"This article is about the World War I armored cruiser Scharnhorst; for the World War II battlecruiser of the same name, see German warship Scharnhorst (1936)."

SMS "Scharnhorst" was an 11,616 ton armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at the Blohm & Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. She was named after the Prussian reformer general Gerhard von Scharnhorst and commissioned on 24 October 1907.

ervice history

In one of her first voyages in 1909, she ran aground, and took several months to repair. When the First World War broke out, she was Admiral Maximilian von Spee's flagship in the German East Asian Cruiser Squadron. This squadron consisted of "Scharnhorst", her sister ship "Gneisenau", and the light cruisers "Dresden", "Emden", "Nürnberg", and "Leipzig". The squadron split with "Emden", which broke off to range the Indian Ocean, engaging in attacks on enemy commercial and troop transports with great success. The remainder of the squadron crossed the Pacific and on 1 November 1914, engaged and sank the two British cruisers "Good Hope" and "Monmouth" at the Battle of Coronel, off the coast of Chile.

Battle of the Falkland Islands

On 8 December 1914, the five cruisers of the squadron attempted to attack Stanley in the Falkland Islands with the intention of obtaining coal. They were unaware of the presence of a force under Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, including two British battlecruisers HMS "Invincible" and HMS "Inflexible", and several light cruisers, which had arrived only the previous day. In the ensuing Battle of the Falkland Islands, "Scharnhorst" was lost with her entire crew, together with all of her squadron except the "Dresden", which was sunk 3 months later off Valparaíso, Chile.

References

*"Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I" (Jane's Publishing, London, 1919)
*Robert Gardiner, ed., "Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905" (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1979)
*Hanson W. Baldwin, "World War I: An Outline History" (Harper and Row, New York, 1962)
*Robert K. Massie, "Castles Of Steel" (Ballantine Books, 2003)

External links

* [http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_directory/germany/pages/cruisers/sms_sharnhorst.htm Maritimequest SMS Scharnhorst photo gallery]


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