A fortnight later Bomber Command revenged themselves by finishing off Gneisenau. Damaged by the mine, she was in dry dock at Kiel when the RAF made her the target of a massive attack. For three nights between 25 and 27 February bombers pounded her. On the first night 61 bombers came over, 49 arrived on the second night and on the third 68 bombers attacked. On this same night, 33 bombers also attacked Scharnhorst in Wilhelmshaven. She escaped unscathed, but British bombs smashed Gneisenau's bows and foredecks. It was the end. Her hulk was eventually towed to Gdynia in Poland, and filled with concrete to become a block-ship fort.
Ciliax was also proved right about the dangers of Norwegian waters. Just before dawn on 23 February Prinz Eugen was approaching Trondheim when a torpedo from HMS Trident, commanded by Cdr. G. M. Sladen, ripped off her stem. She managed to limp into the sheltered anchorage at Aasfiord, but she never went to sea operationally again during the war. In 1948, as part of the United States Navy in the Allied share-out, she was sunk at Bikini Atoll in the atomic bomb tests.
Although Scharnhorst was ready for sea again after six months, her fate was to be the worst. On Boxing Day, 26 December 1943, the twilight of noon was fading to the darkness of an Arctic afternoon when she was cornered off North Cape by Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser and the Home Fleet.
She was first detected by two British cruisers, Norfolk and Belfast, who began to hold her steadily in their radar. Then Admiral Fraser aboard his flagship, Duke of York, picked her up on his own radar at twenty-two nautical miles.
At 4:45 p.m. the Duke of York's first 14-inch salvo fired from six miles away straddled her and made one hit. Scharnhorst continued to steam away eastward, turning briefly at intervals to fire a broadside, then resuming headlong flight. For an hour it looked as if she would escape.
In the chase the Duke of York made three more hits — so did the cruisers. No Royal Naval ship received any serious damage, though the flagship was frequently straddled, and one of her masts was smashed by an 11-inch shell.
In complete darkness, five hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, through strong winds and heavy seas, the running battle went on for two hours. At 6 p.m. Scharnhorst's main battery went silent. But battered and crippled as she was, with half her crew dead or wounded, she continued to fight like a wounded shark. Her secondary armament was still firing wildly as the British ships closed in to sink her with torpedoes.
At 7 p.m. the squadron commander, Vice-Admiral Bey— the same officer who had commanded the destroyers in the Channel break-out — exchanged a last greeting with the German Admiralty and Hitler which said, "Long live Germany and the Führer!" At 7:28 p.m. Duke of York fired her 77th salvo at her. Fifty-two torpedoes had already been fired but the last three — fired at 7:37 p.m. by HMS Jamaica from just under two miles range — finished her.
At 7:45 p.m. Scharnhorst exploded and sank in a dense cloud of smoke. Only thirty-six survivors — not one of them an officer — were recovered alive from the icy, turbulent sea. The rest of her crew of 1,940 men, including Admiral Bey, went down with her.
APPENDIX
The sister ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were launched within two months of each other in 1936, Scharnhorst at Wilhelmshaven, Gneisenau at Kiel. Their full load displacement was 32,000 tons. Standard displacement was 26,000 tons, and overall length 741 feet. They reached thirty-two knots on trials, and were heavily armoured with steel twelve inches thick in places. Their two armoured decks were 2.5 and 4.5 inches thick. Both carried nine 11-inch guns, twelve 5.9s, fourteen 4.1s and sixteen 1.45 A.A. guns in twin mountings. They also carried six 21-inch torpedo tubes, which had no war-heads at the time of the Brest break-out.
Prinz Eugen, a heavy cruiser of the "Hipper" class, was launched in the summer of 1938. She had a displacement of 10,000 tons with eight 8-inch guns, twelve 4.1 A.A. guns and twelve 37-mm A.A. guns. Her armour was 5 inches thick in places, and she carried twelve 21-in. torpedo tubes. Her top speed was also thirty-two knots.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following is a selected list of the books I consulted in the preparation of this book:
Busch, Fritz Otto: The Drama of the Scharnhorst. London: Robert Hale, 1956.
---The Story of the Prinz Eugen. London: Robert Hale, 1950.
Cameron, Ian: Wings of the Morning. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1962.
Churchill, Winston: The Hinge of Fate. London: Cassell, 1950.
Dempster, Derek, and Wood, Derek: The Narrow Margin. London: Hutchinson, 1961.
Jones, Maurice: History of the Coastal Artillery in the British Army. London: R. A. Institute, 1959.
Lohman, Walther, and Hildebrand, Hans: Der Deutsche Kriegsmarine. Bad Nauheim: Podzun, 1956.
Martienssen, Anthony: Hitler and his Admirals. New York: Dutton, 1949.
Raeder, Eric: The Struggle for the Sea. London: Kimber, 1957.
Richards, Dénis, and Saunders, H.: RAF in the War, vol. 2 London: Butler and Tanner, 1961.
Robertson, terence: Channel Dash. London: Evans, 1958.
Roskill, Stephen: The War at Sea, 1939-45: vols. 1 and 2. London: H.M.S.O., 1954-56.
Rowe, Albert: One Story of Radar. Cambridge: University Press, 1948.
Rüge, Friedrich: Sea Warfare, 1939-45: A German Viewpoint. London: Cassell, 1957.
Scott, Peter: The Battle of the Narrow Seas. London: Country Life, 1946.
Trevor-Roper, Hugh (ed.): Hitler's War Directives. London: Sidgewick and Jackson, 1964.
Vulliez, Albert, and Mordal, Jacques: Battleship Scharnhorst. London: Hutchinson, 1958.
Warlimont, Walter: Inside Hitler's H.Q. 1939-45. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964.
Other printed sources include:
Admirality: Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs. Brassey's Naval Annual, 1948.
Admiralty: Report on the Escape of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen from Brest to Germany (The Bucknill Report). Command 6775, 1946.
Jackson, David: In Bello in Pace Fidelis. Blackwood's Magazine, May 1959.
Saundby, Air Marshall Sir Robert: Royal Air Force Review, September 1951-August 1952.
Warne, Wing-Commander J. D.: The Escape of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen. Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, May 1952.