- SMS Scharnhorst
:"This article is about the
World War I armored cruiser Scharnhorst; for theWorld War II battlecruiser of the same name, seeGerman warship Scharnhorst (1936) ."SMS "Scharnhorst" was an 11,616 ton
armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at theBlohm & Voss Shipyard inHamburg ,Germany . She was named after thePrussia n reformer generalGerhard von Scharnhorst and commissioned on24 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 theGerman East Asian Cruiser Squadron . This squadron consisted of "Scharnhorst", her sister ship "Gneisenau", and thelight cruiser s "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 on1 November 1914 , engaged and sank the two British cruisers "Good Hope" and "Monmouth" at theBattle of Coronel , off the coast ofChile .Battle of the Falkland Islands
On
8 December 1914 , the five cruisers of the squadron attempted to attack Stanley in theFalkland Islands with the intention of obtaining coal. They were unaware of the presence of a force under Vice AdmiralSir Doveton Sturdee , including two British battlecruisers HMS "Invincible" and HMS "Inflexible", and several light cruisers, which had arrived only the previous day. In the ensuingBattle 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 offValparaíso , 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]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
