Scharnhorst 1943
Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | Scharnhorst | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1943 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | battlecruiser | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Nationality / flag | Nazi Germany | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Kriegsmarine | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War II, Operation Weserübung, Battle of the North Cape | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | Barents Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Position | 72.2667, 28.6833 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
Scharnhorst was a German capital ship, alternatively described as a battleship or battlecruiser, of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. She was the lead ship of her class, which included her sister ship Gneisenau. The ship was built at the Kriegsmarinewerft dockyard in Wilhelmshaven; she was laid down on 15 June 1935 and launched a year and four months later on 3 October 1936. Completed in January 1939, the ship was armed with a main battery of nine 28 cm (11 in) C/34 guns in three triple turrets. Plans to replace these weapons with six 38 cm (15 in) SK C/34 guns in twin turrets were never carried out.
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated together for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. During her first operation in November 1939, Scharnhorst sank the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi in a short engagement. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau participated in Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway, from April to June 1940. During operations off Norway, the two ships engaged the battlecruiser HMS Renown and sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious as well as her escort destroyers Acasta and Ardent.
Diving & visiting
In September 2000, a joint expedition to find the sunken battleship conducted by the BBC, NRK, and the Royal Norwegian Navy began. The underwater survey vessel Sverdrup II, operated by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, was used to scan the sea floor. After locating a large submerged object, the research team then used the Royal Norwegian Navy's underwater recovery vessel HNoMS Tyr to examine the object visually. The wreck was positively identified by an ROV on 10 September, which located armament consistent with that of Scharnhorst. The ship sank in approximately 290 m (950 ft) of water.
Location
- Recorded position: 72.2667, 28.6833 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Barents Sea
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article German battleship Scharnhorst (revision 1375861163), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Wreck discovery”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
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All 599 wrecks of the World War II →
Browse more: Open ocean wrecks · Barents Sea · Second World War