SMS Scharnhorst 1914
Marker: recorded wreck position (First World War).
Key facts
| Name | SMS Scharnhorst | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1914 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | First World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | armored cruiser | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Nationality / flag | German Empire | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Imperial German Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War I | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | South Atlantic Ocean | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Position | -52.8969, -56.0164 | Wikidata P793 significant event, coordinate qualifier (CC0) |
About the wreck
SMS Scharnhorst was an armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. She was the lead ship of her class, which included SMS Gneisenau. Scharnhorst and her sister were enlarged versions of the preceding Roon class; they were equipped with a greater number of main guns and were capable of a higher top speed. The ship was named after the Prussian military reformer General Gerhard von Scharnhorst and commissioned into service on 24 October 1907.
Scharnhorst served briefly with the High Seas Fleet in Germany in 1908, though most of this time was spent conducting sea trials. She was assigned to the East Asia Squadron based in Qingdao, China, in 1909. After arriving, she replaced the cruiser Fürst Bismarck as the squadron flagship, a position she would hold for the rest of her career. Over the next five years, she went on several tours of various Asian ports to show the flag for Germany. She frequently carried the squadron commanders to meet Asian heads of state and was present in Japan for the coronation of the Taishō Emperor in 1912.
After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by three light cruisers and several colliers, sailed across the Pacific Ocean to the southern coast of South…
Diving & visiting
An expedition led by the marine archaeologist Mensun Bound searching for the ships of Spee's squadron began in 2014, but had no success. Bound returned for another attempt in 2019 with the research vessel Seabed Constructor, and on 5 December he announced he had located the wreck of Scharnhorst. The vessel lies upright at a depth of about 1,610 m (5,280 ft), some 98 nmi (181 km; 113 mi) southeast of the Falklands. Most of the superstructure has been destroyed or lies around the wreck, but the greater part of the hull is still intact.
Location
- Recorded position: -52.8969, -56.0164 (Wikidata P793 significant event, coordinate qualifier (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: South Atlantic Ocean
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 SMS Scharnhorst (revision 1374720927), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Wreck”; 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).
Nearby wrecks
- SMS Gneisenau 1914 · 15 km
- HMS Sheffield 1982 · 64 km
- ARA Narwal 1982 · 137 km
- RFA Sir Galahad 190 km
Other wrecks of the World War I
- HMS Aboukir 1914
- HMS Bulwark 1914
- HMS Cressy 1914
- HMS Good Hope 1914
- HMS Hawke 1914
- HMS Niger 1914
- HMS Pathfinder 1914
- SM U-11 1914
- SM U-13 1914
- SMS Emden 1914
All 163 wrecks of the World War I →
Browse more: Open ocean wrecks · South Atlantic Ocean · First World War