The Ship and Its Reputation

The Scharnhorst was one of the two most feared surface raiders in the German Navy, alongside her sister ship Gneisenau. Together they had sunk or damaged Allied shipping totaling approximately 115,000 tons in the Atlantic in 1941. Their arrival at Brest had forced a reorganization of British convoy routing. Churchill regarded them as a standing threat that demanded resources simply by existing.

By late 1943, the Scharnhorst was based at Altafjord in northern Norway where — along with the battleship Tirpitz — she posed a constant threat to the Allied convoys supplying the Soviet Union via the Arctic route. It was this mission, and the intelligence surrounding it, that brought her to her last battle.

Ultra and the Convoy Route

In late December 1943, convoy JW 55B — 19 merchant ships with Royal Navy escort — was making for the Soviet port of Murmansk. German naval intelligence had tracked it. Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, initially uncertain about the wisdom of risking the Scharnhorst, was convinced by his staff that the convoy presented an opportunity.

The British had read Donitz's orders through Ultra — the signals intelligence derived from breaking Enigma-encrypted German communications. Admiral Bruce Fraser, commanding the Home Fleet from his flagship HMS Duke of York, knew the Scharnhorst would sortie. He positioned his force — Duke of York, the cruiser Jamaica, and four destroyers — to intercept.

The Scharnhorst's commander, Rear Admiral Erich Bey, did not know he was sailing into an ambush. He had no capital ship support — the Tirpitz had been damaged by British midget submarines in September and was not operational. He had five destroyers for escort.

The Battle

At 9:00 AM on December 26, the cruiser HMS Belfast detected the Scharnhorst by radar in the Arctic darkness. The sun would not rise. The battle would be fought almost entirely in darkness and heavy seas at temperatures around minus 10 degrees Celsius.

Three British cruisers — Belfast, Norfolk, and Sheffield — engaged the Scharnhorst. The Scharnhorst, faster than the cruisers, turned away and broke contact. She turned north again toward the convoy and again met the cruisers. A shell from HMS Norfolk knocked out the Scharnhorst's forward fire control radar, significantly degrading her gunnery capability.

At approximately 4:17 PM, Duke of York — a 35,000-ton King George V-class battleship armed with ten 14-inch guns — picked up the Scharnhorst on radar at a range of about 22,000 yards, beyond visual range in the darkness. Fraser maneuvered to close.

"At 1650 Duke of York opened fire with her main armament. The Scharnhorst returned fire immediately but appeared not to have been aware of our presence until the broadside fell." — Admiral Bruce Fraser, HMS Duke of York action report, December 26, 1943, Public Record Office ADM 234/349

The first British salvo achieved hits. The Scharnhorst was bracketed and repeatedly struck. Her speed began to fall as hits accumulated in her engineering spaces. As she slowed, British destroyers were able to close and fire torpedoes.

The Scharnhorst's last recorded signal to German Naval Command was sent at approximately 1800: "We shall fight to the last shell."

By 1945 hours, the Scharnhorst had sunk. Of her crew of 1,968 officers and men, 36 were recovered from the Arctic sea.

The Significance

The sinking demonstrated several lessons that would influence post-war naval thinking.

Radar at night had rendered the traditional advantage of surface raider speed and the cover of darkness effectively obsolete. Duke of York had fought most of the battle without ever seeing the Scharnhorst visually. The engagement was conducted almost entirely by instruments.

Ultra intelligence had been operationally decisive. Without foreknowledge of the sortie, Fraser could not have positioned his forces correctly. The battle was won in the cipher rooms before the guns spoke.

The loss of the Scharnhorst, combined with the Tirpitz's incapacitation, effectively ended the German surface fleet's ability to threaten Arctic convoys. The strategic threat that had consumed enormous British resources since 1940 was extinguished in a single Arctic night.