Scharnhorst-class armored cruiser (4f/2m).
L/B/D:
474 × 70.8 × 26 (144.5m × 21.6m × 7.9m). Tons:
12,900 disp. Comp.:
860. Hull:
steel. Arm.:
8 × 8.4, 6 × 5.9, 18 × 88mm; 4 × 18TT. Armor:
6 belt, 2.4 deck. Mach.:
triple expansion, 26,000 ihp, 3 screws; 22.5 kts. Built:
Blohm & Voss, Hamburg; 1907.
The armored cruisers Scharnhorst (named for the Napoleonic-era Prussian General Gerhard von Scharnhorst) and
Gneisenau were the most powerful ships in the German Imperial Navy's East Asiatic Squadron stationed at Tsingtao, China. When World War I began, Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee was on a training cruise in the Caroline Islands, and fearing an engagement with a combined British and Japanese fleet, he abandoned the German base at Tsingtao (which fell on November 7, 1914) and took his squadron—including the light cruisers Leipzig and Nürnberg—across the Pacific to harass Allied coastal shipping on the west coast of South America. The squadron was joined by the light cruiser
Dresden.
On October 31, 1914, the German and British squadrons were alerted to one another's presence off the coast of Chile, although each believed they were making contact with only one light cruiser. At 1620 on November 1, about 50 miles west of Coronel, Spee sighted Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock's force, consisting of armored cruisers
HMS Good Hope and Monmouth, light cruiser Glasgow, and armed merchant ship Otranto. After maneuvering for advantage—the German ships were faster, their guns were bigger, and their crews more experienced—the Battle of Coronel began at dusk. Scharnhorst concentrated her fire on Good Hope, which took at least 35 hits before being ripped apart by an internal magazine explosion at about 2000.
Coronel was a Pyrrhic victory for Spee, who had expended 42 percent of his ships' 8-inch ammunition—Scharnhorst had fired 422 shells and had only 350 remaining—and the nearest supply was in Germany. After a brief stop at Valparaiso, Spee sailed for the Atlantic on November 5. The next month his force was off the Falkland Islands when at about 0940 on December 8, Gneisenau and Leipzig reported the presence of two battlecruisers at Stanley. With inferior speed, range, and weight of shell, Spee's ships had little or no chance against Admiral Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee's battlecruisers
HMS Invincible and
Inflexible. Scharnhorst was engaged at about 1320, and although she managed to close and inflict some damage on her adversaries, by mid-afternoon she was all but finished. After refusing an order to surrender, she sank at 1617 in about 52°40S, 55°51W, with the loss of her entire crew. Of Spee's fleet, only Dresden and the collier Seydlitz escaped. The latter was interned in Argentina and the former was lost in Chile the following spring.
Yates, Graf Spee's Raiders.
