The Drama of the "Scharnhorst"

'"Scharnhorst" sunk by British naval forces 60 sea miles NW of North Cape, 26th December, 1943 at 19 hours 45'. So ran the radio announcement that told the world of the end of the German battleship "Scharnhorst". The implications of this short message, in terms of human experience, remained unknown until the end of the war when the story was told by the few German survivors and the officers and men of the British Navy. While the epic of the final battle forms the core of his narrative, Fritz-Otto Busch also depicts life aboard the 32,000-ton warship and records her short, eventful history from her launching in 1939 to her fateful demise. He relates how "Scharnhorst" sank the British aircraft carrier "Glorious" in 1940, menaced Allied shipping in the Atlantic throughout 1941, and made her impudent, flaunting dash up the channel to the safety of the Norwegian fjords in 1942. Considered by her crew to be a "lucky ship", her luck ran out in 1943 when she found herself outnumbered in Arctic waters by superior Allied naval forces. The British ships were equipped with Radar, the "Scharnhorst" was not - a fatal disadvantage that was to prove decisive.