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 . 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.
and 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, sank the armed merchant cruiser in a short engagement. and participated in Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway, from April to June 1940. During operations off Norway, the two ships engaged the battlecruiser and sank the aircraft carrier as well as her escort destroyers and . In that engagement achieved one of the longest-range naval gunfire hits in history.
In early 1942, after British bombing raids, the two ships made the Channel Dash up the English Channel from occupied France to Germany. In early 1943, joined the in Norway to interdict Allied convoys to the Soviet Union. and several destroyers sortied from Norway to attack a convoy but British naval patrols intercepted the German force. During the Battle of the North Cape (26 December 1943), the Royal Navy battleship and her escorts sank . Only 36 men survived, out of a crew of 1,968.
Design
displaced at standard displacement and at full load. She was long overall and had a beam of and a maximum draft of . She was powered by three Brown, Boveri & Cie geared steam turbines, which developed a total of and yielded a maximum speed of on speed trials. Her standard crew numbered 56 officers and 1,613 enlisted men, augmented during the war to 60 officers and 1,780 men. While serving as a squadron flagship, carried an additional 10 officers and 61 enlisted men.
She was armed with a main battery of nine 28 cm (11.1 in) L/54.5 guns arranged in three triple gun turrets: two turrets were placed forward in a superfiring arrangement (Anton and Bruno), and one aft (Caesar). The design also enabled the ship to be up-gunned with six 15-inch guns, which never took place. Her secondary armament consisted of twelve 15 cm (5.9 in) L/55 guns, eight of which were placed in two-gun turrets and the remaining four were carried in individual turrets. Her heavy anti-aircraft armament consisted of fourteen 10.5 cm L/65. These guns were directed by four SL-6 stabilized anti-aircraft director posts. The light anti-aircraft armament consisted of sixteen SK C/30 L/83, and initially ten C/30 anti-aircraft guns. The number of 2 cm guns was eventually increased to thirty-eight. Two triple above-water torpedo tubes, taken from the light cruiser , were installed in 1941.
had an armor belt that was thick in the central portion, where it protected the ship's ammunition magazines and propulsion machinery spaces. The ship had an armored deck that was thick on the flat portion, increasing to on downward-sloping sides that connected to the bottom of the belt. Her main battery turrets had of armor on their faces and on their sides. The conning tower was protected with 350 mm on the sides.
Commanding officers At her commissioning, was commanded by Kapitän zur See (KzS) Otto Ciliax. His tenure as the ship's commander was brief; in September 1939, an illness forced him to go on sick leave, and he was replaced by KzS Kurt-Caesar Hoffmann. Hoffmann served as the ship's captain until 1942. On 1 April 1942, Hoffmann, who had been promoted to Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) and awarded the Knight's Cross, transferred command of the ship to KzS Friedrich Hüffmeier. In October 1943, shortly before s last mission, Hüffmeier was replaced by KzS Fritz Hintze, who was killed during the ship's final battle.
Service history
was ordered as Ersatz Elsass as a replacement for the old pre-dreadnought , under the contract name "D." The Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven was awarded the contract, where the keel was laid on 16 July 1935. The ship was launched on 3 October 1936, witnessed by Adolf Hitler, Minister of War Generalfeldmarschall Werner von Blomberg, and the widow of Kapitän zur See Schultz, the commander of the armored cruiser , which had been sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands during World War I. Fitting-out work followed her launch, and was completed by January 1939. was commissioned into the fleet on 9 January for sea trials, which revealed a dangerous tendency to ship considerable amounts of water in heavy seas. This caused flooding in the bow and damaged electrical systems in the forward (Anton) gun turret. As a result, she went back to the dockyard for extensive modification of the bow. The original straight stem was replaced with a raised "Atlantic bow." A raked funnel cap was also installed during the reconstruction, along with an enlarged aircraft hangar; the main mast was also moved further aft. The modifications were completed by November 1939, by which time the ship was finally fully operational.
s first operation began on 21 November 1939; the ship, and her sister , was to attack the Northern Patrol between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The intent of the operation was to draw out British units and ease the pressure on the heavy cruiser , which was being pursued in the South Atlantic. A patrol line of four U-boats was stationed in the North Sea to intercept any sortie from the Home Fleet. The two battleships left Wilhelmshaven in company of the light cruisers and , and three destroyers, which parted company in the morning of 22 November for operations in the Skagerrak. The next day, the German battleships intercepted the British armed merchant cruiser . At 16:07, lookouts aboard spotted the vessel, and less than an hour later had closed the range. At 17:03, opened fire, and three minutes later a salvo of her 28 cm guns hit Rawalpindis bridge, killing the captain Edward Kennedy, and the majority of the officers. During the brief engagement, Rawalpindi managed to score a hit on , which caused minor splinter damage.
By 17:16, Rawalpindi was burning badly and in the process of sinking. Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, aboard , ordered to pick up survivors. These rescue operations were interrupted by the appearance of the cruiser . Based on the reports of Rawalpindi and Newcastle, the British deployed the Home Fleet with the battleships and from the Clyde towards Norway in case the Germans intended to return to Germany, and the battlecruisers and the French left from Devonport towards Iceland to prevent a breakout towards the Atlantic. Aware of these deployments through the B-Dienst, Marschall retreated northwards and waited for bad weather in order to break through a British cruiser and destroyer patrol line between Shetland and Norway. The Germans reached Wilhelmshaven on 27 November, and on the trip both battleships incurred significant damage from heavy seas and winds. was repaired in Wilhelmshaven, and while in dock, her boilers were overhauled.
Following the completion of repairs, went into the Baltic Sea for gunnery training. Heavy ice in the Baltic kept the ship there until February 1940 when she could return to Wilhelmshaven, arriving on 5 February. Between 18 February and 20 February, she participated in Operation Nordmark, a brief sortie into the North Sea as far as the Shetland Islands.
Operation Weserübung She was then assigned to the forces participating in Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Denmark and Norway. and were the covering force for the assaults on Narvik and Trondheim; the two ships left Wilhelmshaven on the morning of 7 April under the command of Vice Admiral Günther Lütjens. They were joined by the invasion force for Trondheim, consisting of the heavy cruiser and four destroyers, and by the invasion force for Narvik, consisting of ten destroyers. Between 14:25 and 14:48 on 7 April, the ships were unsuccessfully attacked west of the Skagerrak by twelve bombers. By evening the weather had deteriorated and several destroyers could not keep up the high () speed and remained behind the main force. Heavy winds caused significant structural damage that evening, and flooding contaminated a portion of s fuel stores. On 8 April at 09:15 one of the trailing destroyers, , signalled a fight with a British destroyer and at 09:22 Lütjens ordered Admiral Hipper to investigate. The German cruiser found the British destroyer and hit her with accurate artillery fire. Before Glowworm sank, she attempted to ram and damage Admiral Hipper and sent out a warning message to the British fleet. Shortly after the fight with Glowworm, Admiral Hipper and her four destroyers set course for Trondheim, and at 22:00 the ten destroyers left for Narvik, whilst and took a position south of the Lofoten in the Vestfjorden to cover both landings.
Early on 9 April, the two ships encountered the British battlecruiser HMS Renown. s Seetakt radar picked up a radar contact at 04:30, which prompted the crews of both vessels to go to combat stations. Half an hour later, s navigator spotted gun flashes from firing at ; the Germans returned fire three minutes later. was hit twice in the opening portion of the engagement, and one shell disabled her rear gun turret. s radar malfunctioned, which prevented her from being able to effectively engage Renown during the battle. At 05:18, the British battlecruiser shifted fire to , which maneuvered to avoid the falling shells. By 07:15, and had used their superior speed to escape from the pursuing Renown. Heavy seas and the high speed with which the pair of battleships escaped caused them to ship large amounts of water forward. s forward (Anton) turret was put out of action by severe flooding. Mechanical problems with her starboard turbines developed after running at full speed, which forced the ships to reduce speed to .
and had reached a point north-west of Lofoten, Norway, by 12:00 on 9 April. The two ships then turned west for 24 hours while temporary repairs were effected. After a day of steaming west, the ships turned south. Since broadcasting radio messages would betray the position of the ships to the British, an Arado 196 float plane was launched by on 10 April at 12:00 with the instruction to fly in the direction of Norway and to signal there the intentions of Lütjens to break through to Germany in the night of 11 April. The plane was launched at extreme range and could barely reach the outer islands on the Norwegian coast where it managed to send its message. The float plane was towed to Trondheim where it could also convey Lütjens's order to Admiral Hipper to join the German battleships in the return journey to Germany. Admiral Hipper joined in the morning of 12 April but her four destroyers had to stay back at Trondheim because of lack of fuel. A Royal Air Force (RAF) patrol aircraft spotted the three ships that day, and 82 RAF Bomber Command and nine RAF Coastal Command aircraft were ordered to attack the ships. The German warships were protected by poor visibility, however, and none of the bombers found the ships whilst losing nine of their number to German fighters. The three ships safely reached Wilhelmshaven at 22:00. was repaired at the Deutsche Werke in Kiel. During the repair process, the aircraft catapult that had been installed on the rear (Caesar) gun turret was removed.
Operation Juno