#31: Scharnhorst: The Battlecruiser Sunk in the Arctic Dark
On December 26, 1943, the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst was caught and destroyed by a Royal Navy task force at the Battle of the North Cape, the last major engagement between capital ships in European waters. Of her crew of 1,968, only 36 survived the icy Arctic waters. It was one of the most lopsided losses in the history of naval warfare between large warships.
Scharnhorst displaced 38,900 tons and carried nine 11-inch guns capable of hurling 727-pound shells over 22 miles. With her sister Gneisenau, she sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious in 1940, one of the few times a carrier has been destroyed by gunfire. Scharnhorst also participated in the famous Channel Dash of February 1942, racing through the English Channel in broad daylight under the nose of the Royal Navy and RAF. Her career was marked by aggression and audacity, and her destruction ended Germany's surface naval strategy in the Atlantic.
