The Drama of the Scharnhorst

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 fateful disadvantage that was to prove decisive.