German battleship Gneisenau

Career
Name:	Gneisenau
Ordered:	January 25, 1934
Laid down:	May 6, 1935
Launched:	December 8, 1936
Commissioned:	May 21, 1938
Fate:	Heavily damaged in an air raid 26/27 February 1942. Decommissioned. Sunk as a blockship 23 March 1945. Scrapped after the war.
General characteristics
Class and type:	Scharnhorst
Displacement:	31,500 tonnes (standard) 38,900 tonnes (full load)
Length:	235 m (772 ft) overall 226 m (741.5 ft) waterline
Beam:	30 m (98.4 ft)
Draft:	9.69 m (31 ft 9 in.) at 37,303 tons
Propulsion:	3 Germania geared turbines with single reduction 3 three-bladed propellers, 4.8 m (159 inch) diameter 151,893 shp
Speed:	33 kt
Range:	8,400 nm at 19 kt
Complement:	1,669 (56 officers, 1,613 enlisted)
Sensors and processing systems:	80-cm wavelength RADAR from 1940[1]
Armament:	9 × 28 cm/54.5 (11") SK C/34[2] 12 × 15 cm/55 (5.9") SK C/28[3] 14 × 10.5 cm/65 (4.1") SK C/33[4] 16 × 3.7 cm/L83 (1.5") SK C/30[5] 10 (later 16) × 2 cm/65 (0.79") C/30 or C/38[6] 6 × 533 mm torpedo tubes
Armor:	Main belt: 350 mm (13.78 inch) Deck: 95 mm max.
Aircraft carried:	3 Arado Ar 196A-3, 1 catapult

Gneisenau was a World War II Scharnhorst class capital ship, referred to as either a light battleship or battlecruiser^[7] of the German Kriegsmarine. This 31,100-ton ship was the third to carry the name of the Prussian general August von Gneisenau, after the three-masted iron-hulled frigate SMS Gneisenau, which was launched in 1879 and wrecked in 1900; and the World War I armored cruiser SMS Gneisenau, destroyed in the battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914.

She usually sailed into battle accompanied by her sister ship Scharnhorst.

Contents 1 Construction 2 Operational History 2.1 Operation Weserübung 2.2 Atlantic breakout 2.3 The Channel dash 2.4 Kiel air attacks 2.5 Reconstruction, deconstruction and blockship 3 After the war: surviving relics 4 Commanding officers 5 Gallery 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 External links

Construction

She was laid down in February 1934, at Deutsche Werke Kiel. Construction was, however, delayed. She was then redesigned and re-laid in May 1935. When completed, she displaced just under the Washington Naval Treaty limit of 35,000 tons though Germany had never been covered by that Treaty^[8].

She carried a main armor belt of 350 mm (13.78 inch), comparable to modern battleships of the time, and vastly heavier than the World War I British battlecruisers HMS Renown and HMS Repulse and the French fast battleships Dunkerque and Strasbourg. The ships were armed with nine 283 mm (11.1 inch) main guns. While these had long range and quite good belt armor penetration power because of their high muzzle velocity, and were preferred by some in the higher ranks of the Kriegsmarine because of their higher rate of fire, they were no match for the 380 mm (15 inch) guns of most of the battleships of her day.^[9] The choice of armament was a result of their hasty commissioning,^[10] complicated by political considerations.^[9]

After the conclusion of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935, Germany was permitted to build capital ships up to 35,000 tons in displacement and 406c mm (16 inch) in gun caliber. With this in mind, Adolf Hitler wanted Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to be armed with six 380 mm (15 inch) guns in three twin turrets.^[10] If this proposal or a later one to upgrade the main armament to 380 mm had been implemented, Gneisenau would have been a very formidable opponent, faster than most British capital ships and as well armored.^[9] However, when Gneisenau was designed, no 380 mm guns were available for the Kriegsmarine; development and construction of 380 mm twin turrets would have necessitated a delay of at least two years,^[9] and Hitler wanted capital ships as soon as possible to fulfill some of his political ideals.^[10] Hitler was also reminded that, despite the allowances of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, the British had historically been sensitive about increases in main gun caliber aboard German capital ships.^[9] For political reasons, it was decided to go ahead with 283 mm guns, with the provision that the ships could be upgunned to 380 mm at the earliest opportunity.^[10] It was also conceded that as a commerce raider, Gneisenau was not intended to fight a capital ship. Instead, superior speed would be used to avoid an engagement with a battleship. Due to priorities and constraints imposed by World War II, she retained her 11.1-inch guns throughout her career. Both Gneisenau and her sister were designed for an extended range to allow for commerce raiding.

Gneisenau was considered a handsome ship, and she and her sister ship, Scharnhorst, are generally spoken of as the most successful German design of the period. The main criticism of the design was their relatively low freeboard, which made them "wet" when in heavy seas. This led to alterations in the sheer line and installation of the "Atlantic Bow" in a winter 1938 refit. She conducted battle training trials in the Atlantic in August–November 1938^[11].

Operational History

On 9 September 1939, six days after war was declared, she was attacked by Royal Air Force aircraft at Brunsbüttelkoog with no damage. On 8 October, she steamed with the cruiser Köln and 9 destroyers to create a diversion against the Allied forces searching for the Deutschland. Gneisenau was often seen in the company of her sister ship Scharnhorst, and the two ships became known as the "ugly sisters" due to their usual prowling together, and the amount of havoc they caused to British shipping.

In November 1939 the two "sister ship", operating in the North Atlantic, sank the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi but Gneisenau then suffered considerable sea damage in a storm^[12].

Operation Weserübung

In April 1940, Gneisenau covered the invasion of Denmark and Norway, and along with Scharnhorst, battled HMS Renown; Gneisenau suffered damage to her forward turret and her main gun director during the action, and the two German ships broke off the action.^[13] On 5 May, she set off a magnetic mine about 21 metres off her port quarter, and suffered shock damage, flooding, and loss of steering for 18 minutes. The damage was repaired by 21 May at Kiel. In the British withdrawal from Norway on 8 June, she and Scharnhorst surprised and sank the old British aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and her two escorts, the destroyers HMS Acasta and Ardent. During this battle, Acasta scored a torpedo hit on Scharnhorst on her starboard side by turret "Caesar" causing substantial flooding.^[14]

Gneisenau was torpedoed in the North Atlantic in June by HMS Clyde and forced to return to the port of Trondheim, Norway, for repairs.

Atlantic breakout

After repairs, she re-joined Scharnhorst in their most successful commerce raiding campaign—from January to March, 1941 (Operation Berlin)—with Gneisenau sinking 14 ships and Scharnhorst sinking eight, mostly from unescorted convoys. They avoided the British battleships operating as convoy escorts^[15].

The two ships returned from the open Atlantic to the port of Brest, France, and then started preparations for their next operation. Gneisenau went into the dry dock for minor repairs. In early April, 1941, an unexploded bomb, dropped by RAF Bomber Command bombers during near constant air-raids on the ships, forced Gneisenau out of drydock, and she was anchored in the inner harbor. 22 Squadron of the RAF, a Coastal Command unit based at St. Eval was sent to attack Gneisenau. As a result, Gneisenau was torpedoed on 6 April 1941 by a Bristol Beaufort piloted by Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell. The damage was heavy and Gneiseau was put back into drydock—only to be further damaged by four aerial bombs on the night of 9 April-10 April. She underwent repairs at Brest through December, 1941^[16][17].

The Channel dash

In 1942, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, and a covering screen of destroyers and torpedo boats, executed a daring daylight run to Germany, Operation Cerberus. All three of the major ships escaped damage in the furious air and sea battles that ensued in the English Channel. Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen severely damaged the destroyer HMS Worcester. Several salvos from Gneisenau destroyed the starboard side of the bridge. and the no. 1 and 2 boiler rooms. Prinz Eugen hit the destroyer a further four times, setting it on fire. Gneisenau later struck a naval mine off Terschelling, Netherlands, and she required repairs at Kiel^[18].

Kiel air attacks

In the air attacks on 26–27 February 1942, on the floating dock where she was being repaired for her mine damage, she became the target of massive RAF attacks by 178 bombers, and she was struck in her bow. Contrary to the normal practice, and since repairs were anticipated to be completed within two weeks, her ammunition had not been unloaded. The resulting fires set off an explosion that destroyed her entire bow section. After emergency bow repairs, Gneisenau steamed under her own power to Gotenhafen, where she was decommissioned in order to carry out reconstruction work.

Reconstruction, deconstruction and blockship

Although some naval yard work was done from 1942 through 1944 to reconstruct her, Gneisenau was completely withdrawn from service in July 1943 to allow for the replacement of her 28.3 cm (11.1 inch) battery with twin 38 cm (15 inch) turrets. Additionally, it was planned to lengthen her bow section by 10 metres, with a sharply angled stem extending almost as high as the upper deck and minus a bulbous bow. This was necessary to correct the draught and trim, and due to the change in armament. Because of numerous weight increases during construction, the ship had already lost much freeboard, and with service displacement during wartime, the upper edge of the side armor was only 1.2 meters above the surface of the water. Investigations were also made to see whether Gneisenau could be returned to her her original draught by increasing her beam.^[19]

Although some sources mention the replacement of Gneisenau's 15 cm and 10.5 cm naval guns with 22 (in 11 dual closed turrets) 128 mm dual-purpose guns, this may not have actually been the case. Naval historian Siegfried Breyer maintinns that information about the change in medium caliber weapons "has not stood up to more recent rechecking and is therefore inaccurate."^[19] He adds in the accompanying footnote that these sources include the original German edition of his book Battkeships and Battlecruisers 1905–1970, "based on incorrect information, accompanied by an inaccurate sketch."^[19] All the medium–caliber guns may have been retained, and only the number and composition of 20 mm anti–aircraft weapons increased due to the demands of wartime.^[19]

After the sinking of Scharnhorst in December 1943, all work aboard Gneisenau work was abandoned. She ended the war as a blockship, sunk in the Gotenhafen harbor on 23 March 1945. She was raised by the Polish, broken up, and scrapped after the war.

After the war: surviving relics

One of the 38 cm guns intended for her rearmament exists today at the museum of Hanstholm in Denmark. This gun was planned as part of the German coastal battery "Tirpitz" at Oksby, Denmark, not far from the Blåvand lighthouse on the southwest coast of Jylland. The original 38 cm guns at Hanstholm (numbers 70,71,74 and 75) were destroyed during the 1950s. Her 28 cm guns from the turret called Anton were removed and sent to the Netherlands for use there; the turrets called Bruno and Cäsar and their guns were sent to Norway for coastal defence artillery there.

Her aft main turret, called Cäsar, was converted to a coastal battery named Austråt fort in Ørland near Trondheim, Norway, and it still exists today as a museum. The second turret called Bruno was stationed as a coastal battery at Fjell fortress near Bergen. Only the concrete base still stands, although highly modified. In Denmark, at the former "Stevnsfort" near Rødvig, two twin 15 cm turrets from her secondary armament still exist. In the Netherlands, parts of the guns of turret Anton are on display at the former "Stichting Fort", Hoek Van Holland.

Commanding officers

• KzS Erich Forste: 21 May 1938 – 25 November 1939
• KzS Harald Netzbandt: 25 November 1939 – 20 August 1940
• KzS / KAdm Otto Fein: 20 August 1940 – 11 April 1942 (Promoted to KAdm on 1 April 1942.)
• KzS Rudolf Peters: 11 April 1942 – 1 July 1942

Gallery

See also

• List of Kriegsmarine ships
• List of naval ships of Germany
• List of World War II ships
• List of ship launches in 1936
• List of ship commissionings in 1938
• List of shipwrecks in 1945

Notes

References

• Siegfried Breyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905–1970 (Doubleday and Company; Garden City, New York, 1973) (originally published in German as Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905-1970, J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, Munchen, 1970).
• Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1922–1946 (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1980)
• William H. Garzke, Jr., and Robert O. Dulin, Jr., Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1985).
• Jane's Battleships of the Twentieth Century (Harper Collins, London, 1996)
• Scharnhorst & Gneisenau Website

External links

• Maritimequest Gneisenau Photo Gallery
• Detailed technical and operational information
• The Gneisenau guns at the Stevns Fortress, Denmark English/Danish

Scharnhorst class battleship Scharnhorst · Gneisenau List of battleships of Germany