Gneisenau was a World War II Scharnhorst class capital ship, referred to as either a light battleship or battlecruiser 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.

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.

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 280 mm (11 inch) main guns. While these had long range and quite good belt armor penetration power because of their high muzzle velocity, they were no match for the 380 mm (15 inch) guns of most of the battleships of her day. The choice of armament was a result of their hasty commissioning.

If a later proposal to upgrade the main armament to six 15-inch (380 mm) guns in three twin turrets had been implemented, Gneisenau would have been a very formidable opponent, faster than any British capital ship and as well armored. When Gneisenau was designed, no 380 mm guns were available for the German Kriegsmarine. It was decided to go ahead with 280 mm guns, because as a commerce raider, she 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-inch guns throughout her career. Both Gneisenau and her sister were designed for an extended range to allow for commerce raiding.

She was considered a handsome ship. 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.

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 ships", operating in the North Atlantic, sank the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi but Gneisenau then suffered considerable sea damage in a storm.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

Kiel air attacks

In the air attacks on 26 February–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 while reconstruction work could be engaged in.

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 cm (11") battery with twin 38 cm turrets. Additionally, it was planned to lengthen her bow section by 10 metres, and also replace all her 15 cm and 10.5 cm naval guns with 22 (in 11 dual closed turrets) 128 mm dual-purpose guns. After the sinking of Scharnhorst in December 1943, this work was abandoned.

Gneisenau 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

Image:Bundesarchiv DVM 10 Bild-23-63-02, Schlachtschiff "Gneisenau".jpgImage:Bundesarchiv DVM 10 Bild-23-63-11, Schlachtschiff "Gneisenau".jpgImage:Bundesarchiv DVM 10 Bild-23-63-21, Schlachtschiff "Gneisenau".jpgImage:Bundesarchiv DVM 10 Bild-23-63-52, Schlachtschiff "Gneisenau".jpg

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