![]() ![]() His strategy committed his ships to the hazardous balancing act of maintaining a profile that was high enough to harass the enemy, through attacks on convoys or lone cargo ships, yet low enough to avoid being hunted down.įor the Admiral Scheer, World War II began on September 4, 1939, when Bristol Blenheims of No. Instead, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder sought to disrupt Allied merchant shipping with his submarines, regular warships, and disguised auxiliary cruisers, stretching Allied naval resources as far as possible. ![]() The outbreak of World War II found the Kriegsmarine in no position to challenge Britain’s Royal Navy. Its crew totaled 1,150 men.Ĭommissioned on November 12, 1934, Scheer entered service during the Spanish Civil War, evacuating German refugees, reporting Soviet ships bringing arms to the Republicans in violation of the London Non-intervention Agreement, and escorting German shipments to the Nationalists, in equally flagrant violation of the agreement. It also mounted two quadruple torpedo tubes, and two aircraft could be launched from its single catapult. ![]() Two triple 11-inch gun turrets were complemented by eight 5.9-inch, six 4.1-inch, eight 37mm, and ten 20mm antiaircraft guns. Its 4-inch waterline armor belt was bolstered by 1 1 / 2 inches of internal armor. Scheer was 616 3 / 4 feet long, displacing 11,200 tons empty and 16,200 loaded four MAN diesel engines, totaling 56,800 horsepower, drove its two propellers. Essentially designed to outgun anything it could not outrun at its maximum speed of 26 knots, Deutschland was classified by the German navy as a panzerschiff (armored ship), but its heavy armament led the British to dub it a “pocket battleship.”īy the time Deutschland and its improved sisters, Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer (named for German naval heroes Maximilian von Spee and Reinhard Scheer), were launched, Adolf Hitler had become chancellor of Germany and renounced the Washington Naval Treaty, rendering the ships’ tonnage moot. The first, Deutschland, actually exceeded the limit by 1,700 tons, but the British Admiralty failed to question the ship’s weight when it was launched in 1931. Launched at Wilhelmshaven, Germany, on April 1, 1933, Admiral Scheer was one of three capital ships that Germany built under the 11-inch gun and 10,000-ton restrictions imposed on it by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. While many Britons are well versed in Jervis Bay ’s heroic stand on November 5, 1940, fewer know that its adversary’s exploits were just beginning. For his valorous sacrifice in the face of impossible odds, Fegen was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Inevitably Jervis Bay sank, taking Fegen and 179 of his crew with it 65 survivors were later rescued by the Swedish freighter Stureholm. While its 11-inch guns demolished Jervis Bay, the pocket battleship’s secondary 5.9-inch guns flailed at the scattering merchantmen, badly damaging the tanker San Demetrio and the cargo liner Rangitiki before they escaped. Without enough time to disperse, all of them were defenseless prey.Īnd so, when the German warship opened fire at 17,000 yards, Fegen didn’t hesitate to engage it. Jervis Bay, converted from a 14,164-ton liner, was escorting 37 cargo ships across the North Atlantic Ocean to Britain. In 1940 it started hunting its prey.ĬAPTAIN EDWARD FEGAN KNEW THAT THE EIGHT 6-INCH GUNS of his thin-skinned armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay stood no chance against the approaching German pocket battleship. ![]() Germany built a ship that could outgun anything it couldn’t outrun. ![]()
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