Word: scharnhorst
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Scharnhorst was waiting for a new propeller, British Intelligence reported. The battleship and her sister, the Gneisenau, had lain in Brest for over three months, and frequently R.A.F. reconnaissance took her picture, to make sure she was still waiting...
...last week the picture was correct: a great expanse of camouflage netting still covered her bulk. Next morning the picture looked the same-until experts scanned it. The hidden bulk was queer, slightly misshapen. Close examination showed that the shape under the camouflage net was not the Scharnhorst, but a 530-ft. tanker with smaller vessels at bow and stern to give her the Scharnhorst's length, with scaffolding built up to look like the battleship's superstructure...
...Scharnhorst had skedaddled. Orders flashed out to reconnaissance. Within a few hours messages came back: Scharnhorst in La Pallice, 240 miles south of Brest...
...British claimed they had confirmation last week that the battleship Gneisenau had been bombed and definitely crippled as it lay in the harbor of Brest. That left Germany just two battleships (Tirpitz and Scharnhorst} and one pocket battleship (Lutzow or Admiral Scheer) in operation...
With the Bismarck gone, the German fleet now includes only three capital ships. These are the Tirpitz, 35,000-ton sister ship of the Bismarck, and two 26,000-tonners, the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst. Berthed at Brest, where they have been under steady attack by units of the Royal Air Force since mid-March, it is not likely that the latter two are in any condition to take a major part in the continuing Battle of the Atlantic...