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KMS Admiral Scheer

1934 WORLD WAR 2

History of KMS Admiral Scheer

Admiral Schell was the second of three German-class heavy cruisers ordered and financed by the Weimar Republic Navy in 1926. Such ships were often referred to as "pocket battleships"smaller than conventional battleships, but larger than any ocean-going cruiser of the time. Admiral Scheer served with the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) during World War II and is named after German Admiral Reinhard Scheer who commanded the Imperial Navy High Seas Fleet in the largest naval battle of World War I, the Battle of Jutland. Scheer survived the war and died in 1928.

Five years later, Scheer's daughter Marian was born and baptized.

During the interwar period (between World War I and World War II), Germany developed a habit of circumventing the rules of international treaties that limited the number and number of warships the German Navy was allowed to use Tonnage (based on the later World War I Versailles Treaty). As a result, the German Navy classified the Scheer as a smaller armored ship or "Panzerschiff". This sort of shenanigans makes her conform to treaty rules in the eyes of the world, and on paper, at least, she is a small warship.

This heavy cruiser is one of the few ships in naval history that is often referred to as a man by the crew, putting her Referring to "he" instead of using "she" in the female gender usage is common in most navies in the U.S. world, even today.

Scheer's first mission began in July 1936, when it was sent to Spain to evacuate German civilians involved in the Spanish Civil War. The ship was also responsible for monitoring Soviet ships delivering supplies to the Republicans, while protecting ships supplying German arms to Franco's nationalist-fascist army.

On May 31, 1937, he and several German aircraft bombed the Spanish republic city of Almeria in response to an earlier air raid on the sister ship KMS Deutschland. British newspapers denounced it as a crime, and upon further scrutiny, few deaths were attributed to limited shelling.

By the end of June 1938, Scheer had completed eight missions to Spain in support of the Spanish fascist government. He returned to Germany for an overhaul and lowered the superstructure to reduce silhouette and radar imagery. After refit, she was classified as a heavy cruiser by the German Navy for coastal bombing and delivering supplies to Spain, which was not what Hitler intended for his pocket battleships - commercial escort raids were more of a forte in this class

An escort is a group of ships that sail together to support and protect each other - a tactic used before and during World War II. The British introduced the escort system, initially voluntary and later mandatory for all merchant ships when World War II was declared. The first convoys came from Canadian ports, and soon after from U.S. ports.

A brigadier general with naval experience was assigned to oversee the operations of the ships and their cargo. He will develop a master plan for each boat and assign them a specific spot in the fleet's "box".

This box requires each boat to maintain a certain speed and a certain distance from the boat on the port and starboard sides along the bow and stern. Undoubtedly, this requires strict discipline on every ship and crew, especially when fighting at night, often in complete darkness, to avoid easy prey for enemy submarines.

Escort HX-84 was assigned 38 merchant ships to carry cargo from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to Liverpool, England, under the command of Commodore H. B. Maltby. Important cargo carried by the fleet includes general cargo, steel, military trucks and corn. The convoy set off on October 28, 1940, following a secret route known only to the captain at the time of departure. Due to the shortage of warships at the beginning of the war, the safety of the escort fleet was handled in three ways. Originally, Halifax's local leg panels consisted of the Canadian destroyers USS Columbia and USS St Francis.

The most dangerous section of the mid-sea is handled by HMS Jervis Bay, and the local escort off the English coast of Liverpool is the destroyer HMS Hesperus and three accompanying frigates. The ocean voyage was assigned to a converted armed merchant vessel, officially the Aberdeen & Commonwealth liner Jervis Bay.

Originally a passenger ship, Jervis Bay was taken over by the Admiralty in August 1939. She was armed with World War I 7 x 6-inch guns, each with a maximum range of 15,000 yards (or 8.5 miles) and a maximum elevation angle of 28 degrees.

Painted in grey camouflage and with a crew of 255, she proudly hangs the White Ensign of Ocean Escort for the Atlantic Escort.

On October 14, 1940, Admiral Scheer quietly dived into the Atlantic in search of an escort target. Two Arado seaplanes are launched daily, scanning the horizon for targets or engaging enemy warships.

On November 5, 1940, one of the pilots spotted an escort but didn't see any warships, believing it was an unescorted target, and quickly communicated the ship's location to the Scheer.

Cheers flies to the location of the seaplane radio. As Scheer approached his destination, only one boat was actually visible. The problem for Captain Crank was that if he was wandering around or attacking the small freighter, she could radio the speed and course of the Scheer and the HX convoy. 84 can be dispersed. Crank decided to approach the ship at flank speed and ordered the target ship to stop and not use her radio.

The boat turned out to be the 7,909 ton banana boat SS Mopan. Mopan's captain decided to obey German orders first, since they didn't have their own lifeboats, and it was November, in the cool Atlantic.

Scheer stopped and captured 76 crew members before destroying the Mopan, which became Scheer's first kill. Mopan's decision took about an hour, giving the rest of the team more time to react and less daylight for Scheer's deployment.

It was getting dark, and Captain Cranks gave the order to proceed at full speed.

Shell's problem now is that it's late afternoon and it's getting harder and harder to find more targets after dark. Captain Fagan of Jervis Bay also knew that the convoy needed time to escape and decided to attack the Sher directly. Jervis Bay sees smoke as it closes the range between her and the pocket battleship. Jervis opened fire, but all her initial volleys were unsuccessful, and soon Scheer's 11-inch shells began to find Jarvis Bay. Due to the lack of deck armor, casualties were heavy.

Captain Fegen was hit on the bridge and lost an arm in the ensuing action. He continued to give orders and tried to close the range, but was then killed when another shell hit the bridge. Damage to the bridge and her crew included loss of fire control. During the 24-minute naval battle, most of the officers in Jarvis Bay were killed and the stern was on fire, giving the order to surrender. 198 men were lost in this one-sided battle.

The Swedish freighter Stureholm found and rescued the remaining 65 crew members. Captain Fagan was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for Valor.

Scheer drives through Jervis Bay, still looking for convoy. The SS Kenbane 5,225 ton head was sunk 24 hands. The 10,042-ton SS Beaverford attempted to defend the convoy with the fewest weapons on board. The fight continued for a while, with Scheer firing at multiple targets.

However, Beverford failed on all 77 hands. Scheer started using star grenades to locate other ships in the dark and found the 7,908-ton SS Maiden. She sank with all 91 men on board. Shortly thereafter, the 5,201-ton SS Trewellard came into range and was sunk by an 11-inch shell, taking 16 merchant seamen with it. In the distance, Scheer spotted the 6,500-ton SS Fresno City with a load of corn.

While the ship nearly slipped away, the Scheer knocked it down with everyone's hands. Captain Cranks is concerned that UK screens could pop up from the UK in the dark at any time. The Royal Navy sent several ships to capture Admiral Scheer, but before they could arrive, Scheer slipped away to join his oiler Nordmark.

Over the next two months, he found and sank four more ships, seized supplies, three ships, and transferred captives to the tanker Nordmark. During his advance to the Indian Ocean in February 1941, he sank two more ships. Before they sank, however, a distress signal was sent and received from the British cruiser.

The next day, Scheer sank a collier and fled back to the Atlantic. Captain Crank sailed north and arrived in Kiel on 1 April 1941 - at the end of the 46,000 nautical miles (85,000 km) voyage.

In early July 1942, Admiral Scheer remained in the port of Kiel trying to locate and sink the Arctic Guard PQ-17. Thirty-six merchant ships left Reykjavik, Iceland, 2 of which were sunk by German U-boats and planes along with 34 merchant ships.

However, the Schell did not sink anyone, so in August 1942 he sailed into the Arctic Ocean to hunt down convoys and establish a German presence in the Soviet Arctic. Known in German as "Operation Wonderland," the operation in the Arctic proved to be a major strike.

In subsequent operations, Scheer damaged two Soviet patrol boats, bombed and destroyed a Soviet weather station, and sank the armed icebreaker Aleksandr Sibiryakov. Before the icebreaker sank, the crew signaled the next station to destroy Scheer, Novy Dikson.

When he arrived in port, he moved in to bombard ships and shore facilities. The local garrison used field howitzers against him, which did little harm.

In turn, he badly damaged two ships in the port, shelled the garrisoned troops, and returned to Narvik, unable to find an Allied convoy in the Kara Sea.

Hitler's anger at the failure of the German Navy and his pocket battleships to do enough damage to the Allied convoys supplying the Soviet Union was at its peak. Her commander-in-chief, Admiral Raedel, was replaced by Admiral Donitz, and the German surface fleet has remained in port ever since.

In 1944, Admiral Scheer provided artillery support to German troops retreating to the Sof peninsula. In January and February 1945 he again took part in coastal bombing, but the continued firing had worn down his barrel and he returned to Kiel in March.

On the night of April 9, 1945, a 300-strong RAF bombing raid on the shipyard hit Scheer so badly that she capsized while moored at the quay. While most of the crew went on shore leave, only 32 sailors were killed.

Throughout World War II, Admiral Scheer under Captain Theodore Crank was by far the most successful major fighter in the conflict, especially in advancing into the Indian Ocean. After the war, her hull was scrapped and the dock was filled to make room for a parking lot.

KMS Scheer Ships sunk and captured.

5 November 1940 - SS Mopan, UK, 5,389 tons - SUNK

5 November 1940 - HMS Jervis Bay, UK, 14,164 tons - SUNK IN FIGHTER

5 November 1940 - SS Maidan, UK, 7,908 tons - SINK

5 November 1940 - SS Trewellard, UK, 5,201 tons - SINK

5 November 1940 - SS Kenbane Head, UK, 5,225 tons - SINK

5 November 1940 - SS Beaverford, UK, 10,142 tons - sunk

5 November 1940 - SS Fresno City, UK, 4,995 tons - sunk

24 November 1940 - SS Port Hobart, UK, 7,448 tons - SUNK

1 December 1940 - SS Tribesmen, UK, 6,242 tons - SUNK

17 December 1940 - SS Duquesa, UK, 8,652 tons - captured

17 January 1941 - SS Sandefjord, Norway, 8,083 tons - captured