The Sinking of Scharnhorst — Hunted Down at the Battle of the North Cape

On the 26th of December 1943, the German battleship Scharnhorst sailed into the Arctic night to attack a convoy bound for the Soviet Union. She did not know that the Royal Navy was waiting for her. In near total polar darkness, British radar found her long before her lookouts could see anything at all, and HMS Duke of York opened fire at a range her crew could not even observe. Cut off from her escape route and hammered by gunfire and torpedoes, Scharnhorst was hunted through the freezing dark for hours. Of nearly two thousand men aboard, only 36 survived. She was the last German capital ship to sortie against an Allied convoy, and the Battle of North Cape was the last time a British battleship ever sank an enemy battleship in open combat. Subscribe for more WWII naval history:    / @nauticallore   Chapters Intro - 0:00 Battleship? - 0:49 The Raider - 3:36 Dash Through the Channel - 6:27 Threat in the North - 8:23 Sinking at North Cape - 10:11 The Last of Her Kind - 15:46