SMS Gneisenau
"Gneisenau" was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen, Germany in 1904, under construction number 144. She was launched on 14 June 1906, and commissioned into the fleet nearly two years later on 6 March 1908. The ship cost the German government 19,243,000 goldmarks. The ship had been designed for service with the High Seas Fleet, though it was found to be too weak for service with the battle fleet; instead it was deployed overseas, a role in which it performed well.
Channel Dash
"Gneisenau" entered a floating dry dock at Kiel for repair and was hit by two heavy bombs dropped by the RAF on the night of One bomb hit the battleship on her forecastle and penetrated the armoured deck. The explosion ignited a fire in the foremost magazine, which detonated, throwing the forward turret off its mount. The damage prompted the German Naval Staff to rebuild "Gneisenau" to mount the six guns originally planned, rather than repair the ship and the damaged bow section was removed to attach a longer one. By early 1943, the ship had been sufficiently repaired to begin the conversion but after the failure of German surface forces at the Battle of the Barents Sea in December 1942, Hitler ordered the work to stop. On 23 February, "Prinz Eugen" was torpedoed by a British submarine off Norway and put out of action until October; then spent the rest of the war in the Baltic. On 28 March, the British raided St Nazaire in Operation Chariot and destroyed the "Normandie" dock, the only one in France capable of accommodating the largest German warships. "Scharnhorst" participated in Operation Zitronella against Spitzbergen on 8 September 1943 and was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape on 26 December.