Footnotes
I N D R A S I N H ADeath of the Scharnhorst, 68 years ago today
68 years ago today off Norway’s North Cape, the German battleship Scharnhorst was sunk by a British force led by the battleship HMS Duke of York accompanied by the cruiser HMS Jamaica and other Royal Navy ships.
My father Capt. B.P. Sinha, then a young engineer officer on the Jamaica, told of gun flashes in the pitch darkness of a force 8 gale, the express train roar of shells passing overhead and the singing of men dying in icy water. This is to remember them all.
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Belfast and Jamaica went in with torpedoes around 19:28 after which four destroyers, Musketeer, Matchless, Virago and Opportune rushed in but Scharnhorst was probably already going down. At 19:48 Belfast fired a star shell and saw oil soaked German sailors in the water. They heard them cheering their ship and singing ‘On A Sailors Grave No Roses Grow’, ‘Auf Ein Seemannsgrab Blühen Keine Rosen’.
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