Fellow Contributors,
There is clearly quite some discontinuity about the extent of original damage and subsequent readiness for operations. This is not surprising because undoubtedly the KM authorities were keeping things secret and possibly putting deceptive, positive spin on at the time.
On another thread following Dave's comprehensive listing of various raids including
Hits were scored on the Scharnhorst at La Pallice. The British were probably aware of the damage, or soon would be, through Ultra. However, the fact that Scharnhorst steamed back to Brest that same night at 27 knots, even fending off a night RAF torpedo bomber attack, indicated that it was hardly crippled as many secondary sources infer.
I contributed
Scharnhorst had "got away" but the the daylight Halifax raid, made with extreme gallantry under heavy fighter attack scored five hits. Three though and throughs went through the double bottom causing thousands of tons of flooding and other sources say only a 20 knot return to Brest and on arrival the stern was flooded down until the after portholes were under water.
This happened in July during trials off La Pallice, after several months of engine room refit, and which being further away from the UK. was imagined to be safer. It wasn't. 15 unescorted Halifaxes, fighting their way through 30 plus fighters put the ship back in drydock for the rest of the year. The bombers paid a heavy price - 5 were lost. Wikipedia lists hits by weight and distribution.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Scharnhorst
and details a DFC awarded
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stanley_James
This happened during April to Gneisenau :
78 dead and 84 wounded B turret jammed and the flak switching and report centre, the forward compass e-gear and part of the command relay system in the command centre were all put out of action, The armour deck was distorted at the site of the blast. The kitchens and bakehouse were destroyed. All accommodation decks forward of compartment XII were uninhabitable owing to the effects of explosion and fire.
This was of course after she had been torpedoed by Campbell VC and his Beaufort crew.
I summarised Prinz Eugen's 2nd July damage thus
but the one hit completely destroyed Prinz Eugen's fire control centre, killed 60 crew members and the splinters penetrated the double bottom causing flooding. Not operational until 1942.
Koop and Schmolke have pictures of the wrecked fire control system, state that the after transmitting room could not take over main armament control, and say that systems were replaced by materials cannibalized from the nearly ready Seydlitz.
Pargeter (Hipper Class cruisers says PG was offshore calibrating her fire control system on 22nd January 1942, and only completed trials off Brest on 4th February.
Fritz-Otto Busch in The Story of the Prince Eugen apparently contradicts Schmalenbach when he says:
The repair work under the brilliant direction of the naval engineer Dr Strobusch and naval staff engineer Flemming, went on until the end of the year and was frequently interrupted by enemy air attacks.
However this photo, apparently taken during the daylight raid mentioned by Dave:
shows both battlecruisers still snugged down side by side under tons of camouflage netting in the drydocks, and seemingly in no way "operational" on 18th December, let alone early November. Apparently the practice was to leave some water in the drydocks so as to allow some cooling systems to operate, but most systems aboard ships "out of water" are inoperable, and dependent on shoreside power. Certainly boilers and main engines will have been inoperable for months, and like a thousand other systems will require a period of trials before they can be relied on.
The photo (South up) also apparently shows Prinz Eugen alongside several hundred metres west having left her own drydock some time earlier, nearly half a Km east of the battlecruisers. Just because she was afloat doesn't mean she was operational on 18th December. Incidentally we should remember bombs missing the ships themselves were destroying shoreside facilities and thus holding up completion of repairs.
I am also stunned that these aircraft apparently couldn't hit their targets, they're so big in this picture! Hmmm! Mr Photogrammetrist?
Today we keep the memory alive of all those who lost their lives 80 years ago in the Denmark Straits and the Bay of Biscay.
All the best
wadinga