SS Scharnhorst (1934)

SS Scharnhorst was a Norddeutscher Lloyd ocean liner that was launched in 1934 and completed in 1935. She was converted into an Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier in 1942 and sunk by a US submarine in 1944.

Building
DeSchiMAG in Bremen built Scharnhorst and her sister ship SS Gneisenau (1935) for NDL, completing them in 1935. Blohm + Voss in Hamburg built a third sister ship, SS Potsdam (1935).

Scharnhorst was used as a test-bed for new high-pressure, high-temperature boilers, as the Kriegsmarine wanted to evaluate the performance of the machinery before it installed the boilers in new capital ships. Gneisenau had conventional reduction gearing from her turbines to her propeller shafts, but Scharnhorst and Potsdam had turbo-electric transmission. Scharnhorst had twin AEG turbo generators that supplied current to electric motors on her propeller shafts.

Service
The three sister ships worked NDL's express service between Bremen and the Far East, and at 21 kn were some of the fastest ships on the route.

The outbreak of the Second World War in Europe in 1939 trapped Scharnhorst in Japan. In 1942 the Imperial Japanese Navy acquired her and had her converted into the escort carrier Shinyo. She was sunk in the Yellow Sea on 17 November 1944 by the United States Navy submarine USS Spadefish (SS-411).