Home > Prinz Eugen
Prinz Eugen was a German heavy cruiser which fought during World War II. She was named after Prince Eugene of Savoy (Prinz Eugen in German). Her keel was laid at the Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel on April 23rd 1936, and she was launched on August 22nd 1938.Prinz Eugen fought with Bismarck against HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales, 24 May 1941, after which she parted from Bismarck and headed north to sit the chase out with a refuelling ship. After avoiding several British heavy units which were looking for Bismarck, she arrived at Brest, France, 1 June 1941. With Scharnhorst and DKM GneisenauAugust von Gneisenau was a Prussian general. Two naval ships of Germany were named after the general: SMS Gneisenau was an armored cruiser of World War I, sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. The " pocket battleship" Gneisenau was launched in 1936 she made the "Channel Dash" back to Germany during 11-12 February 1942. Later in the war she was used to attack advancing Russian units along the Baltic coast, and to transport German refugees back to Germany. On 15 October 1944 she rammed the light cruiser Leipzig amidships in the Baltic Sea, nearly cutting the smaller ship in two. For 14 hours the two ships drifted, locked together, a target for any lurking Russian submarines, until they could be separated. At the end of the war, she was one of only two operational German cruisers left (the other was Nürnberg), and was surrendered at Copenhagen May 7, 1945. She was taken to the Pacific where she sank in shallow water in 1946 as a result of two atomic bomb tests.
External links
Hipper class cruisers
