London, Apr. 4. 'HE 26,000-ton battle cruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were seen to have been sunk during last night's attack on Brest by British bombers, the Air Ministry announced this afternoon.
The Scharnhorst was the first German battle cruiser to be built since the Great War.
The vessel, together with her sister ship, the Gneisenai was laid down in 1934, She was completed on May 21, 1938 and the Gneisenau in September, 1938.
Their armaments were: 9, 11-inch guns; 12, 5.9-inch guns; 14, 4.1-inch anti-aircraft guns; 6 37mm. anti-aircraft guns.
They carried two aircraft each and had two catapults, but no torpedo tubes.
'Their complement was 1,461 officers' and ratings.
The Scharnhorst was officially put into service at Wilhelmshaven on January 7, 1939.
Both ships had for some time preyed on Allied merchant shipping Italian Destroyer, In the Atlantic, The sinking of these two ships brought the total German battleship losses to three ships, the other being the Grat Spee, which was first badly damaged by 'HMS, Exeter and HMS. Ajax and then scuttled by her own crew in Uruguayan waters, The Scharnhorst, it may be recalled, was umaged earlier in the war daring the Norway operations Heavy sticks of bombs fell on Geeks at Brest, where fires were started. Attacks on all storage tanks at Roticrdam and docks were also made. From these operations, four British aircraft are missing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.