On 25 December 1943, Scharnhorst left Norway's Altafjord under the overall command of Konteradmiral Erich Bey to attack the convoy JW 55B which was sailing with war supplies to the USSR. Unknown to Bey was that the convoy was being used as bait in an attempt to lure the German warship into a trap. The Royal Navy knew that Scharnhorst was on her way, because members of the Norwegian Resistance had radioed that she had sailed. This was confirmed at Bletchley Park, which had cracked the German Navy cipher, and was listening into German radio traffic.
On the morning of the 26th, as Scharnhorst approached the Murmansk-bound convoy she was surprised by three British cruisers sailing from the east. When they opened fire a shell from HMS Norfolk destroyed the Scharnhorst's radar.
Scharnhorst was now blind and facing a superior force of Allied warships. Admiral Bey decided to withdraw southwards back to Norway and use to the full her speed advantage of five knots. However, she could not shake off her pursuers including HMS Belfast whose radar was key to tracking the position of the German ship.
Her escape route was cut off by the battleship HMS Duke of York which open fired at 18.20 at extreme range piercing Scharnhorst’s armour belt and destroyed a boiler room which slowed her dramatically. As the other Royal Navy ships caught up a total of 55 torpedoes were fired at Scharnhorst, and 11 found their target. It was as good as over. The Scharnhorst had disappeared beneath the waves when HMS Belfast attempted to deliver her second torpedo attack.
Of the Scharnhorst's total crew of 1,968 men, only 36 survived.
The puzzle
In order to find the cache you will need to crack the German cipher as well. During the Second World War all branches of the German armed services used a variant of the same cipher to transmit messages. Given the technology of the time they believed that the system was unbreakable. However Allied code breakers at Bletchley Park were able to consistently read German messages through large periods of the war although it could be a long process taking many hours. Intelligence gained from decrypted messages was known as Ultra and was only seen by a select few group of commanders on the Allied side.
Below is an intercepted German message. Luckily for you Bletchley Park has uncovered the settings but these are not much use without the right machine...
