Hello Fran Romero,
here you can find a brief story of Scharhorst during 1942,...... and 1943,...sorry,..the answer is NO !
Scharnhorst on 1942 in the Baltic At the end of Operation Cerberus Scharnhorst arrived at Wihlemshaven and was put into the 40.000 tons drydock on 14 February 1942.
Damages caused by the 2 mines to the hull were far superior than first thought.
The outher and double bottom required and extensive re-plating on 2 areas for more than 90 meters length on the first and more than 35 m length in the second.
Several turrets had been dislodged from their roller beds.
Main engine foundations and some auxiliary plant were in such a bad condition to suggest a complete overhaul; most of these recommendations were postponed.
Scharnhorst got transferred for the repairs to Kiel some days later, after Adm Schniewind and Gross-Admiral Reader visited the ship at Wilhelmshaven on the drydock.
On March 1942 Kpt zur See K.C Hoffmann got promoted and was substituted by Kpt zur See F. Huffmeier.
After some unsatisfactory sea trials Scharnhorst got transferred to Gotenhafen ( Gdynia ) for working up.
During this period any type of accident occurred to the ship.
She run on a sandbank close to Gdynia, she was refloated by moving some oil from one bunker to another.
She escaped with some luck to a amine explosion after an air raid at Gdynia.
The airplane catapult started working badly and dropped the Arado 196 instead that on the sky on the sea, one crew member died, the other survived.
On October 1942 Kpt zur See F. Huffmeier got substituted by Kpt zur See F. Hintze.
When carrying out exercise with some U-Boot’s out of Kiel she collided with U-523, causing to the submarine minor damages.
Scharnhorst keel was harmed and during November 1942 she got drydocked again.
On 22 December 1942 a sever damage occurred on Scharnhosrt main machinery , which can be close correlated with the recommendations by the technical experts during previous inspections.
While this was occurring and Scharnhorst can only run effectively with only 2 shafts out of 3, the ship was ordered to Norway.
and ...
Scharnhorst going to Norway on 1943 After the disastrous results of Op. Regenbogen ( when at the end of 1942 Adm Hipper and Lutzow failed to attack an artic convoy JW51-B ) Hitler substituted Adm Reader with Adm Donitz, and expressed the desire to dismantle all German capital ships.
Adm Donitz came back to Hitler with a proposal to save the ships and move them all to Norway, were they could be used effectively to attack Artic Convoys.
For this reason Scharnhorst was to be moved from Baltic sea area to Norway as soon as possible.
First trial to go to Norway
On 10 January 1943 under command of Adm Schniewind, Scharnhorst together with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, and the destroyers Z5 Paul Jacobi, Z14 Friedrich Ihn and Z 24 sailed from Gotenhafen to Norway ( Operation Frontheater ).
Due to severe warnings of potential RAF air attacks the squadron on the 11th returned to Gotenhafen.
Second trial to go to Norway
On 23 January 1943 Scharnhorst together with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, and the destroyers Z 15 Erich Steinbrinck and Z 39 sailed from Gotenhafen to Norway ( Operation Domino ).
Again due to warnings of potential RAF air attacks the squadron on the 27th returned to Gotenhafen.
During this operation the Scharnhorst was already wearing the famous dark grey camo scheme with the white bow and stern.
Third trial to go to Norway
On 6 March 1943 Scharnhorst together with the destroyers Z 15 Erich Steinbrinck, Z 14 Friedrich Ihn and Z 28 sailed from Gotenhafen to Norway ( Operation Paderborn ).
This time the ships arrived safely to Narvik and dropped the anchors into Bogen Bay on the 9th.
Lutzow and Nurnberg joined the ship into Narvik on the 11th.
The Tirpitz joined on the13th.
The ships exercised jointly for 10 days and on 22 March 1943 they anchored into Altafjord on Kaafjord.
Scharnhorst was directed into Langfjord, another inlet of Altafjord, togheter with Lutzow.
Summer in Norway on Altafjord
On 8 April 1943 there was a tremendous explosion on board Scharnhorst on compartment III above the armour deck on the starboard side.
17 crew members were killed and 20 were injured.
The cause was never established although sabotage during the dockyard lay-up at Gotenhafen was suspected.
Scharnhorst spent the spring and the summer of 1943 togheter with Tirpitz and Lutzow exercising on the Altafjord area.
During summer time the ship got re-painted with a ‘ Mountain Profile ‘ camo scheme, probably during July 1943 ( same thing occurred for sure to Lutzow and Tirpitz ).
Ciao Antonio