neisenau. Meanwhile, Sturdee detached his cruisers to pursue the German light cruisers. Invincible opened fire at Scharnhorst while Inflexible attacked Gneisenau and Spee ordered his two armored cruisers to similarly engage their opposites. Spee had taken the lee position; the wind kept his ships swept of smoke, which improved visibility for his gunners. This forced Sturdee into the windward position and its corresponding worse visibility. Scharnhorst straddled Invincible with her third salvo and quickly scored two hits on the British battlecruiser. The German flagship was herself not hit during this phase of the battle.
Sturdee attempted to widen the distance by turning two points to the north to prevent Spee from closing to within the range of his numerous secondary guns. Spee counteracted this maneuver by turning rapidly to the south, which forced Sturdee to turn south as well to keep within range. This allowed Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to turn back north and get close enough to engage with their secondary 15 cm guns. Their shooting was so accurate that it forced the British to haul away a second time. After resuming the battle, the British gunfire became more accurate; Scharnhorst was hit several times and fires broke out. The pace of her gunfire started to slacken, though she continued to score hits on Invincible. Sturdee then turned to port in an attempt to take the leeward position, but Spee countered the turn to retain his favorable position; the maneuvering did, however, reverse the order of the ships, so Scharnhorst now engaged Inflexible.
By this stage of the battle, Scharnhorst had a slight list to port and was about a meter lower in the water. Her third funnel had been shot away. Gneisenau was briefly obscured by smoke, which led both battlecruisers to target Scharnhorst. By 16:00, Spee ordered Gneisenau to attempt to escape while he reversed course and attempted to launch torpedoes at his pursuers. The port list had increased significantly by this point and she was well down by the bow, with only 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) of freeboard. At 16:17, the ship finally capsized to port and sank; the British, their attention now focused on Gneisenau, made no attempt to rescue the crew. All 860 officers and men on board, including Spee, went down with the ship. Gneisenau, Leipzig, and Nürnberg were also sunk. Only Dresden managed to escape, but she was eventually tracked to the Juan Fernandez Islands and sunk. The complete destruction of the squadron killed about 2,200 German sailors and officers, including two of Spee's sons.
In mid-1915, a coastal steamer found the body of a German sailor off the coast of Brazil. The sailor had a watertight cartridge case from a 21 cm shell attached; inside was one of the Reichskriegsflaggen (Imperial war flags) flown aboard Scharnhorst. The sailor was buried in Brazil and the flag was eventually returned to Germany, where it was placed on display at the Museum für Meereskunde (Marine Science) in Berlin, though it was lost during World War II. In the mid-1930s, the new German navy, the Kriegsmarine, built a battleship named for Scharnhorst. At the launching of the new Scharnhorst in October 1936, the widow of the earlier ship's captain was present.
- "SMS" stands for "Seiner Majestät Schiff" (German: His Majesty's Ship).
- In Imperial German Navy gun nomenclature, "SK" (Schnelladekanone) denotes that the gun is quick firing, while the L/40 denotes the length of the gun. In this case, the L/40 gun is 40 calibers, meaning that the gun barrel is 40 times as long as it is in diameter.
- This meant the removal of all non-essential items, to include dress uniforms, tapestries, furniture, and other flammable objects. See: Hough, p. 17.
- Rüger, p. 160.
- Gröner, p. 52.
- Gardiner & Gray, p. 142.
- Hildebrand, Röhr & Steinmetz, p. 105.
- Hildebrand, Röhr & Steinmetz, p. 106.
- Hildebrand, Röhr & Steinmetz, pp. 106–107.
- Hildebrand, Röhr & Steinmetz, p. 107.
- Hildebrand, Röhr & Steinmetz, p. 108.
- Hildebrand, Röhr & Steinmetz, pp. 108–109.
- Hildebrand, Röhr & Steinmetz, p. 109.
- Hildebrand