The 1904 Norddeutscher Lloyd passenger steamer made 19 round trips to Australia, seven to East Asia, and five to the United States. Because she was in Germany in 1914, she served as a troop transport from 1917 to 1918, then entered French service as La Bourdonnais and was broken up at Genoa in 1934. A second Norddeutscher Lloyd liner named Scharnhorst, completed in 1934, later became the Japanese escort carrier Shinyo. The former HMS Mermaid, a modified Black Swan-class sloop, also took the name Scharnhorst in the postwar Bundesmarine, where ships of her kind helped establish the modern German Navy. Together, these ships carried the name through passenger, wartime, and postwar naval service.
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Passenger liners and warships named Scharnhorst
The Scharnhorst name linked two Norddeutscher Lloyd liners, Japan's escort carrier Shinyo, and the Bundesmarine's former HMS Mermaid before the armored-cruiser story begins.