After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau", accompanied by three light cruisers and several colliers, sailed across the Pacific Ocean to the southern coast of South America. On 1 November 1914, "Scharnhorst" and the rest of the East Asia Squadron encountered and overpowered a British squadron at the Battle of Coronel. The defeat prompted the British Admiralty to dispatch two battlecruisers to hunt down and destroy the German squadron, which they accomplished at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914. The discovery of the wreck was announced in December 2019 by Mensun Bound.