At the beginning of February, 1941, German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper sails from Brest. On the 12th, far to the west of Gibraltar, she sinks seven ships from a slow convoy with no escorts . On February 8th, German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sink five unescorted ships east of Newfoundland. The pocket battleship Admiral Scheer in the Indian Ocean operates successfully off Madagascar. In March the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau return to the Newfoundland area and on the 15th and 16th sink or capture 16 unescorted ships. They return to Brest on the 22nd, having accounted for 22 ships of 116,000 tons.