Prinz Eugen was the third ship of the Hipper-class heavy cruisers. Like her sister ships, Admiral Hipper and Blücher, she was built in the mid-1930s. During the planning and design stage, she was known as "Kreuzer J" (Cruiser J). Her keel was laid at the Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel on 23 April 1936, and her full cost would be 104.5 million Reichsmarks. Prinz Eugen was launched on 22 August 1938 and commissioned on 1 August 1940. Considered a "lucky ship", she survived to the end of the war (although she participated in only two major actions at sea). The ship sank following Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll in 1946.
