RIVER PLATE 1939 The sinking of the Graf Spee
R Rendezvous with Altmark
0 0
1,000 miles 1,000km
AFRICA
P
Dar es Salaam Luanda
Cocos Is.
SOUTH AMERICA
Madagascar
Lourenço Marques Durban Buenos Aires
Montevideo
Cape Town N
River Plate
INDIAN OCEAN
ANGUS KONSTAM
ILLUSTRATED BY TONY BRYAN
29/04/2016 08:36
Author
Illustrator
Angus Konstam hails from the Orkney Islands, and is the author of over 85 books, 60 of which are published by Osprey. This acclaimed and widely published author has written several books on maritime history, including The Battle of the River Plate, Piracy: The Complete History and A Naval Miscellany. A former naval officer and maritime archaeologist, he then served as the Curator of Weapons at the Tower of London and as the Chief Curator of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West, Florida. He now works as a full-time author and historian, and lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Tony Bryan is a freelance illustrator of many years' experience who lives and works in Dorset. He initially qualified in Engineering and worked for a number of years in Military Research and Development, and has a keen interest in military hardware – armour, small arms, aircraft and ships. Tony has produced many illustrations for partworks, magazines and books, including a number of titles in the New Vanguard series.
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CAM No: 268 • ISBN: 978 1 4728 0271 2
CAM No: 288 • ISBN: 978 1 4728 0896 7
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CAMPAIGN 171
RIVER PLATE 1939 The Sinking of the Graf Spee
ANGUS KONSTAM
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ILLUSTRATED BY TONY BRYAN Series editor Marcus Cowper
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This electronic edition published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Osprey Publishing, PO Box 883, Oxford, OX1 9PL, UK 1385 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10018, USA E-mail:
[email protected] © 2016 Osprey Publishing Ltd OSPREY PUBLISHING IS PART OF BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC
AUTHOR’S NOTE Unless otherwise noted, all images are supplied by the Stratford Archive.
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All rights reserved You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978 1 4728 1795 2 PDF e-book ISBN: 978 1 4728 796 9 e-Pub ISBN: 978 1 4728 1797 6 To find out more about our authors and books visit www.ospreypublishing.com. Here you will find our full range of publications, as well as exclusive online content, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters. You can also sign up for Osprey membership, which entitles you to a discount on purchases made through the Osprey site and access to our extensive online image archive.
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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 4 CHRONOLOGY 5 THE STRATEGIC SITUATION OPPOSING PLANS
9 12
German plans n British plans
OPPOSING COMMANDERS
17
German commanders n British commanders
OPPOSING FORCES
21
German forces n British forces
THE CAMPAIGN
32
Breakout into the Atlantic n Passive waiting n The first victim n Off the African coast n A return to Africa n Sojourn in the Indian Ocean n The African hunting ground n Hunting the Graf Spee n Enemy in sight! n A two-pronged attack n Giving chase n The pursuit n Montevideo n The final act
THE AFTERMATH
88
THE BATTLEFIELD TODAY
92
FURTHER READING
94
INDEX 95
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INTRODUCTION At noon on Sunday 3 September 1939, some 650 nautical miles to the southeast of the Cape Verde islands, a powerful German warship was loitering in mid-ocean as her captain waited for orders. She was making a little over 5 knots – barely enough to maintain steerage way in the long powerful swell of the mid-Atlantic. A mile astern of her the supply ship Altmark followed in her wake, matching the warship’s course and speed. Two days earlier the two ships had rendezvoused at a pre-arranged spot far from the busy shipping lanes, almost exactly midway between Africa and South America and 450 nautical miles north of the equator. Now they were biding their time. While the off-duty crew were enjoying the warmth of the sun, either sunbathing or dangling fishing lines over the rail, others were going through their daily routine and making sure the warship was ready for action at a moment’s notice. The warship was the KMS Admiral Graf Spee, a Panzerschiff (armoured ship) of a little over 16,000 tons – a ship whose mission was to wreak havoc on the enemy’s sea lanes. At that moment there was no enemy, but everyone on board expected that to change at any moment. Two days before, German Panzers had smashed their way across the Polish border and the opening shots of what would fast become a new world war had been fired. As war clouds gathered, the Graf Spee and the Altmark had slipped out of the port of Wilhelmshaven on the German North Sea coast and disappeared into the vastness of the Atlantic. The Altmark was there to provide logistical support to the Graf Spee as she prowled the sea lanes of the South Atlantic. The Graf Spee was virtually custom-built for the job. She was fast, powerful and deadly, and with the help of the Altmark she could stay at sea almost indefinitely. All her crew needed was the word – the radioed
The Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee, anchored in the outer roads of Montevideo after the battle. For four days, as her captain and crew buried their dead and tried to repair their ship, she was the centre of a diplomatic storm.
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A highly dramatized impression of the sinking of the Graf Spee, seemingly at the hands of the British battlecruiser Renown. Although painted for a British magazine based on photographs of the scuttling, the artist couldn’t resist making the Royal Navy directly responsible for her destruction.
orders that would set the hunt in motion. On the Graf Spee’s bridge, her commander, Kapitän zur See Hans Langsdorff sat talking to his First Officer, Kapitän zur See Walter Kay. Then, a little after 12:30pm, the wireless officer appeared on the bridge and handed Langsdorff a page torn from a signal pad. It was an uncoded signal sent by the British Admiralty to all British warships and merchant ships, and the Graf Spee had picked it up. The signal read, ‘Total Germany’. Langsdorff realized this probably meant that war had been declared between Britain and Germany, but he decided to wait for verification. It came at 1:15pm. This time the signal came from the navy’s Seekriegsletiung (Naval Warfare Command), or ‘SKL’. It read, ‘Hostilities with Britain to be opened immediately’. Now there was no doubt. Kay assembled the crew on the quarterdeck, and Kapitän Langsdorff told them the news: the Graf Spee was now at war, and her hunt in the South Atlantic was about to begin.
CHRONOLOGY The cruise of the Graf Spee, August–December 1939 5 August
supply vessel Altmark sails from Wilhelmshaven.
21 August
Graf Spee sails from Wilhelmshaven.
1 September
rendezvous between Graf Spee and Altmark off Canary Islands.
3 September
war declared between Britain and Germany.
11 September
Graf Spee’s floatplane spots Cumberland and Langsdorff avoids her.
30 September
SS Clement captured and sunk while her crew take to the lifeboats.
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1 October
crew of SS Clement reach South America; Admiralty is informed that raider is at large in the South Atlantic.
5 October
SS Newton Beech captured and added to Langsdorff’s force as a prison ship.
7 October
SS Ashlea sunk.
8 October
prisoners transferred to the Ashlea and SS Newton Beech sunk.
9 October
Altmark sighted by aircraft from Ark Royal but misidentified.
10 October
SS Huntsman captured and added to Langsdorff’s force as prison ship.
15 October
Graf Spee refuels at sea from Altmark.
17 October
prisoners transferred to Altmark and Huntsman sunk.
22 October
SS Trevanion captured and sunk; distress call sent.
28 October
Graf Spee refuels at sea from Altmark.
3 November
Graf Spee rounds Cape of Good Hope and enters the Indian Ocean.
15 November
SS Africa Shell captured and sunk in the Mozambique Channel.
16 November
Langsdorff heads back towards the South Atlantic.
26 November
Graf Spee effects rendezvous with Altmark.
27 November
work begins on the alteration of Graf Spee’s appearance.
2 December
SS Doric Star captured and sunk; distress call sent.
3 December
SS Taiora captured and sunk; Langsdorff sets course for the River Plate.
6 December
Graf Spee refuels at sea from Altmark and prisoners transferred.
7 December
SS Streonshalh captured and sunk; Langsdorff learns of River Plate convoy.
9 December
Harwood orders Exeter and Achilles to join Ajax off the River Plate.
11 December
Graf Spee prepares for action by abandoning her disguise.
12 December
Exeter and Achilles rendezvous with Ajax off the River Plate. Harwood calls council of captains.
Battle of the River Plate, 13 December 1939 6:10am–6:14am
ships of Commodore Harwood’s squadron sight funnel smoke to the north-north-west.
6:16am
Exeter turns to port to engage enemy independently.
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6:18am
Graf Spee opens fire.
6:20am
Exeter opens fire.
6:22am
Achilles and Ajax open fire.
6:23am
Exeter straddled by Graf Spee’s third salvo.
6:24am
Graf Spee straddled and hit by Exeter’s third salvo.
6:25am
Exeter straddled and then hit twice on the bridge and ‘B’ turret; turret put out of action.
6:28am
Graf Spee turns her guns on the light cruisers.
6:32am
Exeter launches spread of torpedoes from starboard launcher.
6:37am
Graf Spee turns away from British ships and makes smoke.
6:37am
Ajax flies off her Fairey Seafox.
6:38am
Graf Spee turns her guns on Exeter again.
6:40am
Achilles hit in her director tower, Exeter hit on ‘X’ turret; turret put out of action.
6:43am
Exeter launches spread of torpedoes from her port launcher.
6:46am
Exeter alters course to port.
6:56am
Graf Spee breaks off and turns away from pursuing light cruisers, making smoke.
7:14am
Harwood orders light cruisers to increase speed and close the range.
7:16am
Graf Spee turns to port and Harwood orders corresponding turn to starboard.
7:18am
Graf Spee hit amidships.
7:22am
Ajax launches a spread of four torpedoes.
7:25am
Ajax straddled and hit twice in ‘X’ and ‘Y’ turrets; both turrets out of action.
7:30am
Exeter suffers power failure in ‘Y’ turret; all main guns now out of action.
7:32am
Graf Spee launches torpedoes at light cruisers.
7:38am
Ajax and Achilles cease fire to conserve ammunition.
7:40am
Exeter breaks off action.
7:45am
light cruisers makes smoke.
7:49am
Graf Spee ceases fire and steams towards Montevideo.
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7:50am
Harwood orders light cruisers to give chase.
The pursuit 8:10am
aircraft reports condition of Exeter to Harwood.
10:00am
Graf Spee briefly opens fire on Achilles.
11:07am
Exeter re-establishes radio contact with Harwood.
11:15am
Harwood requests support from Exeter but told ‘all guns out of action’.
1:40pm
Exeter detached from the squadron and ordered to proceed to the Falkland Islands for repairs.
7:15pm
Graf Spee turns and fires at Ajax.
8:10pm
Ajax turns away and breaks off the pursuit.
8:48pm
Graf Spee and Achilles exchange fire.
9:30pm
Graf Spee fires first of series of salvos.
10:00pm
Achilles just 10,000 yards astern of Graf Spee.
10:40pm
Graf Spee approaches the entrance of Montevideo and asks permission to enter port.
10:45pm
Achilles bears away to the south-east, thereby ending the action.
11:45pm
Graf Spee enters Montevideo harbour.
Graf Spee in Montevideo 14 December
Cumberland joins Harwood off Montevideo.
Force K ordered to River Plate from Pernambuco.
15 December
British stop pressing for Graf Spee’s departure.
Burial of the German dead in Montevideo.
16 December
SS Ashworth sails from Montevideo thus delaying the German departure by 24 hours.
17 December 6:00pm
Graf Spee proceeds to sea with skeleton crew.
9:30pm
Skeleton crew abandons ship 4 miles from shore.
11:00pm
Graf Spee scuttled.
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THE STRATEGIC SITUATION The battle of the River Plate was unique for several reasons. First, it involved a new type of warship – a vessel type dubbed a ‘pocket battleship’ by the British and Panzerschiff by the Germans. In fact, the Graf Spee could more accurately be described as a light battlecruiser, or even a large and particularly well-armed heavy cruiser. She was built as a result of the restrictions imposed on Germany after her defeat in 1918, but she also reflected a new start for the Reichsmarine – a resurgence after a decade of neglect. While the Graf Spee was specifically designed to fight a French incursion into the Baltic – a strategic obligation enshrined in the Franco-Polish Treaty of 1921 – when she went to war she did so as a commerce raider. The notion of commerce raiding had been around for centuries. During the age of sail privateers (or ‘private men-of-war’) had preyed on enemy merchant ships and caused havoc to maritime trade. When privateering was outlawed in 1859 naval commerce raiders carried out the same useful task. During the American Civil War (1861–65) the Confederacy relied on commerce raiding to disrupt Union shipping, and a small number of these raiders forced the US Navy to commit considerable resources to counter their activities. During World War I Germany used converted merchant ships and lone light cruisers to cause a similar disruption to Allied shipping. In addition, when the war began scattered German warships were used as commerce raiders, but were soon hunted down and brought to bay, an operation which saw the commitment of a much greater number of Allied warships. Perhaps the most famous of these scattered naval units was the German East Asia Squadron, commanded by Vizeadmiral (Vice-Admiral) Graf von Spee. Although he was killed and his squadron destroyed in the battle of the Falklands (1914), his earlier success at the battle of Coronel (1914) and the defiance shown by his doomed squadron ensured his place in the pantheon of German naval heroes. So, it was almost inevitable that following the end of World War I one of Weimar Germany’s three new Panzerschiffe would be called Admiral Graf Spee.
Grossadmiral Erich Raeder (1876–1960) was largely responsible for building the Panzerschiffe, and while the Graf Spee and her two sisters were originally designed to fight enemy cruisers in the Baltic, he realized their considerable potential as powerful and wide-ranging commerce raiders.
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The Admiral Graf Spee was launched in the Reichsmarinewerft (naval dockyard) in Wilhelmshaven on 30 June 1934. From her bow ensign staff she flies the ensign of the Reichsmarine. By the time she was commissioned this would be replaced by the swastika-emblazoned ensign of the Kriegsmarine (Private Collection, Cuxhaven)
During the Weimar years there was little desire to rebuild the German navy, apart from the replacement of ageing warships with more modern ones. This, though, was the period when the Panzerschiffe were designed, funded and work began on their construction. The first of them, the Deutschland, was launched in May 1931 at a time when Germany was riven by political turmoil, the result of the emergence of the far-right Nazi Party. By the time the Deutschland entered service in April 1933, the Nazis were in power, and would soon outlaw their political opponents and create a one-party state. That same month the second Panzerschiff, the Admiral Scheer was launched, named after the German commander at the battle of Jutland (1916). The third Panzerschiff was already being built in Wilhelmshaven, though by the time she entered service, her intended role had changed. She was also commissioned into a different navy. In 1935 the Reichsmarine became the Kriegsmarine and its old ensign, reminiscent of the Imperial German one, was replaced by a new version featuring a Nazi swastika. The fleet underwent a dramatic expansion, and over the next few years its leaders began to rethink the role of these Panzerschiffe in the event of a war. Even as late as 1938 it was still felt that a war between Great Britain and Nazi Germany was unlikely. After all, Adolf Hitler had assured the Kreigsmarine’s commander-in-chief Admiral Erich Raeder that the German fleet would not be called upon to fight the Royal Navy until the mid-1940s. However, British and French opposition to German diplomatic and military posturing against Poland led to a rethink, and it was considered politic to draw up plans for use in the event of a war against both countries. While the Panzerschiffe might be useful in repelling a French incursion into the Baltic, they needed a new role in the event of a war with Britain. The role chosen for them was that of commerce raiders. In the summer of 1938 a study was made into the possibility of largescale commerce raiding in the Atlantic carried out by both U-boats and Panzerschiffe. Raeder himself had been ambivalent about these three Panzerschiffe. He saw them as a useful start to his new surface fleet, but he knew they lacked the fighting power to take on British or French capital ships. They were built as much to restore pride in the Reichsmarine and to break the restrictions imposed at Versailles as to augment the strength of the fleet. However, while they might make poor combat units in the traditional sense, it was felt that they would make excellent commerce raiders. After all, they were fast enough to outpace most Allied capital ships, but they carried enough firepower to deal with any cruisers bold enough to try to fight them. So, while Raeder was given permission to implement Plan Z – the dramatic build-up of the Kriegsmarine – the Panzerschiffe, the most powerful surface ships in the fleet, were now destined to prey on merchant ships rather than to stand toe-to-toe with the enemy in a conventional naval battle.
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In the event of a war with Britain there would be no shortage of potential victims. In 1939 Great Britain had the largest merchant fleet in the world, a position she had held for more than a century. More than 1,900 oceangoing merchant ships flew the British red ensign, a third of the world’s total tonnage. This made Britain particularly vulnerable to commerce raiding. Maritime trade was the economic lifeblood of Britain. This was just as true in 1939 as it had been during the age of sail, and to some extent it remains true today despite the development of air travel, internet trading and global business. In time of war, the primary job of the Royal Navy was to protect this vital maritime trade. In 1804, Britain’s greatest naval hero, Vice-Admiral Nelson wrote, ‘The protection of our trade [is] the most essential service that can be performed.’ He realized that the free passage of British-flagged merchant ships was vital if the country was to generate the revenues it needed to defeat Napoleon’s Continental empire. In the century following Nelson’s declaration British maritime trade flourished, and these busy sea lanes helped bind together Britain’s sprawling and farflung empire. In 1939 Britain’s merchant fleet was just as important to the island nation’s economy as it had been in Nelson’s day. Now though, it faced a new kind of threat – attack by U-boats, long-range bombers and the Panzerschiffe. To combat this threat the Royal Navy and its Imperial and Commonwealth allies had to do several things. Firstly, they had to impose a distant blockade of the ports used by these commerce raiders, to try to intercept them before they could lose themselves in the open sea. Secondly, they had to group merchant ships into more easily defensible convoys, where the strength of the escort was commensurate with the threat posed by the enemy ships. Thirdly, they had to form naval forces strong and mobile enough to hunt down these commerce raiders on the high seas, a task that was best achieved by either cruising the sea lanes under threat, or by lying in wait in waters where the enemy commerce raiders were likely to appear. This all required a huge commitment of ships, men and resources at a time when there was no guarantee that the same ships wouldn’t be desperately needed somewhere else. Finally, the British Admiralty had to play the detective, analyzing distress signals, reports of sightings and intelligence from a variety of sources to help track down the raiders. All of these elements would play their part in the campaign that culminated in the battle of the River Plate and the sinking of the Graf Spee.
The Admiral Graf Spee during her fitting out in Wilhelmshaven. The photograph was taken soon after her launch in the late summer of 1934 – her turrets and superstructure have still not been added, and wooden awnings cover her open machinery spaces.
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OPPOSING PLANS GERMAN PLANS If the Panzerschiffe were to become history’s most powerful commerce raiders then Admiral Erich Raeder knew exactly how they should be deployed. During the 1920s he had extensively researched the World War I history of German commerce raiding operations and had become one of the world’s leading experts on the subject. He knew, for instance, that his raiders had to avoid fighting Allied warships, and the importance of intelligence gathering. In 1939 though, the commerce raiders had advantages which weren’t available to their predecessors.
When refuelling the Graf Spee at sea the Altmark trailed her fuel hoses astern of her and these were recovered by the warship’s crew and coupled to the vessel’s fuel inlets. Pumping would then take place as the two ships steamed in line astern. (Private Collection, Cuxhaven)
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The main one was the ability to replenish their fuel stocks at sea. Raeder was well aware that the options of German raiders in the last war had been severely limited by their need to replenish their stocks of coal. So, he planned to use supply ships containing fuel, food and ammunition to operate in concert with his new generation of raiders. He also pushed forward the development of techniques to refuel these raiders on the high seas. Effective ‘replenishment at sea’ techniques (known as ‘Underway Replenishment’ in the US Navy) were first pioneered by Chester Nimitz of the US Navy during World War I. However, this was only considered practical for small warships; it was in 1939 that both the US Navy and the Royal Navy developed the ability to refuel larger warships. Raeder got there first, in 1934–35. So, from 1938 onwards the crew of his Panzerschiffe practised replenishment at sea (or ‘RAS’), working in concert with specially designed Troßchiffe (supply ships). This ability had a dramatic impact on commerce raiding. The Dithmarschen class of German Troßchiffe could carry 12,000 tons of fuel oil, enough to replenish the Graf Spee four times. With care, by refuelling in neutral ports, these supply ships could keep Germany’s powerful commerce raiders at sea almost indefinitely. Another edge they enjoyed was supplied by the B-Dienst. When she sailed the Graf Spee would carry a small team of civilian cryptographers and radio analysts from the Funkbeobachtungsdienst (Naval Radio Monitoring Service), or B-Diest for short. Their job was to monitor Allied radio communications and they gave Langsdorff the ability to read both British naval and mercantile radio signals. By using directionfinding techniques the B-Dienst team could also provide him with an approximate location of the ship sending the signal. Conversely Raeder stressed that commerce raiders should use their radios sparingly to prevent giving away their own position. So, in 1939, Admiral Raeder and the Kriegsmarine’s Operations Division developed a comprehensive set of instructions for commerce raiders that became known as the Atlantic Trade Warfare Plan. It stated that the surface commerce raider had three functions: to sink or capture enemy ships, disrupt shipping through fear of her presence, and to make the enemy deploy extensive naval resources in an attempt to hunt down the raider. This emphasis meant that sinking merchant ships was less important than disrupting the Allied war effort. The plan, finally compiled in July, was necessarily vague about German policy in the event of a war with either Britain or France. It was up to Hitler to decide whether the conflict
The Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee pictured at sea early in 1939. This angle provides an excellent view of her front ‘Anton’ turret, her welldesigned and effective direction finders, and the rectangular radar in her foretop, covered in canvas.
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would be a limited one, with restrictions on non-naval targets, or a ‘total war’, with all such restrictions lifted. Still, it was clear from the start that the main targets of any German commerce raiders would be British or French merchant ships and troopships. The Trade Warfare Plan stressed the need to avoid battle. It declared, ‘Combat action, even against inferior naval forces was not an aim in itself, and is therefore not to be sought.’ The structures of international law would be observed, which effectively meant prize regulations would apply and ships would be stopped and their crew allowed to abandon ship before the prize vessel was sunk. The plan also emphasized the tactics Raeder favoured: ‘surprise appearances, followed by immediate withdrawal into the ocean wastes, and constant shifting of areas of activity’. This made sense. It was likely that Allied surface forces would try to track down the raider and if a merchant ship sent off a distress signal then these warships would most likely head towards the area where the attack took place. In 24 hours a Panzerschiff could be almost 500 nautical miles away from the scene and would be extremely hard to locate. Raeder had also considered the best areas for commerce raiders to operate in. These, by necessity, would be far from large concentrations of enemy warships but crossed by busy shipping lanes. The ideal areas were the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific coast of South and Central America. In early August more specific plans were formulated and the Graf Spee was allocated a triangle-shaped operational area between the Cape Verde islands off the West African coast, the Bay of Biscay and the coast of South America. A secondary triangular operating area was bounded by Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America, the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and the Cape Verde islands, with an additional cruising ground in the south-western Indian Ocean. The Kriegsmarine rightly assumed that at least in the first few months of the war the Allies would be reluctant to institute a convoy system in these far-flung regions. So, any likely prizes were likely to be merchant ships sailing independently, i.e. vessels unlikely to be protected by warships. The Graf Spee was ordered to sail before the end of August where she would rendezvous with the Trosschiff Altmark. Then the two ships would wait in the mid-Atlantic, in a box bounded by the latitudes 15° to 25° north and the longitudes 25° to 40° west. There they would maintain strict radio silence and wait for the commencement of hostilities and further instructions concerning their rules of engagement. Once the order came, their cruise could begin in earnest.
BRITISH PLANS In 1939 the British were aware of the potential of the Panzerschiffe operating as commerce raiders and had developed a two-layered response. The first was to intercept the commerce raiders before they left the constricted waters of the North Sea. If that failed, then hunting forces would be created and stationed in waters where the commerce raiders were known to be operating. Then, through detective work, intelligence gathering and a great deal of luck, the raiders would be brought to bay. The British Admiralty knew that the raiders enjoyed the initiative, and the sheer scale of the world’s oceans improved their odds of remaining undetected. Only if all else failed would the 14
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In the British Admiralty in London, the grand strategy of the naval war was directed by the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (1877–1943). It was he who first organized the hunt for the Graf Spee.
British resort to instituting a convoy system, escorted by warships powerful enough to deal with the raiders should they appear. The first stage was to guard the exits of the North Sea. Essentially there were five of these: between Greenland and Iceland, Iceland and the Faeroes, the Faeroes and Shetland, Shetland and Orkney, and finally Orkney and the Scottish mainland. The last two were patrolled, but their proximity to the Home Fleet’s wartime anchorage at Scapa Flow in Orkney meant that any German attempt to pass through these exits would be tantamount to suicide. The most likely route would be through the ‘Northern Passage’ between Orkney and Shetland to the west and Norway to the east. This was relatively narrow – Shetland and Norway were just 170 nautical miles apart – and there were two layers of defence, one in the Northern Passage and then distant patrols covering the three exits that lay between Shetland and Greenland. Their effectiveness, though, relied on having ships in place before the Germans attempted to break out into the North Atlantic. In the event that a commerce raider slipped out into the Atlantic, then the Royal Navy would have to resort to hunting her down. That meant using cruisers – warships specifically designed to patrol the world’s sea lanes. During the inter-war years the Admiralty had maintained that it needed 70 cruisers to effectively carry out this task. In 1938 just 58 of them were available, and when the war began some of them were undergoing repairs or refits. The Admiralty saw the protection of distant sea lanes as less important than the defence of home waters, and hence some of these cruisers were earmarked 15
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Commodore Henry Harwood was promoted to rear admiral following his successful action against the Graf Spee off the River Plate on 13 December. Here he is wearing the uniform of a vice-admiral, a rank he attained in early 1942. He was made an admiral in 1945, when he retired from the service.
for that role. Others were needed in the Mediterranean or were required in the Far East where the Royal Navy maintained a significant naval presence. That meant there were all too few cruisers left to counter German commerce raiders on the high seas. So, any redeployment of them to join the hunt meant reducing the strength of the fleet elsewhere. The Royal Navy was overstretched and the Germans knew it. Still, the British had some advantages. If they knew a raider was in a specific area they could re-route merchant ships to avoid such dangerous waters. While this involved some disruption to shipping, this ‘dispersal of shipping’ was a proven response to the problem. It was certainly less disruptive than the formation of well-protected convoys, which involved delays in sailing and presented planners with a significant logistical problem. Convoys also required escorts – warships which could otherwise be used aggressively to hunt down enemy raiders. Finally, they could station naval patrols in ‘focal areas’, regions of the ocean where trade routes coincided in geographical bottlenecks such as off Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, or the waters off busy ports. A perfect example of this last kind of ‘focal area’ was the estuary of the River Plate, used by merchant ships carrying South American meat to Europe and North America. All this was laid down in the Admiralty War Memorandum, a set of plans which came into effect when war was declared. It was understood that for some months after the start of hostilities lone merchant ships at sea would be vulnerable to attack, and so the Admiralty were prepared to pre-empt any declaration of war by blocking the exits from the North Sea before the outbreak of war. Similarly, cruiser groups such as Commodore Harwood’s South American Division of the America and West Indies Squadron were stationed close to strategic ‘focal areas’, ready to patrol them as soon as war was declared. Above all, the British relied on good naval intelligence: the collation of sighting reports by neutrals, information gathered from signal intercepts and spies, and the observations of naval and air patrols, friendly merchant ships and shore-based diplomats. With the Atlantic Ocean alone covering over 41 million square miles, they certainly needed all the help they could get.
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OPPOSING COMMANDERS GERMAN COMMANDERS Kapitän zur See Hans Langsdorff, KMS Graf Spee
Hans Wilhelm Langsdorff (1894–1939) was born in Bergen-auf-Rügen on the Baltic island of Rügen off the coast of German Pomerania, but his family moved to Düsseldorf when he was four and so he grew up in the Rhineland, far from the sea. As the eldest of three children and the son of a judge, Hans was expected to train as a lawyer, but instead in April 1912 he defied his father’s wishes and joined the Kiel Naval Academy. He later claimed that his decision was influenced by his neighbour, Graf Maximilian von Spee. He passed out top of his class, and specialized in torpedo warfare shortly before the outbreak of war. During World War I Langsdorff served in the High Seas Fleet, his first seagoing appointment being as the torpedo officer of the old cruiser SMS Medusa. As a Kapitänleutnant (lieutenant) on board the dreadnought SMS Grosser Kurfurst, he took part in the battle of Jutland in 1916 and distinguished himself sufficiently to be awarded an Iron Cross (2nd class). In late 1916 he was given command of a minesweeper, and before the war ended he had risen to command a minesweeping flotilla. His performance ended with a further Iron Cross, this time a 1st-class decoration. Langsdorff remained in the navy after the war, and became a Korvettenkapitän (lieutenant-commander) in the new Weimar Reichsmarine. In late 1925 Langsdorff was posted to the Defence Ministry in Berlin where he served as an inter-service liaison officer. He proved a gifted staff officer, and his easy social grace stood him in good stead. In 1926 he returned to sea as commander of a torpedo-boat flotilla based in Kiel, which was followed by another promotion in 1930. Fregattenkapitän Langsdorff returned to Berlin in 1931, and a series of staff appointments followed, despite his pleas for a seagoing command. Next, he was appointed to the staff of Konteradmiral Boehm, commander of the Reichsmarine’s Scouting Groups, who flew his flag in the new Panzerschiff Graf Spee served as the flagship of the German naval squadron operating in support of the Spanish (Nationalist) rebels during the Spanish Civil War. In January 1937, after his return to Germany, Langsdorff became a Kapitän zur See and the following year he was given command of the Graf Spee. He assumed command that
As the commander of the Admiral Graf Spee Kapitän zur See Hans Langsdorff (1894– 1939) had a difficult mission. The more successful he was, the more he would draw Allied warships into the hunt for his ship. He needed to keep one step ahead of his opponents and strike where he was least expected.
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October and oversaw the ship’s final preparations for the war that now seemed inevitable. Langsdorff was the ideal choice for the command of an independent commerce raider. He was highly intelligent and had a sound grasp of naval strategy and tactics. His naval contemporaries also commented on his calm, unflappable demeanour, his level-headed approach to his duties and his sense of humour. During the campaign he was idolized by his crew, who thought the world of him, as well as earning the respect of his British prisoners thanks to his humane treatment of them.
BRITISH COMMANDERS Commodore Henry Harwood
Before the war, Commodore Henry Harwood (1888–1950), whose three cruisers bested the Graf Spee off the River Plate, had developed tactics which could be used to defeat a German ‘pocket battleship’. On 13 December 1939, off the River Plate, he was able to put these tactical plans into practice.
Henry Harwood Harwood (1888–1950) was the son of a barrister and joined the navy in 1903 as a cadet at Dartmouth. In 1906 he passed out top of his class, being awarded his lieutenancy two years later. During the next few years he specialized in torpedo warfare, and spent much of his time at HMS Vernon – the navy’s new torpedo school – or at the naval college in Greenwich. During World War I all this training was put to good use when Harwood served as the torpedo officer on the armoured cruiser Sutlej, and then the modern dreadnought Royal Sovereign that formed part of the Grand Fleet but entered service too late to take part in the battle of Jutland. In fact, Harwood saw no action during the war. Still, by its end he was an experienced lieutenant-commander and an expert in torpedo warfare. During the inter-war years Harwood served on board the cruiser Southampton deployed in South American waters and visited the River Plate. After a brief spell on another light cruiser, the Dartmouth, he was promoted to commander and sent back to Greenwich to attend the staff course. Instead of a seagoing command, though, in 1922 he was sent to the Admiralty’s Plans Division where he advised on torpedo matters. Harwood returned to sea in early 1925 when he was appointed to the dreadnought Iron Duke, the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, where he served as the squadron torpedo officer. Later that year both he and the flag transferred to the Queen Elizabeth, and Harwood became fleet torpedo officer. So far, though, he hadn’t held his own command. This would change in the summer of 1927 when he became the acting commander of the heavy cruiser Cumberland, then under construction in Barrow-inFurness. He was earmarked as her first lieutenant, but following his promotion to captain in December 1928, Harwood was given command of the destroyer Warwick attached to the Atlantic Fleet and remained with her until 1930, when he was sent first for tactical command training at Portsmouth and then for further staff training at the Imperial Defence College. In March 1932 Harwood was given command of the cruiser HMS London, flagship of the 1st Cruiser Squadron which formed part of the Mediterranean Fleet. He continued to command her until 1934 when he was appointed to
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the staff of the Royal Naval War College in Greenwich, where he lectured in cruiser command and helped develop new cruiser tactics. These studies included ways of countering the new Panzerschiffe of the Kriegsmarine. In September 1936 Harwood was promoted to commodore, and ordered to take command of the South American Division attached to the Royal Navy’s America and West Indies Station. He flew his commodore’s broad pennant from the heavy cruiser Exeter, and commanded her until the outbreak of war. This was largely a diplomatic appointment, and involved a lot of ‘showing the flag’. Harwood was a man known for his charm and cheery enthusiasm, and he proved adept at that diplomatic role. His Catholic faith also proved a boon while operating in Latin American society. In August 1939 Exeter was ordered home, but the likelihood of war led to her deployment being extended and Harwood retained his command. However, he was also made a commodore (1st class), which meant he became a de facto flag officer. Until them he had commanded Exeter himself, but he now had a flag captain appointed under him leaving Harwood free to concentrate on the command of his squadron. He was therefore still in command of his squadron when it steamed into action on 13 December. Harwood was the right man in the right place. An expert on naval tactics, and a stickler for naval readiness and training, he had honed his command to a high state of readiness before it was called upon to fight. As a staff officer Harwood had developed tactics for dealing with the Graf Spee and her sisters, and the squadron had practised these tactics before the war. He was a highly intelligent officer and well suited to the task of predicting Langsdorff’s likely movements. He also made a point of fully briefing the officers and men under him, so when the Graf Spee finally appeared everyone knew exactly what was expected of them. Langsdorff could hardly have chosen a more worthy opponent.
Captain Charles Woodhouse, HMS Ajax
Charles Henry Woodhouse (1893–1978) the son of a vicar, was born in Nottinghamshire and joined the Navy at 13, attending the naval colleges at Osborne and then Dartmouth. He was a sub-lieutenant when World War I began and saw service on the light cruiser Bristol during the battle of the Falklands (1914). He specialized in gunnery and his first significant appointment came in 1918, when he became the 2nd gunnery officer of the dreadnought St Vincent. After a spell at the navy’s gunnery school, HMS Excellent, in 1924 as a lieutenant-commander, he then spent two years in the Mediterranean as the gunnery officer of the cruiser Coventry. Then, after a spell as a gunnery instructor and a Staff College course, he returned to the Mediterranean as a staff officer on board the battleship Warspite. In 1933 he became the executive officer of the cruiser Enterprise, serving in the West Indies, and after further appointments ashore he was given command of Ajax in October 1937. He spent the next two years in South American waters and worked closely with Commodore Harwood, a man he liked and respected. An intelligent and quick-thinking officer, Woodhouse was the perfect choice to serve as the commodore’s deputy and to put his plans for dealing with ‘pocket battleships’ into practice.
As a young officer, Captain Charles Woodhouse (1893– 1978), the commander of the light cruiser Ajax and Commodore Harwood’s flag captain, had taken part in the battle of the Falklands (1914) and witnessed the annihilation of Vice-Admiral von Spee’s squadron. Now he was fighting the ship named after that old enemy.
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Captain Edward Parry, HMS Achilles
In 1939, Captain William Parry (1893–1972) assumed command of the light cruiser Achilles, which formed part of the Royal Navy’s New Zealand Division, the precursor of the Royal New Zealand Navy. He went on to become the new navy’s chief-of-staff.
Captain Frederick Bell (1897– 1973) commanded the heavy cruiser Exeter during the battle of the River Plate. He was nicknamed ‘Hooky’ by his naval contemporaries, for obvious reasons. Bell gallantly fought his ship until all her main guns were put out of action.
William Edward Parry (1893–1972) was born in Marylebone in London, the son of Sir Sydney Parry, a distinguished civil servant. Parry joined the navy in 1905, and, like his fellow captains, attended the naval colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth. At the outbreak of World War I he was a lieutenant, having passed his exams with ease, and served afloat throughout the conflict, save for one training spell where he was schooled in torpedo warfare. In early 1917 he became the torpedo officer of the light cruiser Birmingham and served on her until the end of the war. He became a lieutenantcommander in 1924, and, after a further spell at the navy’s torpedo school at HMS Vernon, he returned to sea on the light cruiser Curacao as the squadron torpedo officer. Following his promotion to commander in 1927, Parry spent a few years attached to depot ships, shore bases or ships under repair, including the aircraft carrier Eagle. He became her first lieutenant in 1932, a post he held for over two years. Parry became a captain in late 1934, and, after an extended leave and fresh training courses, he spent two years commanding HMS Osprey, the navy’s anti-torpedo school in Portland. In January 1939 he was ‘lent’ to the Royal Navy’s New Zealand Division and given command of HMS Achilles, which was crewed by men of the New Zealand Division. He and his ship remained in South Pacific waters until August when they were transferred to Royal Naval control, and ordered to join Commodore Harwood’s squadron. Captain Parry was a pragmatic and professional seaman and was well liked by the New Zealanders under his command. After the battle, Commodore Harwood wrote that ‘The Achilles was handled perfectly by her captain and fought magnificently by her captain, officers and ship’s company’. There could be few better accolades.
Captain Frederick Bell, HMS Exeter
Frederick Secker Bell (1897–1973) was born in Westminster and educated at a public school in Kent. In 1910 he attended the naval college at Osborne and from there went on to Dartmouth. When World War I broke out he was serving as a midshipman on the cruiser Cumberland and during 1914 he saw action off the German Cameroons. As a sub-lieutenant he served on board the dreadnought Canada and in May 1916 he participated in the battle of Jutland. He subsequently volunteered to serve on submarines and ended the war as a lieutenant. During the 1920s Bell served in various capacities on destroyers, but after promotion to lieutenant-commander in 1926, he was attached to the Royal Australian Navy and served on the cruiser HMAS Australia. Further staff and training appointments followed, during which Bell was promoted to commander (1931). In 1936 he was appointed the first lieutenant of the battlecruiser Repulse, which was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet. He left her following his promotion to captain in December 1938, and shortly before the outbreak of war he was given command of the heavy cruiser Exeter. Effectively he became the flag captain to Commodore Woodhouse, and so was in command of the ship when she took part in the battle of the River Plate. During the battle he displayed great courage, initiative and fortitude, and fought his ship with a dogged perseverance that won the admiration of his German opponent.
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OPPOSING FORCES GERMAN FORCES The Graf Spee was a new kind of warship, designed to make the most of the restrictions placed upon the Reichsmarine at the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty, signed in 1919, limited the displacement of any new German warship to 10,000 tons, although there was no restriction on the size of its armament. The largest ships permitted were six coastal defence Panzerschiffe, a force which was originally made up of six obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships. In fact, due to manning restrictions, only four of these could be in service at any one time. These carried four 11in. (28cm) guns apiece, and lacked the fire control systems of more modern warships. By the mid-1920s, it was clear that these had to be replaced. By then, thanks to the temporary French occupation of the Ruhr, it was felt that France posed the greatest threat to Weimar Germany.
It is easy to see why the British dubbed the Admiral Graf Spee a ‘pocket battleship’. Her main armament of six 11in. (28cm) guns were of the same size as those carried on Germany’s latest capital ships, even though her armour was comparatively light.
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The Graf Spee was scuttled in shallow water as Langsdorff didn’t want to obstruct the channels leading into Montevideo or Buenos Aires. So, in this photograph, one of several taken the next morning, her upper deck is clear of the water.
In late 1926 Vizeadmiral Hans Zenker of the Marineleitung (Naval Command) ordered the Reichsmarine’s Construction Office team to draw up plans for a new, small, fast battlecruiser, designed to outpace its French rivals but with the firepower to cause them serious damage. However, to avoid alarming the French and British, the main armament was limited to 11in. (28cm) guns. These designs were developed by Paul Presse, the Reichsmarine’s senior naval constructor, and by the following July were formally presented to the Marineleitung committee chaired by Zenker. The design Zenker and his colleagues chose was for a thoroughly modern small battlecruiser, where new welding techniques and light metals were used to make the most of the 10,000-ton displacement limit. This design became the Deutschland-class light battlecruiser – disingenuously reclassified as Panzerschiffe by Zenker, to conform to the treaty restrictions. The British though, dubbed them ‘pocket battleships’. This new Panzerschiff mounted six 11in. (28cm) guns in two specially designed triple turrets, one forward and one aft. It was to be protected by a 4in. (100mm) belt of Krupp steel and powered by eight nine-cylinder MAN diesel engines, which took up less room than a conventional steam propulsion plant. These diesel engines also gave these ships a greater range than steam ones. It was soon found that the ship would exceed the 100,000-ton limit and so compromises were made. The most significant of these was a reduction in the thickness of the belt armour to 2½–3½in. (60–80mm). The resulting ship would still displace 10,000 tons, but at least the extra was sufficiently small enough to hide from any Allied inspection teams. The Deutschland class would look like 10,000-ton treaty-compliant ships even if they weren’t. The hull was divided into 12 watertight compartments, subdivided by additional watertight bulkheads, while additional protection was provided by longitudinal bulkheads. This made the hull considerably resilient, a design feature copied in all later German capital ships. The 3.2in.-thick (80mm)
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armoured belt protected the machinery spaces and the main magazines, and beneath it a thinner 2in. (50mm) belt extended below the waterline. Forward and aft of the magazines the main belt tapered to 1.4in. (60mm), and finally to 1.2in. (30mm) in the stern and 0.7in. (18mm) in the bow. Behind the main belt was a void behind which ran a 1.8in.-thick (45mm) torpedo bulkhead. The main deck over the ‘citadel’ protected by the main belt was also 1.8in. thick, but this reduced to 1.2in. fore and aft. During the Graf Spee’s construction her main belt was increased to 4in. (100mm) in front of the two main magazines. These ships were remarkable, designed to be both faster than any stronger enemy vessel, and stronger than any faster enemy ship. There was an exception: the three British battlecruisers Hood, Repulse and Renown had the speed to catch them, but with Britain’s global commitments it was considered unlikely that they would encounter any of these on the high seas. Essentially they conformed to the original label of ‘light battlecruiser’, ships that were extremely well armed but which were relatively lightly protected. Effectively the Deutschland class represented a new type of ship and a new dawn for the Reichsmarine. Their commissioning wasn’t without problems. A Panzerschiffsfrage (‘armoured ship quarrel’) erupted in the Reichstag, with the centre-left Social Democratic Party opposing the allocation of funds for these new ships and the National People’s Party and other right-wing groups supporting it. Eric Raeder, the new commander-in-chief of the Reichsmarine, helped steer the proposals through the Reichstag and compromised by requesting funds for
The after triple turret (‘Dora’ turret) of the Admiral Graf Spee. These six 11in. (28cm) guns had a theoretical maximum range of almost 20 nautical miles, but on 13 December visibility and rangefinding limitations meant their effective range was half that. (Private Collection, Cuxhaven)
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The transmitting station of the Admiral Graf Spee, where information from the optical rangefinders and other sensors was collated and turned into a ‘firing solution’ (the bearing and elevation needed to hit the target) that was then sent to the ship’s main turrets.
only one ship, dubbed Panzerschiff A. This was eventually approved and in February 1929 this first Panzerschiff was laid down in Kiel. Two years later, after Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party became the second largest in the Reichstag, approval of Panzerschiff B was granted, followed a year later by Panzerschiff C. The first of these ships – the Deutschland – was commissioned in April 1933, and the second followed in November 1934. She became the Admiral Scheer. Zenker’s little battlecruisers had become a reality, and were now the most powerful warships in the Reichsmarine. The third Panzerschiff was laid down in Wilhelmshaven in early October 1932, and was launched less than two years later in June 1934. By then the Weimar German flag had given way to the Nazi swastika on the launching platform as Germany had become a one-party state. She was launched amid suitable fanfare by Countess Huberta von Spee, who named this third Panzerschiff after her father, Vizeadmiral Maximillian von Spee, commander of Germany’s East Asia Squadron during World War I and the victor of the Coronel (1914) who was killed at the battle of the Falklands (1914). The Admiral Graf Spee was then berthed alongside the quay for her fitting out. The following year the Reichsmarine was re-designated the Kriegsmarine, and while in the Wilhelmshaven dry dock a large bronze bas-relief Nazi eagle was fitted on the stern of the new ship. She was finally commissioned in January 1936 and joined the fleet as its flagship.
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The Graf Spee spent her first few months of 1936 undergoing sea trials, as Kapitän Patzig and his crew put the ship through her paces. After a test voyage into the Atlantic she operated off the Spanish coast for two months before returning to Wilhelmshaven for minor modifications. She returned to the western Mediterranean three times during 1937, flying the flag of Vizeadmiral Boehm as the flagship of a small German squadron operating in support of the Nationalist rebels in the Spanish Civil War. That May, though, she represented Germany at the naval review at Spithead to mark the coronation of King George VI. By the autumn of 1937 she was back in the Baltic where Kapitän Warzecha assumed command of her. A training cruise in Scandinavian waters followed. Then, in October 1938, Hans Langsdorff assumed command. The next few months were spent in the Baltic, apart from another month-long Atlantic cruise. By her return though, war clouds were looming, and Langsdorff was kept busy preparing his ship for the war that now seemed inevitable. KMS Graf Spee Built: Wilhelmshaven naval dockyard Laid down: 1 October 1932 Launched: 30 June 1934 Commissioned: 6 January 1936 Fate: scuttled off Montevideo, 17 December 1939 Displacement: 13,377 tons (standard), 16,230 tons (fully laden) Dimensions: length: 610ft 3in. (186m), beam: 70ft 10in. (21.6m) Draught: 19ft (5.8m) Propulsion: three shafts, powered by eight 9-cylinder MAN diesel engines, generating 54,000 bhp. Oil capacity: 2,749 tons (diesel) Range: 18,650 nautical miles at 15 knots Maximum speed: 28 knots. Protection: Belt: 2¼–4in. Deck: 1½in. Conning tower: 6in. Turrets: 3¼–5½in. Torpedo bulkheads: 1½–1¾in. Gun shields ½in. Armament: Six 11in./54 (28cm) C28 guns in two triple turrets Eight 6in./55 (15cm) C28 guns in single turrets Six 4.1in./65 (10.5cm) C33 heavy AA guns in three twin mounts Eight 1.5in (3.7cm) light anti-aircraft guns C30 in four twin mounts Twelve 0.8in. (2cm) C30 light anti-aircraft guns in six single mounts Eight 21in. (53.3cm) torpedo tubes, in two quadruple mounts Sensors: one FuMG 39G (gO) surface search radar Aircraft: two Arado AR96 floatplanes, one catapult Wartime complement: 1,188 men
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Unlike her Leander-class sister ships, the light cruiser Achilles formed part of the Royal Navy’s New Zealand Division and so almost two-thirds of her crew were ‘Kiwis’. During the battle she went into action flying both her Royal Naval battle ensign and the New Zealand flag.
BRITISH FORCES The battle of the River Plate was fought between the Graf Spee and three British cruisers. However, these only represented a fraction of the Allied naval forces involved in the search for the commerce raider. No fewer than 22 British and French warships, including three aircraft carriers and three battlecruisers, were involved in the operation at various times, operating in waters as far apart as the Caribbean Sea and the Indian Ocean. This huge naval effort was coordinated by the British Admiralty in London, assisted by their French counterparts in Brest, with help from naval commands and bases such as Dakar, Freetown and Cape Town in Africa, Port Stanley in the South Atlantic, and Colombo in Ceylon. However, for all this effort, in the end the task of bringing the Graf Spee to battle fell to three small cruisers who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Harwood’s squadron
The Exeter was a heavy cruiser – the only one of her class – but she and her near-sister the York were the poor relations of other 8in. cruisers in the fleet. The British Admiralty hadn’t even wanted heavy cruisers in the first place; they were largely foisted on them by the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. This international agreement, signed in 1923, limited the size of cruisers to a displacement of 10,000 tons and an armament of up to 8in. (203mm) guns. Until then the 6in. gun was the cruiser’s armament of choice, but the treaty led to an escalation with 8in.-gun vessels becoming the new norm. The British County-class heavy cruisers were highly successful, although they lacked the heavy armament of some foreign rivals. These were then followed by two smaller heavy cruisers – York and then Exeter – in what 26
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was known as the City class; however, as they varied slightly they are usually regarded as single-ship classes in their own right. The design of Exeter was based loosely on the earlier County class, but only carried six 8in. guns rather than eight in four. Exeter resembled the larger cruisers forward, but amidships and aft had a much lower freeboard and was 45ft shorter. She also had two funnels rather than three. As her propulsion system was the same as those fitted in the earlier heavy cruisers there was less space within her hull and, as a consequence, she carried a third less fuel than the County-class vessels, which limited her range usefulness in hunting down commerce raiders. Still, she was a handy ship and provided Harwood with a battery of powerful 8in. guns. If they came within close range of Graf Spee then they could inflict significant damage.
Like her near-sister York, the Exeter only carried six 8in. guns in three turrets, rather than the eight guns mounted in most other British heavy cruisers. However, at a range of 12,000 yards or less her 8in. shells were capable of penetrating the armour of the Graf Spee.
Together with the battlecruiser Renown, the new aircraft carrier Ark Royal formed Force K, which in November 1939 was ordered to join in the hunt for the Graf Spee. With 60 aircraft embarked she was a potent fighting machine, even if most of her planes were obsolete biplanes.
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The British carrier Eagle together with two heavy cruisers formed Force I, which was ordered from Colombo to Cape Town to prevent the Graf Spee from penetrating deeper into the Indian Ocean. This deployment is evidence of Langsdorff’s success in tying down British naval assets.
Harwood’s two other warships – Ajax and Achilles – were sister ships. They were both Leander-class light cruisers, a class of five vessels, all of which entered service between 1933 and 1935. These ships were built as a result of another disarmament agreement, the London Naval Treaty signed in 1930. It divided cruisers into two groups – those with guns of 6.1in (15.5cm) calibre, which were designated ‘light cruisers’, and larger heavy cruisers mounting 8in. guns. Treaty limits were less restrictive for light cruisers, and so British naval architects were ordered to abandon plans to build more 8in. cruisers and instead to concentrate on 6in. ones. The first batch of these new vessels were the Leander class. The Leanders were also the first single-funnelled cruisers to be built for the Royal Navy for more than half a century, but this only served to give them a sleek, modern look. They were armed with eight 6in. guns mounted in four twin turrets, two forward and two aft. While the turrets were fitted with hydraulic rammers these could be over-ridden to allow loading by hand. For short periods, before the gunners tired, this gave the ships a marginally faster rate of fire than usual. Achilles was laid down in the summer of 1931 and Ajax followed just under two years later. They proved extremely versatile little warships and their roles included scouting for the fleet, patrolling the sea lanes, acting as convoy escorts and long-range patrolling. They were almost as well protected as Exeter, and carried a similar secondary armament of high-angle guns, primarily designed for anti-aircraft protection. They also carried a substantial battery of torpedoes, and a catapult-launched aircraft for aerial reconnaissance or gunnery direction. In late March 1937 Achilles was transferred to the Royal Navy’s New Zealand Division and received a draft of New Zealand seamen, which made up almost two-thirds of her ship’s company. Achilles was still under Royal Navy control though and it wasn’t until September 1941 that she was formally handed over to the newly formed Royal New Zealand Navy.
Comparison of warships’ main armament, battle of the River Plate Gun calibre
Shell weight
Shell types
Maximum range
Muzzle velocity
Strike velocity (at 15,000 yards)
Rate of fire (per minute)
11in. (28cm) C28
661lb
HE, AP
39,890 yards
2,986 fps
1,617 fps
2.5 rounds
8in. Mark VIII
256lb
HE, AP
30,650 yards
2,805 fps
1,322 fps
5 rounds
6in. Mark XXIII
112lb
HE, AP
25,480 yards
2,758 fps
1,098 fps
6 rounds*
* Increased to 7–10 rounds for brief periods if hand-loaded
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HMS Exeter Built: Devonport naval dockyard Laid down: 1 August 1928 Launched: 18 July 1929 Commissioned: 23 July 1931 Fate: sunk in the Indian Ocean, 1 March 1942 Displacement: 8,390 tons (standard), 10,490 tons (fully laden) Dimensions: Length: 575ft (164.6m) Beam: 58ft (17.7m) Draught: 20ft 3in. (6.2m) Propulsion: Four shafts, powered by Parsons turbines, eight Admiralty drum boilers, generating 80,000 shp. Oil capacity: 1,900 tons Maximum speed: 32 knots. Range: 10,000 nautical miles at 14 knots Protection: Belt: 1in. Deck: 1in. Box protection around magazines: 1–5in. Turrets: 1in. Armament: Six 8in. Mark VIII guns in three twin turrets Four 4in. Mark V QF HA guns in single mounts Four single 3-pdr saluting guns Two single 2-pdr pom-poms Six 21in. torpedo tubes in two twin mounts Sensors: none Aircraft: two Walrus seaplanes, one catapult Complement: 628 men HMS Achilles and HMS Ajax Achilles: Built: Cammell-Laird shipyard, Birkenhead Laid down: 11 June 1931 Launched: 1 September 1932 Commissioned: 6 October 1933 Fate: sold to India, 1948 Ajax: Built: Vickers-Armstrong shipyard, Barrow-on-Furness Laid down: 7 February 1933 Launched: 1 March 1934 Commissioned: 12 April 1935 Fate: broken up, 1949 Displacement: 7,270 tons (standard), 9,740 tons (fully laden) Dimensions: Length: 5,54ft 6in. (169m) Beam: 55ft 8in. (17m) Draught: 19ft 8in. (6.1m)
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Propulsion: Four shafts, powered by Parsons turbines, six Admiralty drum boilers, generating 72,000 shp. Oil capacity: 1,680 tons Maximum speed: 32½ knots Range: 5,730 nautical miles at 13 knots Protection: Belt: 2in. Deck: 1in. Box protection around magazines: 2–3in. Turrets: 1in. Armament: Eight 6in./50 Mark XXIII guns in four twin turrets Achilles: Eight 4in. Mark XVI QF HA guns in four twin turrets Ajax: Four 4in./45 Mark V QF HA guns in single mounts Four single 3-pdr saluting guns Eight 21in. torpedo tubes in two quadruple mounts Sensors: none Aircraft: one Fairey Seafox floatplane one catapult Complement: 570 men
Other Allied naval forces
With her six 15in. guns the British battlecruiser Renown could have made short work of the Graf Spee if the two ships met in battle. Rumours of her appearance off Montevideo played a part in Langsdorff’s decision to scuttle his ship.
Several other naval ‘forces’ were involved in the hunt. For the most part these consisted of cruisers, but four groups also contained an aircraft carrier, while three battlecruisers – the British Renown and French Dunkerque and Strasbourg – were also involved. The most potent of these was Force K, consisting of the battlecruiser Renown and the carrier Ark Royal with her 60 aircraft. The battlecruisers were particularly useful as they were all slightly faster than the Graf Spee. This gave the lie to the German propaganda statement that their Panzerschiff was fast enough to outrun more powerful enemy warships. Given the right circumstances these ships could overhaul the Graf Spee, and defeat her in a surface engagement. They certainly had the armament for it – Renown carried six 15in. guns while the two French Dunkerque-class battlecruisers were both armed with eight 13in. guns. These all packed a greater punch than the Graf Spee’s six 11in. guns. However, when the German raider was finally brought to battle it would be by cruisers carrying 6in. and 8in. guns. In these circumstances victory was far from assured – in fact quite the reverse.
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The Leander-class light cruiser Ajax entered service in 1935 and spent most of her pre-war years on the South American station as part of the American and West Indies Squadron. During the battle this small 6in. cruiser served as Commodore Harwood’s flagship.
Allied warships involved in the hunt for the Graf Spee Group
Ship
Type
Cruising Area
Force G
Exeter
CA
South America
Cumberland
CA
(Falkland Islands)
Achilles
CL
(and main base)
Force H
Ajax
CL
Shropshire
CA
South Atlantic
Sussex
CA
(Cape Town)
Force I
Eagle
CV
Indian Ocean
(from October)
Cornwall
CA
(Colombo)
Dorsetshire
CA
Force K
Renown
BC
South Atlantic
(from October)
Ark Royal
CV
(Freetown)
Neptune
CL
Duguay-Trouin
CL
Force L
Dunkerque
BC
North Atlantic
(Took no active part in the hunt)
Béarn
CV
(Brest)
Gloire
CL
Montcalm
CL
Georges Leygues
CL
Force M
Dupleix
CA
West Africa
(Disbanded November)
Foch
CA
(Dakar)
Force N
Strasbourg
BC
North Atlantic
(Disbanded November)
Hermes
CV
(Bermuda)
Key: CV: Aircraft Carrier / BC: Battlecruiser / CA: Heavy Cruiser / CL: Light Cruiser
Note: In November, Force N is disbanded with Hermes joining Force M to form Force X (based in Dakar), while Strasbourg is joined by Neptune (British) and Duguay-Trouin (French) to form Force Y (Dakar)
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THE CAMPAIGN Shortly before the war began, the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, Admiral Sir Charles Forbes (1880–1960), moved to block the northern exists from the North Sea. However, by the time his ships were in place the Graf Spee had already broken out into the Atlantic.
BREAKOUT INTO THE ATLANTIC Hitler had assured Admiral Raeder that there would be little likelihood of war between Britain and Germany following his invasion of Poland. However, as a precaution Raeder planned to send his U-boats and commerce raiders to sea before the attack, which was scheduled to begin on 1 September 1939. In late July the store ship Altmark, berthed in Wilhelmshaven, was ordered to prepare for a long deployment into the South Atlantic. She slipped out of Wilhelmshaven on 2 August, and headed down through the English Channel. She excited little attention from British naval patrols as she appeared to be a civilian tanker making a peaceable voyage. Once out in the Atlantic, she set a course for the oil-refining town of Port Arthur, Texas. There she replenished her fuel tanks with 9,400 tons of high diesel and returned to sea. On 17 August the Graf Spee was ordered to Wilhelmshaven to prepare for a cruise. The crew was joined by a civilian B-Dienst team and five reservist merchant navy officers who would act as prize captains if the need arose. Then, on 21 August, the Panzerschiff slipped her moorings and proceeded to sea. However, unlike the Altmark she was headed north. She kept 30 miles off the Norwegian coast, but no British patrol ships were seen. By 23 August she had passed through the Northern Passage, and the following day she entered the North Atlantic between Iceland and the Faeroes. The Graf Spee had successfully completed the first part of her mission – to break out into the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. Once safely in the Atlantic, Langsdorff knew where the transatlantic shipping lanes were, and he timed his journey so that he crossed them under cover of darkness. He remained undetected. This uneventful breakout into the Atlantic was made easier by the absence of British patrols. On 24 August the British Admiralty ordered the Home Fleet to concentrate in Scapa Flow. Then, on 31 August, following reports that two Panzerschiffe had left Wilhelmshaven, the Home Fleet was ordered to establish its patrol line across
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The Graf Spee’s breakout into the Atlantic Ocean, 21 August–9 September 1939 GREENLAND ICELAND
Faeroes Shetland
24 Aug Scapa Flow
NORTH AMERICA
Orkney
22 Aug
Sailed from Wilhelmshaven 21 Aug 1939 26 Aug
NORTH
EUROPE
Azores
AT L A N T I C
30 Aug
R
R
1 Sept
3 Sept
Suez Canal
Canary Is.
Cape Verde Is. Dakar
AFRICA
Freetown 6 Sept
Pernambuco (Recife)
SOUTH AMERICA
9 Sept Waiting area
Madagascar Rio de Janeiro
SOUTH AT L A N T I C
Buenos Aires
Montevideo
N
Cape Town
R Rendezvous with Altmark
Falkland Is.
0 0
1,500 miles 1,500km
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the Northern Passage. It was, of course, far too late. Not only had Graf Spee and Deutschland already passed through these patrol areas to reach the North Atlantic, but 16 U-boats had as well. The British were a week too late. By noon on Sunday 27 August the Graf Spee passed the latitude of the south of England and Newfoundland. Langsdorff was heading towards his pre-arranged rendezvous with the Altmark, 1,800 miles away and 600 nautical miles south-west of the Canary Islands on 1 September. The Graf Spee was passing the Azores when Langsdorff was informed that the invasion of Poland would go ahead at dawn the following day.
PASSIVE WAITING
The fourth ship in Commodore Harwood’s squadron – redesignated Force G – was the heavy cruiser Cumberland whose crew was repairing her boilers in Port Stanley when the Graf Spee appeared off the River Plate. If present, her eight 8in. guns would have given Harwood a huge advantage in the battle.
That night the ship’s chief navigating officer, Korvettenkapitän Wattenberg estimated that they would reach their rendezvous at 8am the following morning, Friday 1 September. At 8:05am the masts of a ship were sighted that was identified as the Altmark. The mid-ocean rendezvous arranged in Wilhelmshaven at 24° 25′ north, 36° 15′ west had been achieved as planned. When she came closer, Langsdorff could see the tanker had been disguised. She flew a Norwegian flag, and bore the name Sogne, registered in Oslo. When Kapitän zur See Dau of the Altmark reported on board the Graf Spee Langsdorff briefed the tanker captain on world events, and on his intentions. During the voyage south Langsdorff had considered the best hunting grounds for the Graf Spee. He settled on the area bound by latitudes of 5° and 10° north and longitudes 25° and 35° west. This area lay astride the main sea route between Cape Town and Britain, and was roughly 700–1,200 nautical miles due west of Freetown in West Africa, a refuelling station for British warships. This hunting ground lay 880 nautical miles to the south of
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the rendezvous; Langsdorff could reach it in two days. However, war hadn’t been declared, if it was coming at all, and Langsdorff was unable to act until he received orders. So, for the next two days the two vessels wallowed in the Atlantic swell. The message from the Seekriegsleitung finally came at 1:15pm on 3 September, but it didn’t mention Langsdorff’s rules of engagement. As his orders stood, Germany might be at war with Britain but he was unable to hunt British ships until his remit as a commerce raider was clarified. Then another message from Berlin told him that Germany and France were also at war. However, French shipping was not to be attacked. This tied Langsdorff’s hands. The clarification of orders finally came two days later, on 5 September. It stated that commerce raiding was ‘inadvisable at present’, and was to be discontinued until further orders. Hitler was still hoping to avoid an escalation of the war and so he didn’t want to risk any attacks until all diplomatic avenues had been exhausted. Langsdorff was ordered to maintain strict radio silence and wait for further orders. He loitered to the north of his intended operational area, far from any shipping routes. He arrived there on 10 September and the two ships began their long wait. Langsdorff felt it wise to keep topping up his fuel so she was always near maximum capacity. That way, even if he was separated from his supply ship, he still had six weeks’ supply of fuel on board. On the morning of 11 September Langsdorff decided to take on fuel and as a precaution the Graf Spee’s Arado floatplane was launched to search beyond the horizon. Fliegerunteroffizier Bongardts and his observer took off at 6:05am and headed off to the south-west. After 30 miles the plane turned north with the two crewmen seeing nothing. Finally, at 6:38am, just as Bongardts was about to turn east, they spotted smoke about 25 miles away to the north-east. Whatever the vessel was, she was heading directly towards the two German ships. Both men were sure she was a British cruiser. Bongardts immediately turned away and flew back to the Graf Spee. As he buzzed over her he used his signal lamp to pass on his sighting report in order not to break radio silence. Forewarned, Langsdorff ordered both ships to abandon their refuelling and head away to the south-east. The mystery ship was the British heavy cruiser Cumberland, on passage from Freetown to Rio de Janeiro. If the Arado hadn’t spotted her then she may well have encountered and engaged the German ships. Instead she blithely continued on her way, unaware of her close encounter. For the next two weeks there were no more incidents. Then, on 25 September, a message was received from the SKL ordering the Graf Spee to commence operations against British shipping, using every means possible to sink merchant ships and disrupt shipping within the legal bounds of the international law. The time of passive waiting was over. The Graf Spee was finally going to play her full part in the war.
Kapitän Heinrich Dau, commander of the supply ship Altmark. He was a competent seaman, but a strict disciplinarian, and, according to his British prisoners, he was unpopular with his men. The prisoners accused him of treating them with undue harshness. Dau committed suicide in May 1945.
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36
Buenos Aires
0
0
River Plate
Montevideo
SOUTH AMERICA
1,000km
Bahia
St Peter and St Paul Rocks
9 Sept
R
R
Lagos
R R
St Helena
Huntsman sunk, 17 October
St Thomas
Trevanion sunk, 22 October
Newton Beech captured, 5 October
Ashlea sunk, 7 October
Newton Beech sunk, 8 October
Huntsman captured, 10 October
Freetown
Ascension
S O U T H AT L A N T I C
Trinidade
Clement sunk, 30 September
Cape St Roque
Pernambuco (Recife)
Rio de Janeiro
Para
1,000 miles
R Rendezvous with Altmark
The cruise of the Graf Spee, 9 September–26 October 1939
Cape Town
Luanda
AFRICA
OCEAN
INDIAN
Durban
N
Madagascar
Cocos Is.
Lourenço Marques
Dar es Salaam
THE FIRST VICTIM When the SKL sent the Graf Spee her new orders it also added a summary of known British warships in the area. According to their list, the heavy cruisers Cumberland and Exeter, the light cruisers Ajax and Despatch, plus two destroyers and a submarine were operating off the Atlantic coast of South America. Langsdorff knew this already thanks to his B-Dienst team, but it helped him revise his plan of operations. Langsdorff explained his thinking in his war diary. He also saw the trade route linking South America to Britain as more important to the British than the one around the Cape of Good Hope, as most British shipping from the Indian Ocean and beyond still used the shorter route home through the Suez Canal. So, he would begin his war cruise off the South American coast. He set a course for Pernambuco, (now the coast surrounding the Brazilian port of Recife). He would then sweep south. After making his attack, Langsdorff then planned to cross the Atlantic and appear off the African coast. That way he could keep one step ahead of any pursuers. On 27 September the Graf Spee and the Altmark parted company after agreeing another rendezvous in 17 days’ time. While the supply ship steamed off to hide, the Panzerschiff headed west in search of a victim. She also changed her appearance slightly by hanging a fake nameplate over her stern – she was now the Admiral Scheer. At noon on Saturday 30 September they were at 9° 21′ south, 33° 40′ west, to the south-east of Recife and about a hundred miles off the Brazilian coast. An hour later smoke was sighted to the south and Landsdorff launched the Arado to investigate. The vessel turned out to be the SS Clement, a 5,051ton British-registered tramp steamer owned by the Booth Line, bound from New York to Bahia in Brazil with a cargo of kerosene. Bongardts circled the steamer, flashing a message in English demanding that the ship stop and not transmit a wireless signal. Captain Harris couldn’t read the signal, but he understood the plane’s intent clearly enough when she began firing at
The Graf Spee’s first victim was the SS Clement, a 5,051-ton steamer built in Birkenhead in 1934. On 30 September she was captured off the coast of Brazil. After her crew abandoned ship, the Clement was sunk by gunfire.
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the wheelhouse. Harris stopped his ship and threw his confidential signal books over the side. Then he sent an ‘RRR’ signal, meaning ‘under attack by armed raider’. A nearby Brazilian steamer acknowledged. Only then did Harris abandon ship. When the Graf Spee appeared a boat was launched, and its crew, wearing Admiral Scheer cap bands, asked for the captain and chief engineer. After searching the Clement, the boarding party took the two officers back to the Graf Spee where they watched the Germans launch a torpedo at the merchant ship. It missed, as did a second one. Langsdorff then used his 6in. (15cm) guns, but after 25 rounds were loosed off, he ceased fire, as the shells seemed to have little effect. Eventually at 3:30pm the Clement was sunk using the ship’s main guns, which fired five shells into her waterline. This wasn’t the most impressive display and Langsdorff knew it. Still, he had struck his first blow. While the two British officers remained on the Graf Spee, the lifeboats set a course for the Brazilian coast. At 6pm Langsdorff spotted another merchant ship, the SS Papalemos, a neutral Greek vessel. She was ordered to stop and the two British officers were transferred to her while the Graf Spee continued on her way. The Admiral Scheer had deception worked splendidly, being the name given to the Brazilian authorities and duly passed on to the British. Meanwhile, at nightfall on Saturday evening the Graf Spee headed east, back out into Atlantic.
OFF THE AFRICAN COAST The African coast was 2,700 nautical miles from the Brazilian cruising ground, a journey of just over five days at 22 knots. During the voyage Langsdorff kept clear of Ascension Island to the north and St Helena to the south – both British possessions. He also had his ship’s prominent forward superstructure repainted so that from a distance it looked more like a tripod foremast. After passing between the two islands, Langsdorff turned north-east, towards French Equatorial Africa. Then, at 6:30am on 5 October, smoke was sighted. This time Langsdorff had the French tricolour hoisted and steered towards the ship, which turned out to be another British merchantman. Once she had closed to within a mile, the Graf Spee used flags to signal ‘Heave to’ and ‘Do not transmit’. The British ship appeared to comply and soon the two ships had stopped and a boarding party was sent over. Then, the German radiomen heard their victim send out an SOS distress signal. She was the SS Newton Beech, a 4,651-ton steamer owned by the Tyneside Line on her way from Cape Town to London carrying a cargo of maize. As Captain Robinson and his men were transferred to the Graf Spee, Langsdorff considered the distress signal: it had been an SOS one rather than an RRR message, so there was no suggestion the Newton Beech was being attacked by a raider. The message had been passed on to the Cumberland, then searching for the Admiral Scheer off Brazil, but the message wasn’t considered worth acting upon. Once more, Langsdorff’s luck had held. This time, Langsdorff decided to keep the Newton Beech as a prison ship. The Graf Spee then edged closer inland to intercept any ships using the shipping route between Cape Town and Freetown. The following morning – Saturday 7 October – the Arado was sent aloft soon after dawn, and spotted 38
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a merchant ship to the south-west. Again the tricolour was hoisted, the Graf Spee closed with the merchant ship and when she drew within a mile the usual warning signals were flown. This time the tricolour deception worked perfectly, and the ship’s captain did not send a distress signal. The merchant ship was the SS Ashlea, a 4,222-ton tramp steamer owned by the Cliffside Shipping Company, en route from Cape Town to Freetown with a cargo of sugar. Captain Pottinger later reported that he thought the approaching warship was the French battlecruiser Dunkerque, which was known to be operating in African waters. All he had time to do was to throw his confidential signal books into the engine-room furnace as the Germans boarded. Langsdorff then had the ship scuttled using explosive charges. The Graf Spee had now taken her third prize, and her crew were becoming more proficient. After sinking the Ashlea, the Graf Spee and Newton Beech headed north, following the shipping lane towards Freetown. However, the Newton Beech was fast becoming a liability thanks to her slow speed. So, the following evening, after transferring his prisoners to the Graf Spee, she was scuttled. Alone again, and Langsdorff had a week before his rendezvous with the Altmark. So, he first headed west-north-west, before turning west on 9 October, and then south-east. Effectively he was steaming in a large anticlockwise circle, before heading south to the meeting point. Meanwhile, the Altmark remained in the mid-Atlantic, keeping clear of shipping routes. However, her luck almost ran out on 9 October when a reconnaissance aircraft from the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal spotted her and closed to investigate. Kapitän Dau had changed his ship’s name again. The Altmark now bore the name Delmar and flew an American flag.
The Arado Ar-196 floatplane carried by the Graf Spee was a two-seater monoplane with a range of 670 miles. It was primarily used as a reconnaissance aircraft, sent aloft every morning to sweep the horizon for merchant ships or enemy warships.
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The Graf Spee captured the SS Huntsman on 10 October, but kept her as a prison ship for another week until her next rendezvous with the Altmark. The 8,196-ton steamer was heading home from India when she encountered the German raider.
The Swordfish reported the sighting, and a second aircraft was sent up to try to find out more about the American tanker. By then the Altmark had changed course and the searching aircraft missed her. The following day she became the Sogne again. At 5:39pm on 10 October, as the Graf Spee was heading south-east towards the rendezvous, lookouts spotted smoke. Langsdorff turned to investigate. He couldn’t send his floatplane ahead of him as cracks had appeared in her engine and she was stripped down in the hangar. Once again the tricolour was flown and the two ships closed. Langsdorff’s tactics had evolved nicely – by remaining bows-on to the merchant ship he helped mask his identity. She was a larger ship than the previous prizes – the 8,196-ton cargo liner SS Huntsman owned by the Liverpool shipping company of T&J Harrison. She was sailing from Bombay to London with a cargo of tea, carpets and minerals. Captain Brown began to send a distress signal but stopped when the Graf Spee’s guns were trained on his bridge. This time the boarding party arrived before the captain could destroy his confidential papers. These included a copy of the anti-raider measures adopted by the British, a useful document as it helped Langsdorff to understand his enemy’s likely moves. Langsdorff broke radio silence to transmit the gist of the document to the SKL. To confuse things further he had an ‘SSS’ distress signal sent from the Huntsman, purporting to be the Newton Beech: the SSS signal denoted an attack by a U-boat, a further example of Langsdorff’s enthusiasm for subterfuge. The Huntsman’s crew was too large to accommodate on board the Graf Spee, so Langsdorff turned the Huntsman into a prison ship, which now held all the captives. The two ships steamed on in company. Meanwhile, the B-Dienst operators noted a dramatic increase in British radio traffic. Langsdorff took another look at the chart. If the Allies believed U-boats were operating off the African coast then they were likely to provide escorts for ships sailing between Cape Town and Freetown. So, after refuelling, Langsdorff decided to try his luck further south, astride the shipping lanes used by vessels rounding the Cape of Good Hope.
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A RETURN TO AFRICA At dawn on 14 October the Graf Spee reached the rendezvous point of 21° 59′ south, 15° 02′ west and found the Altmark waiting. When the two captains met Langsdorff was pleased to hear from Dau that his disguise was so effective that at first the Altmark’s crew thought they had been spotted by an enemy warship. Dau was less pleased when Langsdorff ordered him to prepare the Altmark to take the British prisoners on board. He protested, but Langsdorff was unmoved. So, after the Graf Spee refuelled, the crew of the Altmark set about providing accommodation for 85 prisoners. The following evening, after stores were transferred, the prisoners were sent over to the storeship. Then, on 17 October, after sinking the Huntsman using scuttling charges, the Graf Spee and the Altmark parted company again. This time a rendezvous point was established to the west of the Cape of Good Hope on 28 October. Meanwhile the Graf Spee would try her luck off to the east-north-east. After rounding the Cape of Good Hope on leaving nearby Cape Town, larger merchant ships tended to steam towards St Helena, 1,800 nautical miles to the north-west. Langsdorff planned to interdict this route above the tropic of Capricorn, about 250 miles south of the island and 1,000 miles off the African coast. Shortly before midnight on 21 October the Graf Spee reached her new operating area, but when dawn broke the horizon was empty. Langsdorff feared the British had rerouted ships through the Suez Canal, or had held them back in Cape Town to form into convoys. Of course both of these events should have been seen as a success, as it meant that the commerce raider had already made her presence felt. However, when the now-repaired Arado made a sweep of the area a ship was sighted to the south at 1:20pm. Once again Langsdorff adopted his tactic of closing bows-on and flying the tricolour. When the two ships were less than a mile apart the Graf Spee ordered her victim to stop. Captain Edwards, the master of the merchant ship, bravely ordered the wireless room to transmit the RRR distress signal. Seconds later when the bridge was sprayed by machine-gun fire the wireless operator stopped transmitting. Captain Edwards stopped his ship, but began transmitting again. The machine guns opened up immediately but Edwards finished sending the message.
Captain John Edwards, master of the SS Trevanion which fell prey to the Graf Spee on 22 October. He and three of his officers were held prisoner on the Panzerschiff until it entered Montevideo. Crucially, Edwards managed to send a distress signal before he was captured.
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The supply ship Altmark pictured from the mizzen mast of the captured steamer SS Huntsman some time between 14 October, when the Graf Spee and her prize rendezvoused with the supply ship, and 17 October, when the Huntsman was scuttled.
Once their ship was boarded, Edwards and his crew were given ten minutes to leave the ship. As they were transferred to the Graf Spee the demolition charges went off and the prize began to sink. She was the SS Trevanion of 5,299 tons, owned by the Haines Steamship Company and homeward bound to Swansea from Port Pirie in South Australia with a cargo of zinc concentrates. At least Edwards had the consolation of knowing his RRR message had been sent. It was picked up by another British ship, the Llanstephan Castle, which reported the Trevanion’s given position as 16° south, 4° 3′ east. That was a mistake; her real latitude was 19° 40′ south, 217 miles farther to the south. While this was probably the result of hasty transmitting under fire, it meant that any British warships would be looking in the wrong place. The following day – 23 October – the Arado spotted another ship, but when the Graf Spee tried to intercept her the ship had gone. The most likely explanation was that this ship had spotted the aircraft and fled towards Cape Town. This meant that the Royal Navy would soon be sending warships to the area so Langsdorff decided to move away. This time he opted to head west at full speed. Before he did, he broke radio silence again to update the SKL of his activities and to move the rendezvous with the Altmark 600 miles to the west. For the next few days both ships were steaming through waters that were rarely used, and Langsdorff’s fears were allayed when the B-Dienst operators reported no unusual increase in enemy radio activity. On 28 October the two German ships were reunited and the Graf Spee was refuelled. She then transferred the latest batch of prisoners to the Altmark. That done, Langsdorff pondered his next move.
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SOJOURN IN THE INDIAN OCEAN The waters off South West Africa were now too dangerous. Still, the SKL had given Langsdorff permission to venture into the Indian Ocean. This had four advantages: first, British merchant ships wouldn’t be expecting him there; second, it kept him away from Allied warships; third, his presence there – once reported – would draw Allied warships away from the South Atlantic; finally, it would spread his area of disruption even further. So, after agreeing rendezvous points and dates with Kapitän Dau, Langsdorff headed east, keeping well clear of Cape Town. By 8 November he was in the Indian Ocean, to the east of Durban, and began sweeping northwards towards Madagascar. Then he headed west-north-west across the mouth of the Mozambique Channel. For five days the Graf Spee sent up its floatplane at dawn, and each day the sea was empty. This was becoming worrisome. Had the British diverted their shipping from the area? He needed his presence to be reported if he was to draw warships away from the South Atlantic. On 14 November the Graf Spee was drawing close to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), the capital of Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique). He altered course towards the north, but at dawn on 15 November the sea was again empty. Then, at noon, smoke was seen to the north. The tricolour was hoisted, but, as the Graf Spee drew closer, the ship turned and ran towards the African shore. She was quickly overhauled, and, as the ships drew closer, Langsdorff fired a warning shot. His victim slowed and stopped and at 11:45am a boarding party was sent over. The ship was the SS Africa Shell of 706 tons, a small coastal tanker owned by the Shell Company sailing
One of the seamen’s messdecks on the Admiral Graf Spee. Thanks to the store ship Altmark, the Panzerschiff had provisions to last her for several months, although a shortage of carbonic acid for her food refrigeration system proved a serious limitation. (Private Collection, Cuxhaven)
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44
0
0
1,000km
1,000 miles
R Rendezvous with Altmark
River Plate
Bahia
R R
R R
Ascension
Freetown
S O U T H AT L A N T I C
Streonshalh sunk, 7 December
Trinidade
Cape St Roque
Pernambuco (Recife)
Rio de Janeiro
Para
St Peter and St Paul Rocks
Battle of the River Plate, 13 December
SOUTH AMERICA
Montevideo
Buenos Aires
N
Lagos
St Helena
The cruise of the Graf Spee, 26 October–13 December 1939
Tairoa sunk, 3 December
Doric Star sunk, 2 December
St Thomas
Cape Town
Luanda
Durban
Madagascar
Cocos Is.
INDIAN OCEAN
Africa Shell sunk, 15 November
Dar es Salaam
Lourenço Marques
AFRICA
from Quelimane just north of the Zambezi delta to Lourenço Marques. Captain Dove had had time to throw his confidential papers overboard, but not to make a distress call. Still, he was within sight of Zavora lighthouse, so presumably the whole thing was being reported. He protested that he was inside Portuguese territorial waters, just a mile from the shore, but this was ignored. Instead, while his men were allowed to row ashore, Dove was taken on board the Graf Spee. There he watched his ship being scuttled using demolition charges. Later that day and the next, the Graf Spee encountered two neutral ships, Dutch and Japanese, but no more British vessels appeared. So, at 9:30pm on 16 November, Langsdorff headed back towards the Cape of Good Hope with his job done. The sinking of the Africa Shell would be reported and soon Allied warships would be scouring the Indian Ocean. This in turn meant that it might be safe to return to the coast of South West Africa. To avoid any warships he kept well to the south as he rounded the Cape, and by 20 November he was back in the South Atlantic. On the morning of 26 November the Graf Spee rendezvoused with the Altmark. Langsdorff’s first priority was to refuel. By noon though, he had 2,841 tons on board, leaving the Altmark with 3,600 tons, enough for both ships to return home to Germany. Then stores were transferred, and the prisoners sent over to the Altmark. However, Langsdorff kept the enemy
Captain Patrick Dove, master of the SS Africa Shell, displaying an Admiral Graf Spee sailor’s cap tally after his release in Montevideo. Afterwards, he wrote a book about his experiences, entitled I was Graf Spee’s Prisoner, which was published in 1940.
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captains and a few other officers with him on the Graf Spee to reduce the risk of trouble on board the supply ship. With enough fuel to last until February, he planned to make the most of it. His original intention was to continue his cruise until mid-January when the ship was due a mechanical overhaul. He intended to linger in the South Atlantic a few weeks longer, attacking ships off the African coast, then crossing over to do the same off South America. After that the Graf Spee and the Altmark would try to return home to Germany. First, though, he set about disguising his ship. Armed with a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships, he had a false funnel erected astern of his own funnel and a false turret erected on the rangefinder deck between the ‘Anton’ turret and the forward superstructure. His men then repainted the ship, adding patches of darker grey to her light grey superstructure, to make her look more like a British capital ship. By the time they’d finished, from a distance the Graf Spee looked like a British Renown-class battlecruiser. Finally, a new, false nameplate was made up, with Deutschland on one side and Admiral Scheer on the other. This all took two full days. Finally, on 29 November, the two ships parted company, the Altmark to loiter until the first of her pre-arranged meetings, the Graf Spee to return to her old hunting ground off the coast of South West Africa.
THE AFRICAN HUNTING GROUND On 2 December, after trying to sink her with gunfire, the crew of the Graf Spee finished off the British merchant ship SS Doric Star using a torpedo fired at point-blank range. She was the largest victim sunk by the German raider during her cruise.
For the next three days the crew of the Graf Spee combed the horizon for ships, but none was seen. Every morning the Arado floatplane was sent aloft, but to no avail. Then, at noon on 2 December the lookouts spotted smoke. The Graf Spee turned to investigate, prompting the ship – a large merchantman – to turn away. At 1:37pm a warning shot was fired and the usual signals were made. Captain Stubbs of the SS Doric Star, though, bravely ignored the order to not send out a distress signal. The Graf Spee
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jammed the transmission and a boarding party was sent across. At 10,086 tons the Doric Star was Langsdorff’s largest prize yet. She belonged to the Blue Star Line and was homeward bound, laden with a cargo of frozen meat from New Zealand. The British crew were sent over to the Graf Spee and the boarding party returned with them having rigged scuttling charges. They were only partly successful, and so at 5pm the Doric Star was finished off with a torpedo. In fact the jamming had been unsuccessful. The RRR message Stubbs had sent gave his position (19° 15′ south, 5° 5′ east), and added that he had attacked by a ‘battleship’. While this was a few miles south of the ship’s actual position, it was close enough to locate the Graf Spee. Aware of the successful broadcast, Langsdorff steamed away towards the southeast at full speed. The following morning, 3 December, the lookouts swept the horizon as dawn broke and at 5:18am they were rewarded with another sighting. The Graf Spee closed on her and the signal flags broke out giving their usual warnings. Once again, though, an RRR distress call was made before a salvo of 3.7cm shells was directed at the ship’s bridge. The transmission stopped when the radio was shattered but the firing continued, wounding three men as they took to the boats. The ship was the 7,983-ton SS Taiora, on her way to Britain from Brisbane in Australia with a cargo of frozen meat. She was owned by the Norfolk & North America Steamship Company. At first Langsdorff planned to use her as a tender, but after Captain Starr told the boarding party that her rudder had been damaged in the shooting, he decided to sink her. The British were taken on board the Panzerschiff, and then at 9:20am the Taiora was dispatched with a torpedo. The Graf Spee then continued on her way. This time the signal was picked up by another British merchant ship and the news passed on to the Royal Navy. It was time for Langsdorff to make himself scarce. So, the Graf Spee headed west towards the Altmark rendezvous, which was made on schedule on 5 December. After refuelling and transferring most of his prisoners, a new rendezvous was established for eight days hence, some 800 miles nearer the South American coast. That was where Langsdorff had decided to strike next. Before returning home he planned to cruise off the Brazilian coast before heading head south
In late November, in an attempt to disguise their ship, the crew of the Graf Spee erected a dummy second funnel and constructed a false second turret behind her real forward turret. This photo was taken from the supply ship Altmark.
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4
1 3
2
THE SINKING OF THE SS DORIC STAR, 2 DECEMBER 1939 (PP. 48–49) At noon on 2 December lookouts using Graf Spee’s rangefinder sighted smoke on the southern horizon. It came from a large British merchant ship, the SS Doric Star (1), homeward bound from New Zealand with a cargo of meat and wool. Two warning shots were fired and the Germans ordered their victim to stop. Captain Bill Stubbs of the Doric Star ordered an immediate RRR distress message to be sent out, adding they were being attacked by a ‘battleship’. He then shut off his engines. A boarding party of 33 men arrived to seize the merchant ship, and, after searching for confidential papers and other useful items, they rigged four scuttling charges. Then the British crew were transferred to the Graf Spee. When the charges were detonated the merchant ship
refused to sink, so Langsdorff ordered his 6in. guns to fire at the ship’s waterline. The Doric Star remained stubbornly afloat, although she was now settling slightly by the stern (2). Finally, Langsdorff ordered the captured ship to be finished off with torpedoes. A G7 torpedo was fired (3) from the starboard quadruple tube torpedo launcher, mounted in the stern of the Panzerschiff. It struck its target, and the Doric Star was finally sent to the bottom. In this scene, showing the firing of the torpedo the dummy funnel erected by the German crew can be seen (4). This and a fake gun turret were designed to disguise their ship, giving it the appearance of a British battlecruiser.
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Three former prisoners of the Graf Spee, seamen from the SS Streonshalh, pictured on their return to London in January 1940. A total of 61 seamen were held captive on the Graf Spee, including eight of the nine captains of the ships sunk by the raider.
Captain William Stubbs, master of the Blue Star Line’s SS Doric Star. He and his ship were captured on 2 December, and he was still on board the Graf Spee 11 days later when she steamed into action. On 14 December he was set free in Montevideo.
to the River Plate. He would then double back, make his rendezvous with the Altmark, and the two ships would head home. According to the SKL, the only British warships in that area were the four cruisers of the South American Division. With 2,000 miles of coast to cover, the chances of them finding him were slim. The Altmark and the Graf Spee parted company on the morning of 7 December, and the Panzerschiff headed west. It would be their last meeting. At 5:46pm smoke was spotted. It came from a British merchant ship, the SS Streonshalh of 3,895 tons owned by the Rowland & Marwood Steamship Company, which was carrying wheat from Montevideo to Britain by way of Freetown. Her crew thought the Graf Spee was a British warship until it was too late, and no signal was sent as Captain Robinson didn’t want to endanger his crew. Worse, some of his confidential papers were recovered. He and his men were duly taken aboard the Panzerschiff and their ship was scuttled. These papers gave details of shipping routes from the River Plate to Britain, so Langsdorff abandoned his plan to cruise off Brazil and instead headed directly towards the estuary of the River Plate. The SKL had just given him details of British merchant ships sailing from there and rich pickings were expected. Berlin had also reported that the British light cruiser Achilles was in Montevideo. While Langsdorff’s orders prevented him from seeking a fight, he felt confident that he could deal with Achilles if the need arose. Besides, the opportunity of sinking several large British ships was too tempting to ignore. According to his chief navigator, Korvettenkapitän Wattenberg, the Graf Spee would reach the estuary of the River Plate at dawn on 13 December. A quick strike there and the Panzerschiff would escape before the British could catch her. Then the Graf Spee would rendezvous with the Altmark, and head for home. 51
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HUNTING THE GRAF SPEE
The British London-class heavy cruiser Shropshire and her sister ship Sussex formed Force H, based in Cape Town, which was responsible for protecting the sea lanes on the eastern side of the South Atlantic. These ships carried eight 8in. guns apiece.
During his cruise, Langsdorff was given information on Allied movements from the SKL in Berlin, while his own B-Deinst equipment added more from radio intercepts in the South Atlantic. He was able to build up a reasonably accurate picture of where these warships were at any given time, and was able to plan accordingly. By contrast the Allies had only the sketchiest knowledge of the Graf Spee’s whereabouts from distress messages. By the time warships reached the spot the Panzerschiff would be long 5gone. The problem of tracking down the raider was exacerbated by the lack of a unified command for the first month of the war. In South American waters, Commodore Harwood’s squadron had to patrol the entire Atlantic coastline from Pernambuco down to his base in the Falkland Islands. Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina were all neutral, and so diplomatic restrictions prevented Harwood’s ships from visiting their ports more than once every three months. That meant they had to move around. For instance, in mid-September, Cumberland was in Rio (having narrowly missed the Graf Spee during her voyage from Freetown), while Ajax was in the Falklands. Harwood was in the Exeter off the River Plate, accompanied by two destroyers earmarked as convoy escorts. Harwood was then given the light cruiser Achilles, which was operating off the Pacific coast of South America. When the war began Vice-Admiral Sir George D’Oyly Lyon in Freetown controlled the Africa station, but his only useful warship was the light cruiser Neptune, a sister ship of Ajax and Achilles. On 8 October the Admiralty gave Lyon overall control of operations in the South Atlantic and sent him reinforcements. The heavy cruisers Sussex and Shropshire, en route from the Mediterranean to the Far East, were designated Force H and temporarily assigned to Lyon’s subordinate South Atlantic Command based in Cape Town. On 5 October the French Navy formed three hunting groups charged with tracking down German raiders. A total of two battlecruisers, one aircraft carrier, two heavy cruisers and three light cruisers were gathered into the three groups, one based in Brest, another in Martinique and a third
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N
NORTH AMERICA
Force N
Martinique
Bahia
Montevideo
Trinidade
Force K
Gibraltar
Ascension
St Helena
Lagos
Freetown
Dakar
SOUTH ATLANTIC
Force M
Cape Verde Is.
Canary Is.
Azores
St Peter and St Paul Rocks
Pernambuco (Recife)
Rio de Janeiro
Falkland Is.
Force G
Buenos Aires
SOUTH AMERICA
Force F
NORTH ATLANTIC
ForceBrest L
Allied hunting groups in the South Atlantic, 8 October–13 December 1939
Force H
Cape Town
St Thomas
AFRICA
British Mediterranean Fleet
EUROPE 0
0
1,500 miles
Madagascar
Force I
1,500km
Allied Hunting Group
INDIAN OCEAN
Suez Canal
Force G
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In his youth, Vice-Admiral D’Oyly Lyon (1883–1947) played rugby for England. Now, as Commander-in-Chief of the Africa station he was responsible for locating and hunting down the Graf Spee, while also protecting the merchant ships which passed through his South Atlantic ‘patch’.
in Dakar in West Africa. In the Caribbean, the British carrier Hermes and the French battlecruiser Strasbourg were formed into Force N, to search for the Deutschland in the western Atlantic. In Dakar, the heavy cruisers Dupleix and Foch made up Force M and patrolled between their base and the Brazilian coast. Force L, a carrier, a battlecruiser and three light cruisers, remained in Brest ready to join the search if required. In late November Force N was ordered south to help hunt for the Graf Spee. In Dakar the force was split to form the core of two new groups: Hermes and Force M were merged to create Force X, which patrolled as far west as Ascension Island and St Helena, while Strasbourg and the light cruisers Neptune (British) and Duguay-Trouin (French) made up Force Y, which took over Force M’s old patrol between Dakar and Pernambuco. In October, the carrier Eagle and the heavy cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire based in Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) were formed into Force I. From mid-October on they swept the Indian Ocean as far south as Madagascar. Finally, there was Force K, the most potent hunting group of them all. It consisted of the carrier Ark Royal and the battlecruiser Renown. In early October they and three destroyers were detached from the Home Fleet and sent to Freetown, where they were joined by Neptune. Under the command of Vice-Admiral Wells they mounted patrols as far west as St Peter and St Paul Rocks and Ascension Island. Although they didn’t encounter the Graf Spee and misidentified the Altmark, their presence had an important influence on the campaign. So, while all these groups were actively searching for the Graf Spee, only one hunting group – Force G, Commodore Harwood’s command – was on hand to cover the coast of South America and intercept the German raider there. The problem, though, was that Force M’s four cruisers had 3,000 miles of coast to protect. So Harwood was forced to try to second-guess Langsdorff. After news of the sinking of the Doric Star and the Tairoa reached him, Harwood realized that his potential opponent might well head towards South America to keep clear of the hunting groups sent to intercept him from Freetown and Cape Town. The question was: if Langsdorff did so, then where would he make landfall. In Ajax, cruising off Montevideo, Harwood pored over the chart. The last known position of the Graf Spee was plotted (although she was still believed to be the Admiral Scheer) and the
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commodore considered her cruising speed to be 15 knots. He jotted down his calculations on a signal pad. He marked on his base at the Falkland Islands and the ‘focal points’ of Rio de Janeiro and the River Plate. He worked out that the earliest the German raider could reach them would be the morning of 12 December for Rio, and 13 December for the River Plate. Harwood planned to concentrate his ships, but which ‘focal point’ should he defend? He made his decision and, later, he explained his reasoning: ‘I decided that the Plate, with its larger number of ships, and its very valuable grain and meat trade, was the vital area to defend. I therefore arranged to concentrate there my available forces.’ So, a little after midday on 3 December Harwood issued his orders. Exeter was in the Falkland Islands, with Achilles cruising off Rio; he ordered both to join him off the River Plate. His fourth ship, Cumberland, was on her way to the Falklands for a much-needed boiler overhaul. He let her continue, but ordered her to be ready to sail at short notice. He had one other asset, the tanker RFA Olynthus stationed in San Boromon Bay off the Argentinean shore of the River Plate estuary. This meant that Achilles could be refuelled when she arrived so she was ready for anything. Rather than meet close inshore, Harwood set his rendezvous point far out to sea – 35° south, 50° west, some 300 nautical miles due east of Montevideo. That way he still covered the approaches to the estuary, but he had the sea room he needed to fight without having to worry about territorial waters. Achilles joined Harwood’s flagship Ajax on the morning of 10 December, and rejoined the flag that evening after refuelling from the Olynthus. Exeter arrived two days later, at 7am. In the 1956 film Battle of the River Plate (Pursuit of the Graf Spee in the USA), Harwood is shown holding a Nelsonic ‘council of captains’. In fact captains Bell of Exeter and Parry of Achilles were well aware of what was expected of them and no meeting was called for or ordered. Instead, Harwood flashed his instructions by signal lamp. His message read, ‘My policy with three cruisers in company versus one pocket battleship: Attack at once by day or night. By day act as two units: 1st Division (Ajax and Achilles) and Exeter diverged to permit flank marking. First division will concentrate gunfire. By night ships will normally remain in company in open order.’
The British light carrier Hermes pictured entering the port of Dakar in French West Africa. She and two French heavy cruisers formed Force X, which hunted the waters between Dakar and Pernambuco. The quarterdeck of the French battlecruiser Strasbourg can be seen in the foreground.
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In other words, Harwood planned to split his force in two, with Exeter attacking the enemy from one direction, and Ajax and Achilles, operating together, attacking her from another. ‘Flank marking’ meant that if the two groups of ships were roughly at right angles to each other when they made their attack, then they would be well placed to see how the other group’s salvos were landing. So, the light cruisers could effectively ‘spot’ for Exeter to see if her salvos were firing ‘short’ or ‘over’. They would radio gunnery corrections to Exeter, and vice versa. It was a technique that the ships had practised before, and for the first few salvos at least it should increase the accuracy of the gunnery. Similarly to ‘concentrate gunfire’, Ajax and Achilles would use a radio link to make sure they fired their salvos at the same time, on the same bearing and angle. That way when they ‘straddled’ the target (all their shells were properly grouped on the target), then they could inflict the maximum amount of damage. It was a tactic that was mainly used to overwhelm attacking destroyers, but Harwood felt it would boost the effectiveness of his firepower. So, his orders given and his dispositions made, Harwood retired to his cabin to rest. As he lay on his bunk, he must have re-worked his calculations and the efficacy of his decision to concentrate his force off the River Plate. If his calculations were correct, the German raider would appear off the River Plate early the following morning.
A copy of the signal pad used by Commodore Harwood to calculate and sketch out the likely movements of the German raider. These calculations convinced him that she was likely to appear off the River Plate on the morning of 13 December. (Museum of Naval Firepower, Portsmouth)
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ENEMY IN SIGHT! On 13 December 1939, dawn broke at 5:56am off the River Plate. Before the sun rose over the Atlantic Ocean, British and German lookouts were scanning the darkness ready to catch the first glimpse of another ship. Harwood’s squadron was actually 45 nautical miles north-east of its rendezvous point. That placed them approximately 180 miles off the coast of Uruguay. Having carried out a short night-manoeuvre exercise 40 minutes before dawn, the three cruisers were now steaming in line astern on a north-easterly course at 14 knots, with the flagship Ajax leading, followed by Achilles and Exeter. Unseen, some 20 miles to the north-north-west, the Graf Spee was approaching them at a steady 15 knots. Ever since the early days of naval warfare dawn has been a fraught time, as the rising sun helped the possibilities of an enemy warship lurking nearby or a plump prize. So, all the ships off the River Plate that morning were at action stations, just in case. Then, two minutes before dawn broke, a German lookout spotted two masts, fine on the starboard bow. He reported the sighting, but Langsdorff maintained his course and speed as he waited for more information. The higher superstructure of the Graf Spee and the better optics gave the German lookouts a slight edge over their opponents. By 6am the lookouts were pretty sure they were warships. Then, a German lookout reported a third ship – a larger one. Minutes later she was identified as a British heavy cruiser, possibly the Exeter. At first, it was thought that the original two warships were destroyers, but as the ships drew closer it was clear they weren’t destroyers at all – they were light cruisers. If Langsdorff was to run this was the time to do it. Once he was seen, the faster British cruisers could pursue him, and harry him until nightfall. The prospect wasn’t an appealing one. Still, with their closing speeds, every three minutes that passed brought the Graf Spee a mile closer to the enemy.
The Fairey Seafox was a twoseater reconnaissance floatplane designed to be launched from a catapult on British light cruisers, and was carried on both the Ajax and the Achilles. Ajax’s Seafox was used as a spotting plane during the battle.
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Langsdorff made his decision. Rather than run and risk a lengthy chase which would surrender the initiative to the British, Langsdorff decided to give battle. Although this contravened his direct orders, he felt it was the best decision. All he had to do was to disable the heavy cruiser and then, surely, the two light cruisers would break off the action. So, at 6:12am, he ordered a change of course to port onto a new bearing of 115°, which allowed both of his main gun turrets to bear on the cruiser, now confirmed as the Exeter. Battle was about to be joined. On the three British ships, lookouts were scanning the horizon with equal enthusiasm. Then, at 6:10am, a lookout on Ajax spotted funnel smoke on the northern horizon at ‘Red 100’ (or to port, 100° off the cruiser’s bow). That made it almost exactly off the ship’s port beam. A minute later the New Zealand lookouts in Achilles spotted it too. It was little more than a vague, blurred smudge, and when the sighting was reported the message was passed to Commodore Harwood who was in his cabin. Finally Exeter sighted it at 6:14am, and signalled, ‘Smoke bearing 320°.’ By that time Harwood was on the bridge, and ordered a signal flashed to Exeter telling her to investigate. Captain Bell acknowledged, and turned the heavy cruiser to port until he was heading straight towards the smoke. Exeter and Graf Spee were now converging at a mean speed of 40 miles per hour. The other two cruisers kept to their original course and speed, so the two groups of British ships were soon heading away from each other at right angles. Then, at 6:16am, Bell signalled Harwood, saying, ‘I think it is a pocket battleship.’ Two minutes later all doubt about the ship’s identity were removed. The Graf Spee opened fire. At that moment the range was 19,400 yards, or a little short of 10 miles. The six 11.in guns were elevated to an angle of 11° and both turrets fired at the same time – a six-shell salvo weighing a total of 4,140 pounds. Just 35 seconds later these shells fell in a well-grouped salvo close to Exeter, but a few hundred yards short. By then the German gunners had already adjusted their range settings, and were about to fire again. Seconds before the shells landed Exeter hoisted the signal ‘N322’, meaning ‘Enemy in sight, bearing 322°’, but by now the information was selfevident. On the three British ships battle ensigns were sent aloft; Exeter flew no less than four of them, giving the cruiser a festive appearance. Meanwhile her own gunnery direction teams were calculating the range, and ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets were trained on the approaching enemy. As the first German salvo landed, Harwood left Bell and the Exeter to their own devices and concentrated on getting his light cruisers into action. At 6:20am he ordered them to alter course together to 340°, to increase speed to 25 knots and to open fire. The two light cruisers were 3–4 cables apart – 600–800 yards – just enough to reduce the risk of both ships being hit by the same enemy salvo. By then Exeter had fired her first salvo, at 18,500 yards, and the battle proper was under way. Her four 8in. shells fell short. At 6:22am Achilles opened fire with her eight 6in. guns, firing almost directly out to her port beam. Less than a minute later Ajax opened fire too. The two British light cruisers were concentrating their fire, just as Harwood had ordered, and they were also helping Exeter’s gunners find the range of the enemy. However, the Germans gunners were finding the range too. Graf Spee’s second salvo straddled the Exeter, the shells throwing up huge columns of water all around her. However, she wasn’t hit. The third salvo though, fell off the cruiser’s starboard side, and one shell detonated 58
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just beside the ship, throwing up shell splinters which killed and wounded several of the men manning the cruiser’s starboard torpedo mount. It also shredded the Walrus seaplanes, the ‘Shag Bats’ as the sailors called them. That, though, was only the start. The Graf Spee had now found the range of Exeter and was about to pound her hard. On Ajax Harwood watched the shells falling around Exeter and felt helpless. His plan had been to divide the enemy’s fire between his two groups of British cruisers. Now, with Graf Spee concentrating her fire on Exeter, that plan showed no sign of working. Exeter was firing back, though, and her third salvo straddled the Panzerschiff. Exeter’s gunnery officer was Lt. Cdr. Jennings, and he compensated as Captain Bell began zig-zagging the ship to try to throw off the enemy’s aim. Jennings could fire his four forward 8in. guns faster than the Graf Spee – three or four rounds a minute as opposed to a maximum of two for the German ship. His sixth salvo straddled the Graf Spee, and his rangefinding teams saw they’d scored a hit. At 6:24am an 8in. shell from Exeter struck the Panzerschiff amidships on her starboard side, just below the funnel, and knocked a heavy anti-aircraft gun out of action, killing and wounding many of its crew. The shell plunged through the lightly armoured deck and exploded two decks below, destroying the ship’s searchlight workshop. A second shell was a near miss, but threw up splinters which gouged the bows just in front of the forward turret. It seemed that the Panzerschiff wasn’t as invincible as the German propagandists had claimed. Jennings’ opponent was Korvettenkapitän Ascher, and he was having problems of his own. The forward ‘Anton’ turret had temporarily ceased fire due to a problem with the elevation system, but the gunners quickly
The forward twin 8in. gun turrets of HMS Exeter were put out of action during the first 22 minutes of the battle. This picture, which also shows her heavily damaged bridge, was taken after the cruiser’s safe arrival in the Falkland Islands.
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60
0
0
Graf Spee Exeter Achilles Ajax
5km
Smoke screen (wind from south-east)
6:14am: smoke sighted by the British ships, bearing 324°. Exeter alters course to investigate the approaching vessel. 2. 6:18am: the Graf Spee opens fire on the Exeter. 3. 6:20am: Exeter returns fire. 4. 6:22am: Ajax and Achilles open fire. 5. 6:25am: Exeter is hit twice, on ‘B’ turret and the bridge. ‘B’ turret is put out of action. 6. 6:32am: Exeter launches a spread of torpedoes from her starboard tubes. 7. 6:36am: Graf Spee turns away from the British ships and makes smoke. 8. 6:37am: Ajax launches her Seafox floatplane, to use as a spotting aircraft. 9. 6:40am: Achilles’ Director Control Tower (DCT) and bridge are hit by shell splinters. The light cruisers are no longer capable of conducting ‘concentrated fire’. 10. 6:40am: Exeter is hit as she begins a turn to starboard. ‘X’ turret is put out of action. 11. 6:44am: Exeter launches a spread of torpedoes from her port tubes. 12. 6:56am: the Graf Spee breaks off the action, and alters course to the west, making smoke to cover her withdrawal.
1.
6:00
7:00
2
The battle of the River Plate, 6–7am
10
7:00
6:20
6:50
5 miles (nautical)
06:18
12
6:40
6:50
6
6:30
6:30
11
5
7
6:40
6:00
3
6:20
7:00
6:10
7:00
1
6:14
6:20
4 6:20
6:30
6:30
6:50
6:50
6:40
9
8
6:40
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rectified the problem and within two minutes the turret was back in action. By 6:23am the Graf Spee had fired just five salvos – a slower rate of fire than either Ascher or Langsdorff would have liked– but the next full broadside thundered out at 6:25am and straddled Exeter, hitting her twice. One shell plunged straight through an open hatch behind ‘B’ turret and through the sick bay below, before passing out the ship’s port side without exploding – a lucky escape. Another shell, though, struck the lightly armoured front face of ‘B’ turret and detonated on impact. The turret was knocked out of action with most of the gunners killed or wounded. The blast also sent a shower of lethal metal splinters scything across Exeter’s open bridge. It was a real knock-out blow. Most of the bridge crew were killed. Only three men survived, one of whom was Captain Bell, although he was covered in blood from a head wound. Two other officers survived, but the blast had wrecked the bridge so badly that the three men were unable to continue controlling the ship from it. So, Bell and the men raced aft to the after control position – effectively an auxiliary bridge – only to find its communications system had been wrecked by splinters. Bell noticed the ship was now turning to starboard: her hydraulic steering gear had been damaged. So he ordered one of the bridge survivors, the torpedo officer Lt. Cdr. Smith, to sort out the problem. His solution was to set up a line of men, who relayed Bells’ orders to the after-steering position. That way the ship could stay in the fight. Exeter was now steering west-north-west, and making 25 knots. Her two remaining turrets – one forward, one aft – were still firing at the Graf Spee, but their latest salvos had come close without hitting her. She was taking a
After the cruiser Exeter returned to Plymouth on 15 February 1940, she was visited by Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty. Here he is seen leaving the cruiser after his inspection of her, cheered by Captain Bell and his officers.
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The director control tower (DCT) of Achilles was mounted above and just behind her open bridge. At 6:40am it was riddled by shrapnel, but despite some of its crew being killed or wounded the DCT was operating again within a few minutes, directing the cruiser’s fire.
heavy return fire though, and at 6:28am she was hit twice forward, one shot hitting her waterline on the starboard side of her forecastle. The shell had exploded on striking her anchor. Exeter began taking on water and damagecontrol parties raced forward to prevent the flooding from spreading further. She also started listing to starboard while fires raged in two places below decks. Even the near misses caused damage, sending shell fragments scything across her upper decks, cutting men down as they manned their posts. What probably saved the Exeter was that the Graf Spee was using high-explosive (HE) shells as Ascher had underestimated the effectiveness of her armour. After the battle, Ascher said he thought Exeter would have probably blown up if he had used armour-piercing (AP) shells instead. On the bridge of Ajax, Commodore Harwood watched the Graf Spee targeting Exeter and realized that his plan of splitting the pocket battleship’s fire wasn’t working. So far the German gunners had simply ignored the light cruisers. Ajax and Achilles were steering north-east at 25 knots, so during these first minutes of battle their course was converging slightly with the Graf Spee, which was 18,000 yards away to the north-west. Then, at 6:22am, the Graf Spee altered course to port, swinging in a half circle which allowed both of her main turrets to fire at Harwood’s two light cruisers as well as Exeter. Harwood responded by ordering Ajax and Achilles to turn to port too. Effectively he was mimicking the course change of the Graf Spee. He wanted to draw the German ship’s fire, and by shortening the range he hoped to do exactly that. This change of course meant that he lost his ‘A arcs’, the bearing where all his guns could fire. Still, closing to a more effective range was worth the temporary loss of his half his firepower. A few minutes later, at 6:25am, the Graf Spee turned again, this time to starboard, heading east-south-east. The range was now dropping rapidly, but the big 11in. guns kept on pounding Exeter. Then, at 6:28am, Harwood saw the enemy’s main turrets swing round so they were pointing directly at his flagship. Langsdorff, satisfied that the Exeter was suffering badly, was temporarily distracted by the fire of the smaller cruisers. While their 6in. shells couldn’t do him any major damage, they could cut up his superstructure and secondary gun batteries. So, he gave orders to deal with this irritant. A few seconds later the Graf Spee opened fire. Ajax was straddled three times in three minutes, and observers on the bridge of Achilles saw great columns of water surround their consort. Splinters cut the halyard stays of the battle ensign on Achilles, which meant that for the rest of the battle the only flag at her foremast was the New Zealand one. So, Harwood had successfully drawn the fire of Ascher’s big guns, but in the process he’d put his own ship in mortal danger.
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A TWO-PRONGED ATTACK Still, the two light cruisers were firing back. The range had now dropped to just 13,000 yards and at that distance the light cruisers’ 6in. guns could inflict real damage on their opponent. The shooting of the two ships was concentrated under the direction of Lieutenant Dreyer, the flagship’s chief gunnery officer, who used his radio link to control the fire of all 16 guns. To help him, the order was given to prepare to launch Ajax’s floatplane to serve as a gunnery spotter. Meanwhile, at 6:32am, Harwood turned his ships away. Ajax was now zig-zagging furiously, her helmsman steering towards the enemy’s fall of shot. That at least would make the German rangefinders’ job a little harder. Some six miles astern of the flagship, Captain Bell of the Exeter was making the most of his reprieve. He was still steering northwest, but he altered slightly to starboard, and unleashed a spread of three torpedoes at the Graf Spee, the contents of his starboard torpedo mount. They missed; in fact it seems the torpedoes were never spotted by the German lookouts. His intention had been to make the Panzerschiff turn to avoid them and thereby disrupt her gunnery. Then, at 6:36am, the British watched in surprise as the Graf Spee turned away, making smoke to cover her withdrawal. She was now stern-on to the light cruisers and all but the top of her tower-like forward superstructure was hidden by the white smoke. It almost seemed as if, after just 20 minutes, the Germans had given up the fight. In fact Langsdorff was far from beaten. He had forced the light cruisers to open the range, and by turning he prevented them from racing ahead of him and ‘crossing the T’ of the Graf Spee and
The Panzerschiff SMS Admiral Graf Spee was a compact vessel due to the displacement restrictions imposed on the German navy at Versailles. This photograph was taken at the coronation naval review off Spithead in May 1937. Behind her is the British battleship Resolution.
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7:14am: Ajax and Achilles increase to maximum speed, and turn towards the Graf Spee. This means their after turrets are unable to fire. 7:16am: Graf Spee makes smoke again and alters course to port so she can fire a full salvo at her pursuers. 7:21am: Graf Spee launches a torpedo, then alters course to starboard. 7:25am: after the light cruisers turn to starboard to open their arcs of fire, Ajax receives a hit in the stern. Both ‘X’ and ‘Y’ turrets are put out of action. 7:26am: Ajax launches a spread of four torpedoes. 7:29am: Graf Spee alters course to the west, and makes more smoke. 7:30am: Exeter loses power to ‘Y’ turret. All of her main guns are now out of action. 7:32am: Graf Spee fires a spread of four torpedoes. 7:32am: Harwood alters his light cruisers to alter course to port. 7:34am: after receiving several 6in. hits at a range of just 10,000 yards, Langsdorff turns away again, making smoke. Now only her after turret can bear on her pursuers. 7:36am: Ajax’s topmast is hit, severing radio contact with her consorts. 7:38: The light cruisers turn away, and cease firing. Both ships make smoke. 7:40am: Exeter alters course towards the south, and breaks off the action. 7:50am: the range having widened to 30,000 yards, Harwood orders his light cruisers to turn around and pursue the Graf Spee, which is now heading west towards the River Plate.
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The battle of the River Plate, 7–8am
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firing all their broadside guns at her, while she could only reply with her forward-facing armament. The smoke would force their irritating fire to slacken for a bit, and, meanwhile, by making his 115° turn to port, he could clear his own ‘A arcs’ and finish off the Exeter. At the same moment, some 13,500 yards to the south-east, Ajax launched her Fairey Seafox floatplane. With the cruiser firing her main guns every 12 seconds the pilot, Lieutenant Lewin, had to time his launch exactly or risk having his fragile plane struck by the shockwave. He timed it to perfection and at 6:36am the Seafox was airborne and climbing away from the ship. The plane took up a position at 3,000ft, about a mile off the starboard bow of Ajax. Occasionally, though, Lewin flew closer to the Graf Spee to examine her for damage. When he did he was fired on by her anti-aircraft guns – one shell even punched a hole in a wing – and he would then fly back over Ajax, and resume his safer position. Lewin and the observer Lieutenant Kearney would have had a spectacular view of the battle if they weren’t kept so busy. A mix-up over radio frequencies meant that it would be 12 minutes before Kearney could pass on his spotting information to Lieutenant Dreyer in Ajax. When he did, though, the accuracy of the flagship’s fire improved noticeably, or rather it did after another problem was overcome. At 6.40am Achilles was hit and her gunnery wireless link to Ajax was lost. As Lieutenant Washbourn, the gunnery officer on Ajax, was unable to report this to Dreyer in Ajax or Kearney in the Seafox, for several crucial minutes the fall of shot of the two ships became confused, as Achilles’ fall of shot was reported to Ajax. Once this was sorted out, at around 6:55am, Kearney concentrated on Ajax’s guns and his reports proved a great boon to Dreyer. The ‘concentrated fire’ plan broke down thanks to a medium-calibre shell fired from the Graf Spee. For the past 12 minutes her starboard secondary battery of 6in. guns had been firing at the two cruisers under the direction of Korvettenkapitän Meusemann. His four guns mounted in single turrets switched their fire from one light cruiser to the other, to maintain the pressure on both enemy ships. The accuracy of this fire wasn’t particularly good, but by 6:37am Meusemann’s shells were straddling their two targets. Then, at 6:40am, a salvo landed close to the foredeck of the Achilles, and shrapnel sliced upwards, peppering the lightly protected sides of both the open bridge and the director control tower (DCT) perched above and just behind it. Several of the bridge party were struck down, including Captain Perry who was hit in both legs. The ship was turning to port, trying to steer towards the shell splashes, and with Lieutenant Cowburn, the officer of the watch, temporarily out of action the turn continued for another half minute until Perry pulled himself upright and countermanded the order. He then set the cruiser back onto her original course. He sat on the captain’s chair, resting his bleeding legs on a locker until the end of the battle. Behind Perry the devastation on the DCT was even worse. It had been riddled by shrapnel which had torn jagged holes in her thin metal sides. Inside it was Lieutenant Washbourn and his gunnery direction team. He later wrote, ‘I was conscious of a hellish noise and a thump on the head.’ When he picked himself up the interior of the small space was a shambles. The two radiomen had been killed outright and one body had slipped into the rangefinding compartment below the DCT. There the rangefinder would work with a dead body next to him for the rest of the action. Another 65
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At a range of 12,000 yards or less (6 sea miles), the 8in. shells of the heavy cruiser Exeter could penetrate the armoured belt of the Admiral Graf Spee. This picture of the cruiser was taken in Malta before the war.
man was dead at his post, but it was some minutes before anyone noticed. A replacement was found, who had to sit on the seated body for the rest of the action. Another sailor was badly wounded in the face and legs, and applied a tourniquet round his own thigh. Behind him, a marine sergeant was sitting bleeding from his shredded buttocks, but he kept at his post throughout the battle. Washbourn himself was bleeding heavily from a scalp wound, but it was bandaged up and what remained of the DCT crew kept on fighting. Washbourn had briefly switched control to the after-control post, but once he found most of the equipment was still working, the DCT team resumed control of the ship’s gunnery. However, the wireless link with Lieutenant Dreyer in the Ajax was severed and so ‘concentrated fire’ was no longer an option. Mercifully for Captain Perry and his crew, four minutes earlier, at 6:36am, after completing her turn away from the two light cruisers, the Graf Spee’s 11in. guns resumed firing at the Exeter. Harwood responded by ordering Ajax and Achilles to increase speed to 28 knots, and then, at 6:40am, to alter course closer to the enemy – first to the north, and then at 6:45am to the north-east. This would put them on the starboard quarter of the Panzerschiff and the increase in speed meant that the range, which was increasing after Langsdorff’s turn, would start to decrease again. For the moment, though, the smoke screen obscured the aim of the British gunners and of Meusemann’s two after guns. Meanwhile, just before 6:38am, Captain Bell gave the order to turn Exeter hard to starboard. His intention was to allow his port torpedo tubes to bear, but he also hoped to throw off the aim of the German gunners whose 11in. salvos were now starting to fall around the cruiser. Bell was also firing his two remaining turrets and Exeter’s salvos had already straddled the
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Graf Spee, and caused some minor damage. Then, at 6:38pm, they scored two hits on the German ship. One 8in. shell struck the port side of her foretop superstructure and damaged the Graf Spee’s main rangefinder. It also sent shrapnel flying, with pieces wounding Langsdorff in the shoulder and the arm. The damage was minor, though, and Langsdorff kept directing the battle from his ship’s lightly protected bridge. Another hit her armoured belt beneath the forward superstructure and penetrated it, with the shell finally exploding in workshop compartment deep in the heart of the ship. This showed that the Graf Spee wasn’t adequately protected to prevent 8in. AP shells from penetrating her armour at the relatively short range of 11,000 yards, or 5½ miles. Fortunately for Langsdorff, the threat posed by Exeter was about to be dramatically reduced. Since the main German guns had resumed their fire on the Exeter they had proved unerringly accurate. The first two salvos had straddled her. Then, as Exeter completed her turn to starboard she was straddled again and hit. The 11in. shell struck the right-hand gun of ‘A’ turret, putting it out of action. That just left ‘Y’ turret at the stern of the cruiser. Undeterred, Bell ordered a spread of three torpedoes to be launched from the cruiser’s port-side launcher. These were launched with no real hope of hitting the Graf Spee, but might force her to turn away from the beleaguered cruiser. Just a few second later Exeter was hit again by two 11in. shells. One smashed through the port side of her forward superstructure and exploded beside the 4in. gun mounting on her starboard side. Most of the gun’s crew were killed or wounded. The second strike was even more devastating. It penetrated the hull forward on the port side, and exploded in the chief petty officer’s flats (or lobby). The whole ship juddered as if it had been punched. A 24-man damage-control party were there waiting for orders, and 18 of them were killed with several others injured. The explosion started a fire which was dangerously close to both the 4in. magazine and the now-silenced ‘B’ turret magazine. Fires were raging in several places, but this one was by far the most deadly. Acting on their own initiative two crewmen flooded the 8in. magazine, which in turn threatened the lives of the men still stationed there. Rescue parties had to cut their way through the wreckage and the bodies in order to give them a passage through which they could escape. If that wasn’t enough, shrapnel from the near misses puncturing the hull of the ship was shredding the canvas fire hoses, and finally cut the power to the main forward pump. As engineers raced to repair it, damage-control teams struggled to put out the fires as best they could. Some men even broke up the holystone sand-blocks used to scrub the decks to help douse the flames. Then, another piece of shrapnel severed the link between the gunnery transmitting station and ‘Y’ turret. That meant that the ship’s last working turret was only able to fire under ‘local control’, without the sophisticated gunnery fire-control system that made her fire hugely more effective. In the after-control position by the mainmast, Captain Bell was still conning his ship using his line of seamen to relay helm orders to the helmsman, and with the ship’s gyro compass now knocked out he was reduced to steering her using a small boat’s compass taken from the ship’s whaler. Exeter was still in the fight, but only just. At 6:46am, Bell turned the cruiser to port, and slowly began edging away from the Graf Spee, increasing the range while his crew fought to keep their ship afloat. Men from the secondary gun batteries were taken from 67
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their posts to reinforce the hard-pressed damage-control teams, and, as the cruiser limped off to the south-west, Bell and his men realized that another few hits from the Graf Spee would probably be the end of them. However, five miles away, Langsdorff was more concerned about the resurgent threat of Harwood’s two light cruisers. He made smoke again and edged slightly further to port, so his ship was steering west-north-west. Ajax and Achilles were about 17,000 yards, or 8½ miles, due west, heading north-west and firing steadily with all their available guns. The Graf Spee was now firing using her after fire-control position, as her crew tried to restore power to the larger and more efficient forward gun director. She was still targeting the Exeter, but the salvos were now noticeably less accurate and no hits were scored. Then, at 6:56am, Langsdorff altered course again, this time to the west, with his ship weaving slightly to avoid the salvos of the light cruisers. Now that Exeter was no longer a serious threat, a more aggressive captain might have turned to starboard to clear the ‘A arcs’ of his main guns and have taken on the two light cruisers. That, though, would mean fighting at short range – probably less than 10,000 yards. Instead, worried about the threat posed by torpedoes, Langsdorff simply made more smoke and kept heading west, away from the enemy and away from the open sea.
GIVING CHASE
This photograph was taken during the battle of the River Plate from the deck of the light cruiser Achilles. In the distance her sister ship Ajax – Harwood’s flagship – can be seen firing her forward guns at the Graf Spee. (Museum of Naval Firepower, Gosport)
The situation at 7am was finely balanced – the battle could still go either way. The Graf Spee had been hit but hadn’t suffered any significant damage, apart from the loss of power to her forward gunnery director. Exeter had hit her three times – and while her shells were clearly potent enough to penetrate the Panzerschiff’s armour, fire from the Exeter had slackened and she was no longer considered a threat. The German ship’s upper decks had been peppered by splinters, though, and it was clear that the fast-firing 6in. guns of the British light cruisers were capable of inflicting damage, even if their shells lacked the punch to penetrate the ship’s armour. Langsdorff could still turn and fight, but for the moment he was content
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to keep Harwood’s cruisers at arm’s length as he headed west towards the Uruguayan coast. Exeter was largely out of the fight. Her ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets were out of action and ‘Y’ turret could only fire under local control. Only one 4in. turret was still operational, and the two damaged Walrus aircraft had been jettisoned as had their fuel. Several fires were raging below decks, and while the flooding had been contained – for now – some 650 tons of sea water filled the cruiser’s forward compartments. Worryingly, this flooding meant the ship was listing 10° to starboard. The ship had no working wireless left, and even her own internal telephone system had broken down; hence Bell was using a chain of messengers to relay his orders. Fortunately, her engines hadn’t been damaged and so she was still making 25 knots. She was now approximately 13,000 yards, or 6½ miles, to the south-east of her adversary. Ajax and Achilles had been battered a little, but they had largely been spared any serious damage. At 7am they were still 17,000 yards to the west of the Graf Spee, steaming in echelon about 400 yards apart from each other, with Ajax slightly in the lead and Achilles slightly closer to the Graf Spee. Both ships were firing steadily, hindered only by the dense but low-lying white smoke screen laid astern of their opponent. For the moment the Graf Spee’s main guns were still firing at Exeter, and only the German ship’s aftermost 6in. guns were still firing at the two light cruisers. This situation, though, could change at any moment. The Graf Spee might turn to port, to close the range with the Exeter and finish her off; she might turn to starboard, to take on the two light cruisers; or she might alter course to the north, to make her escape by running parallel to the Uruguayan coast. Harwood knew he couldn’t expect any reinforcements, so if that happened he would have to give chase and hope he didn’t lose her when night fell. At 7:02am, Langsdorff altered course slightly to starboard, as if to clear his ‘A arcs’ so he could fire both main turrets at Ajax or Achilles. However, he also made more smoke, which hindered the accuracy of his fire as much as that of the British. It soon became clear the Graf Spee was merely making minor course changes to throw off the aim of the British gunners. Just as significantly, his aftermost 11in. turret began firing at Harwood’s flagship. So, six minutes later, Harwood ordered his two light cruisers to turn to port to close the range while keeping the Graf Spee off their port bows. This, though, meant that both ships lost the use of their after turrets as the angle of fire prevented them from firing at the enemy. Still, as Harwood later put it, at that range ‘we might just as well be bombarding her with a lot of bloody snowballs’. By closing the range he hoped to be able to use his guns more effectively, and, if the opportunity presented itself, to launch his torpedoes. From 7:09am on the forward-facing guns of the two light cruisers found the range of the Graf Spee and began hitting her. The after 11in. turret of the Panzerschiff fired back, as did the two aftermost 6in. guns when the opportunity presented itself. This duel continued for several minutes, with the British cruisers zig-zagging wildly to avoid the German salvos. In the Seafox, Kearney spotted a red glow appear behind the Graf Spee’s funnel. It was the Arado floatplane burning. At 7:16am Langsdorff had enough of this stern chase and turned hard to port to clear his main guns’ ‘A arcs’. Both turrets opened fire, and, although Ajax was straddled with three consecutive 11in. salvos, the flagship’s helmsman weaved his way safely through the shell splashes. 69
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The forward turrets of HMS Achilles after the battle. The barrels of her 6in. guns still bear scorch marks from their repeated firing during the engagement. The damaged director control tower (DCT) can be seen behind the cruiser’s open-topped bridge.
By 7:20am the range had dropped to around 12,000 yards, or 6 miles. That was close enough for Harwood to try his luck again with his 6in. guns, although he really needed to close another 1,500 yards for his shells to have any hope of penetrating his opponent’s armour. A minute later the Graf Spee tried to launch four torpedoes from her port torpedo mount in her stern, but a 6in.-shell hit on the quarterdeck had damaged the training gear, and only one 21in. G7 torpedo made it off the launcher. It missed. A few seconds later the Panzerschiff turned to starboard, circling around to the north-west. Her gun turrets turned too, and once on their new arcs – almost directly off the starboard beam – they opened fire again. By then the range had dropped to 10,000 yards. At 7:25am the salvo crashed around the Ajax, which had just turned onto a north-north-westerly course. The ship juddered as she was hit by a 11in. shell that smashed through the hull and damaged the trunking of’ X’ turret before exploding in the commodore’s cabin, below the quarterdeck in the cruiser’s stern. The explosion threw splinters scything forward through the lower deck, damaging the training mechanism of ‘Y’ turret. Both of Ajax’s two after turrets were rendered inoperable. Thanks to that one hit, Ajax had lost half of her firepower. Still, Captain Woodhouse wasn’t deterred. A minute later Ajax fired a spread of four torpedoes – the contents of her port launcher. These 21in. Mark IX torpedoes had a range of 15,000 yards and travelled at 35 knots. That meant they weren’t much faster than Harwood’s cruisers, and at that range the chances of hitting the Graf Spee were slim. Any hope of a hit was dashed three minutes later when the Graf Spee zig-zagged hard to port, making more smoke. However, Langsdorff later reported he saw them passing close astern of him. The German ship was now heading back towards the south-west on the next leg of her zig-zag, but after two minutes, at 7:30am, she turned back again, so once again she was heading north-west. By then the two cruisers were 10,000 yards, or 5 miles, off her starboard beam, heading towards the south-west. Langsdorff ordered his starboard launcher to unleash its torpedoes and this time all of them left the tube and began running towards the oncoming cruisers. At that distance the torpedoes and the cruisers had a closing speed of a mile a minute. Lieutenant Kearney in the Seafox spotted them though, and the two cruisers turned out of their way, leaving the torpedoes to run harmlessly past them 1,000 yards off their starboard beam. Harwood altered to port so his two light cruisers were now steaming fast towards the south, with the Graf Spee off their starboard bow. They were also shooting steadily at the enemy, and, while the German gunnery was now generally quite poor, the British 6in. guns were firing rapidly using hand-loading and
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scoring multiple hits. With the range now less than 9,000 yards, Dryer’s and Washbourn’s guns could now inflict some serious damage, and possibly even penetrate the enemy’s armoured belt. At 7:34pm, Langsdorff turned away again, this time heading west behind yet another smoke screen; two minutes later he turned again, this time south-west. It seemed that the pounding from Harwood’s light cruisers had encouraged Langsdorff to break off the action. In fact, one shell hit the Graf Spee’s forward turret and two more hit the after turret, but the shots didn’t penetrate the armour. Other shells struck her boat deck, starting fires there, and the base of her forward director, which was already inoperable. Then, just as the Graf Spee turned to port again Harwood was given some dispiriting news. It seemed that Ajax was down to 20 per cent of her stock of ammunition. Worse, the hoist in ‘B’ turret had malfunctioned, so only one gun was able to fire. Presumably Achilles was equally low on ammunition. Harwood now realized that the Graf Spee was running for the mouth of the River Plate and he needed to conserve what remained of his ammunition just in case she tried to turn and fight his way past him. So, at 7:38am, he gave the order to cease fire. Ten miles to the south the Exeter had also stopped firing. At around 7:30am flooding had shorted out the electrical supply to ‘Y’ turret and the cruiser lost her last remaining pair of 8in. guns. They had been firing steadily at the Graf Spee for the past half hour, but hadn’t scored any hits. So, with all his main guns out of action and his ship down by the bows and listing to starboard, Captain Bell decided to break off the action. Until then the cruiser had been steering towards the south-west, so it had effectively been shadowing the Graf Spee even though the range was increasing. Now, at 7:40am, Bell turned to port and headed away towards the south-east. The battered Exeter was now out of the fight.
In this photograph of the starboard side of the Admiral Graf Spee, taken in Montevideo, the scars of battle are all too evident. As well as the nonpenetrating hits and shrapnel scars to her hull, little remained of her Arado seaplane.
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THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE, 13 DECEMBER 1939 (PP. 72–73) When the Graf Spee was sighted at 6:14am Commodore Harwood, flying his flag from the light cruiser Ajax (1), ordered his ships to divide into two groups. The heavy cruiser Exeter turned northwest, while the Ajax and her sister ship Achilles circled round towards the north-east, and then the north-west. The plan worked – the Graf Spee switched its fire between the two groups, allowing Harwood to close the range. The Panzerschiff turned away, and by 7am the battle had turned into a stern chase. For the next 30 minutes the Graf Spee headed away from her pursuers, turning occasionally to fire her main guns. Both Achilles and Ajax were hit, and at 7:25am a German shell knocked out both of Ajax’s
after turrets (2). This scene shows the situation shortly afterwards, at 7:30am. At that moment the Graf Spee (3) was just five miles from the light cruisers, and making smoke to cover her withdrawal. Achilles (4) was slightly closer to the Graf Spee than Ajax, but both British ships were still firing at her with all of their remaining 6in. guns. Above the ships, Ajax’s Fairey Seafox floatplane (5) was helping to spot her ship’s fall of shot. She occasionally flew closer to the Graf Spee, to determine if the salvos were hitting her, but German anti-aircraft fire forced her to withdraw. Here the Seafox is shown overflying the Ajax, on her way to her spotting station off the cruiser’s starboard bow.
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Away to the north, though, the Graf Spee was still firing. At 7:36am a 6in. shell had struck Ajax high in the foremast, shooting a large part of it away. However, her main turrets had stopped firing even though the range was now just 8,000 yards. Instead she was running towards the south-west at high speed, half-hidden behind yet another cloud of white smoke. So, at 7:40am, Harwood ordered his two light cruisers to turn away to the east, behind the cover of a smoke screen. Eight minutes later, though, once it was clear that the Graf Spee had ceased fire and was steaming west, Harwood gave orders to reduce speed to 22 knots, turn around and give chase. By then the range had increased to a little under 15 miles, and the Graf Spee was barely visible, apart from her conspicuous forward superstructure. The battle of the River Plate was now officially over. The pursuit into Montevideo had begun.
THE PURSUIT Kapitän Langsdorff made no effort to renew the fight but kept heading towards the River Plate. He could still have turned north; at 8:30am he was 150 miles due east of the Uruguayan coast. He could have fought his way past Harwood’s remaining cruisers and escaped into the Atlantic. Instead, having decided his ship was sufficiently damaged to warrant urgent repairs, he had already made up his mind to put in to the neutral Uruguayan port of Montevideo. The port was about 320 miles away, so at his current speed of 24 knots it would take the Graf Spee 12½ hours to reach it. That meant she would arrive at around 9pm that evening. Meanwhile, Harwood’s two light cruisers shadowed the Panzerschiff from a safe distance. At 8am, Harwood sent the Seafox to find the Exeter as she wasn’t answering her radio. Harwood realized her wireless had probably been damaged; in fact his own flagship now lacked a working radio. While Ajax’s crew rigged a jury aerial in her topmast, signals were sent by way of Achilles. The Seafox located the cruiser and reported that she was on fire. A message by signal lamp revealed she was unable to fight but didn’t require assistance, so the aircraft was recalled. Harwood had already informed Vice-Admiral Lyon that he had been in action with a German raider and so he fully expected reinforcements to be sent to join him. Meanwhile, at 9:16am he ordered the Cumberland to sail immediately from Port Stanley to the River Plate. Within an hour the heavy cruiser was at sea and heading towards Montevideo. Later that morning Exeter established radio contact, after rigging her own jury aerial. After Bell gave Harwood a detailed report, the commodore ordered her to proceed to the Falklands for repair. Meanwhile the pursuit continued. A little after 10am the Achilles drew a little too close to the Graf Spee, and the Panzerschiff opened fire on her with her after 11in. turret. The range was 10½ miles, but when the second salvo landed close by, Captain Parry spun his ship around and pulled her out of range, making smoke. After that the ships continued as before, about 15 miles apart, as their crews dealt with their casualties and tried to repair what damage they could. The Graf Spee had suffered 95 casualties – 36 dead and 59 wounded, one of whom was Langsdorff. Six of these wounded were in a serious condition. By contrast Harwood’s light cruisers had got off surprisingly lightly – 11 killed and five injured on the two ships. Seven of the 75
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BUENOS AIRES (75 NAUTICAL MILES)
INNER BANK
RIVER PLATE
CIUDAD DEL PLATA PUNTA ESPINILLO
OUTER BANK
MONTEVIDEO 10
LA PLATA
8 GRAF SPEE 9
7
6
10 pm
ACHILLES
ARCHIMEDES BANK
SAN BOROMBON BAY
INDIO CHANNEL
ROUEN BANK
C. SAN ANTONIO
EVENTS 1. 7:15pm: the Graf Spee turns to port and fires two full salvos at Ajax. Harwood’s flagship turns away and makes smoke before resuming her pursuit. The range is 25,000 yards. 2. 8:10pm: Harwood in Ajax bears away to the south-west, leaving Achilles to continue the pursuit on her own. Harwood wants to ensure the Graf Spee does not return to the open sea by circling round the estuary. 3. 8:48pm: just as darkness falls the Graf Spee turns to port and fires the first of three full salvos at Achilles. The range is 26,000 yards 4. 8:48pm: Achilles returns fire with her forward turrets, then turns away to fire four more full salvos. However, the Graf Spee is now beyond maximum range of the British 6in. guns. 5. 8:52pm: Captain Parry of Achilles widens the range again before resuming his pursuit. 6. 9:30pm: the spotters in the Graf Spee notice that Achilles has crept closer in the darkness and is now just 12,000 yards astern of the Panzerschiff. Her after main turret fires a three-shell salvo. This is repeated twice more over the space of 15 minutes, but no hits are scored. The pursuit continues.
7. 10pm: as the Graf Spee approaches Montevideo, the Achilles is just 10,000 yards astern of her. 8. 10.40pm: the Graf Spee begins her approach into Montevideo as Langsdorff asks permission to enter the neutral harbour. 9. 10.45pm: Achilles bears away to the south after Parry is certain the Graf Spee is entering the harbour. 10. 11.45pm: the Graf Spee drops anchor in Montevideo’s outer roads.
THE PURSUIT INTO MONTEVIDEO, 13 DECEMBER 1939, 6.30PM TO MIDNIGHT Although the battle of the River Plate was effectively over by 8am, the pursuit of the Graf Spee lasted another 16 hours. When the battle ended, the Graf Spee was just over 300 nautical miles from the neutral port of Montevideo in Uruguay. Due to engine damage she was only able to make approximately 20 knots. At any time until she entered the River Plate estuary the Panzerschiff might alter course and head out towards the open sea. Much of this pursuit was uneventful, but this changed as the Graf Spee approached the entrance to the river mouth. The German warship appeared committed to enter a neutral port, either Montevideo or Buenos Aires. However, Commodore Harwood’s light cruisers had to shadow her all the way, in case the Graf Spee tried to evade her pursuers under cover of darkness. 76
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Note: Gridlines are shown at intervals of 10 nautical miles. Many of the coastal and sea features shown here take their names from the pre-war British Admiralty chart used by Commodore Harwood during the campaign. So, the Rio de la Plata is labelled River Plate, the Bahía de Samborombón is San Borombon Bay, and the Cabo San Antonio is shown as Cape San Antonio.
NTEVIDEO
PUNTA BRAVA 6
IS. DE FLORES LAS FLORES
3 10 pm
SAN CARLOS
4 PUNTA NEGRA
9 pm
MALDONADO
8 pm
PUNTE DEL ESTE
ENGLISH BANK
C. SANTA MARIA
IS. DE LOBOS 1
2
7 pm
8 pm
6 pm
5 9 pm
AJAX
ESTUARY
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dead were from Ajax. Exeter, though, had lost 56 killed and 23 wounded. Six of the wounded would never reach the Falklands. Throughout the day the pursuit continued, and, apart from the one incident with Achilles at 10am, it proved largely uneventful. The tension heightened just after 11am when the Graf Spee radioed the Ajax asking Harwood to ‘pick up the lifeboats of an English steamer’. She was the Clydebuilt tramp steamer SS Shakespear of 5,029 tons, outward bound from Montevideo. After leaving the estuary she passed the Graf Spee, but instead of sinking her Langsdorff ignored the vessel and steamed past. (A little over a year later the Shakespear would be sunk in the Mediterranean by an Italian submarine.) The pursuers and the pursued were running west-south-west now to clear the Isla de Lobos and Punta del Este where the coastline of Uruguay curved west to form the northern mouth of the River Plate’s estuary. Argentina’s Punta Rasa, marking the southern end of the estuary, was 120 miles to the south-west. Harwood estimated that it would be about 7pm before the Graf Spee passed the Punta del Este, and until then it was possible that the Graf Spee could make a break for the open sea. For an hour after that, before she reached the outer extent of the sandbars in the estuary, she could also head south, to skirt the coast of Argentina to reach open water. So, the British lookouts remained vigilant. There was another brief alarm at 3:43pm, when lookouts on the Achilles signalled ‘Enemy in sight’ after spotting what looked like the funnel of a German Hipper-class heavy cruiser on the northern horizon. Then, just before 4pm, Achilles signalled again, reporting that the funnel belonged to a modern British merchant ship, the SS Delane. So, the pursuit continued, and it was looking increasingly likely that the Graf Spee was heading for
Some of the crew of the Ajax pictured some time after the battle. Apart from the two petty officers and a few leading hands, most of these sailors, from a variety of departments, appear to be very young – this would have been their first seagoing ship.
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Montevideo. By 6pm she was within sight of the lighthouse at Punta del Este, and the Uruguayan coast stretched away off her starboard bow. Langsdorff planned to pass to seaward of the Isla de Lobos, and by 7pm the Panzerschiff was abreast of the island. This was the point where the ship could no longer escape to the north. In fact Langsdorff had already radioed the SKL in Berlin informing them of his fight and of his intention to put in to Montevideo. Some 15 minutes later, as the British ships approached the islands, the Graf Spee suddenly altered course to port and opened fire on Ajax, which had closed to within 12½ miles. She fired two full salvos from her main guns, and Harwood turned away, making smoke. However, the pursuit continued. Now the Graf Spee was approaching the Punta Negra. There she would turn due west across the mouth of a wide shallow bay until she passed the Punta Brava, the headland 70 miles away that marked the entrance to Montevideo. Captain Parry of the Achilles decided to risk the narrow channel between the Isla de Lobos and the Punta del Este. Ajax, however, bore away to the south, just in case the Panzerschiff tried to turn towards the open sea. That evening sunset fell shortly after 8pm and darkness was expected at 8:42pm. At 8:48pm, as the sky was almost dark, the Graf Spee turned and opened fire on the Achilles, which was now passing the Punta Negra and directly astern of the German ship. The range was just over 26,000 yards, or 13 miles. On Achilles Parry and his bridge crew were admiring the ‘magnificent sunset’ in front of them when the first of three salvos landed ahead of them. Achilles returned fire with five salvos of her own, but this was more a show of bravado than anything else. Parry turned away to starboard, and noted that the third German salvo landed directly in his wake. His ship would have been hit if he’d held his course. He soon resumed the pursuit but he had to move closer to the enemy in order to keep her in sight. He could now see the glow of Montevideo ahead of him. The Graf Spee noticed this shortening of the range, and just after 9:30pm Ascher fired three partial salvos from his after 11in. turret over the space of 15 minutes at a range of approximately 12,000 yards, or 6 miles. None of the salvos came close enough to Achilles to warrant Parry altering course. The two ships ran on through the darkness, passing the shoal known as the English Bank as they did so. By now the Graf Spee was clearly illuminated by the lights of Montevideo, and, although by 10pm the range had dropped to just 10,000 yards, or 5 miles, Parry couldn’t fire without risking hitting Montevideo itself. So, Parry could only watch as the Graf Spee turned to starboard after passing the Punta Brava and approached the harbour entrance. There she waited for permission to enter. When it came Langsdorff entered the harbour and, a little after 11.30pm, she reached her assigned position in the outer roads and the anchor was let slip. Fifteen minutes later the Graf Spee was safely riding at anchor off Montevideo. Captain Parry of the Achilles watched her enter and then bore away to the south to rendezvous with Harwood. The commodore had no idea how long his opponent would remain in the port. Meanwhile, he returned to the open waters off the estuary and waited for reinforcements. For the moment his job was done. The next fight would be fought by diplomats rather than by sailors. 79
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MONTEVIDEO
Eugen Millington-Drake (1889– 1972) was the British diplomatic minister to Uruguay when the Graf Spee entered Montevideo. He was therefore responsible for urging the Uruguayan government to delay the departure of the Panzerschiff until Harwood’s squadron off Montevideo was reinforced.
The arrival of the Admiral Graf Spee in Montevideo created a furore. Intense diplomatic activity began even before she dropped anchor, while news of her battle was eagerly reported in the world’s press. Soon news reporters were flocking to the city as for a week the Uruguayan capital became the centre stage of an international drama. The Uruguayan president and his cabinet were forced to walk a diplomatic tightrope, maintaining their friendly relations with Britain while not antagonizing their country’s proGerman lobby. Under international law, the Graf Spee could only stay for 24 hours in a neutral port to carry out repairs deemed necessary to make the vessel seaworthy. Everything depended on the definition of seaworthiness. The German ambassador pressed for a two-week extension, while his British counterpart demanded the Panzerschiff should put to sea immediately. The authorities duly inspected the damage after Kapitän Langsdorff released his 68 British prisoners, landed his seriously wounded and arranged for the burial of his dead crew. Then, the following morning, Harwood contacted the British ambassador asking him to delay the sailing until his squadron could be reinforced. This volte-face relied on another nicety of international law: a belligerent warship couldn’t sail within 24 hours of the departure of an enemy merchantman. So, that evening the SS Ashworth left Montevideo, which meant the Graf Spee couldn’t sail before 6pm on 16 December. By then Harwood had been reinforced by the Cumberland, whose eight 8in. guns would dramatically increase the squadron’s firepower. In Freetown, Vice-Admiral Lyon ordered the cruisers Dorsetshire and Shropshire to sail from Cape Town for Montevideo, while Force K – the Ark Royal and the Renown – were about to enter Rio de Janeiro to refuel. They were expected off the River Plate on 19 December. Then the fate of the Graf Spee would be sealed. In fact the sailing of the Ashworth was irrelevant; the authorities granted Langsdorff 72 hours to repair his ship. In other words, he had until the evening of 17 December. Then, the British diplomats turned to subterfuge. Rumours soon abounded in Montevideo that Force K had arrived off the River Plate. The Graf Spee’s gunner officer even thought he saw them, far out in the estuary. In fact he was seeing the Cumberland and the Olynthus. Langsdorff duly signalled the SKL reporting that there was ‘no prospect of breaking out into the open sea and getting through to Germany’. He then added, ‘If I can fight my way through to Buenos Aires with ammunition still remaining I shall endeavour to do so.’ Finally, he asked instructions concerning scuttling the ship or having her interned if the situation demanded it. In Berlin, Admiral Raeder left the decision to Langsdorff. On 16 December he approved a running fight to the more pro-German Argentinean port, or the scuttling plan if all else failed. However, he ruled out internment. Langsdorff considered his two options. He felt that a running fight to Buenos Aires would be unsuccessful, as he thought Renown was lying in wait
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N
Las Flores
Buenos Aires
Mercedes
Dolores
Chascomús
La Plata
Dolores
Fray Bentos
Gualeguaychú
C. San Antonio
S AN BO RO MBO N B AY
Montevideo
San José
Trinidad
Durazno
Florida
Maldonado
Minas Rocha
Treinta-y-Tres
Punta del Este Is. de Lobos
The estuary of the River Plate, 13–17 December 1939
0
0 100km
Graf Spee approach German withrawal British approach British pursuit
100 miles
Battle of the River Plate
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LEFT On 15 December the Graf Spee’s 36 dead were buried in Montevideo with full military honours. Kapitän Langsdorff gave a naval salute to the fallen, but Otto Langmann, the German ambassador, and the two priests are all pictured giving the Nazi salute. RIGHT The Admiral Graf Spee in the outer roads of Montevideo harbour on 17 December, as her crew prepared her for her last voyage. The ship in the background is the German ship Tacoma, of the Hamburg Amerika Line, which followed the Panzerschiff to sea carrying most of the warship’s crew on board her.
for him. The Graf Spee’s crew would be sacrificed for no likely gain. So he opted for scuttling. On 17 December he made his preparations. That day he destroyed his ship’s confidential files and code books, and his ship’s top-secret fire control equipment. Then he had scuttling charges rigged inside her magazines and other key compartments. Finally, 900 of her crew were transferred to the German tanker Tacoma, anchored in Montevideo roads. A skeleton crew of 220 men remained on board. Then, two hours before the deadline expired at 8pm, the Graf Spee recovered her anchor and at 6.30pm she put to sea, her battle ensigns flying. Thousands of onlookers crowded the Montevideo waterfront, to watch her begin her final voyage.
THE FINAL ACT Commodore Harwood brought his three cruisers to the east of Montevideo that evening, lying beyond the English Bank. They were at action stations and ready for battle. On Achilles, Lieutenant Washbourn described how the crew clustered around their radio sets, listening to the American broadcasters describe the Graf Spee’s departure. Harwood ordered the Ajax’s Seafox aloft
Most of the pictures of the Graf Spee following her scuttling were taken the following morning, but the fires were still raging. The scuttling charges broke her hull in two, directly abaft of her after turret, which also lost its barrels.
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to follow the Panzerschiff’s progress. As the Graf Spee left the harbour the Tacoma followed her out. The tanker kept a mile astern of the warship as both of them headed south-south-east. Then, four miles from the shore and a mile beyond Uruguayan territorial waters, the Graf Spee slowed and stopped. So too did the Tacoma, and her Kriegsmarine passengers watched as the Graf Spee dropped anchor for the last time. On board the Panzerschiff the skeleton crew lowered boats and then set their scuttling charges. It was now almost sunset. Ten miles away, Lieutenant Washbourn remembered ‘a glorious, clear evening, with a vivid sunset over the Argentinean coast’. The sun was setting by the time the remaining German crew took to their boats, and set off towards the waiting Tacoma. The navigating officer, Korvettenkapitän Wattenberg remembered the scene: ‘At the very last we five officers gathered with our captain on the quarterdeck, the flag and pennant were hauled down, and then we got into the captain’s launch, which had also come alongside. We went about a mile away, and then awaited the moment until the fuse should do its work.’ Then, 20 minutes after Langsdorff stepped aboard the launch, at 7:54pm the scuttling charges were detonated. Explosions ripped through the Graf Spee from stem to stern. Oberleutnant zur See Rasenack was one of the group of watching officers and to him the explosion looked like a volcano as a column of flame shot up, followed by others. Two of the guns from the stern
The scuttling charges which destroyed the Graf Spee did little damage to her upperworks. Although the wreck slowly sank into the mud of the seabed, her towering forward superstructure remained a visible reminder of the wreck until the early 1950s.
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4
2
3
6
5
1
THE SCUTTLING OF THE KMS GRAF SPEE, 17 DECEMBER 1939 (PP. 84–85) At. 6:30pm on 17 December the Graf Spee left Montevideo harbour followed by the German tanker Tacoma, which was carrying most of the warship’s crew. Four miles beyond the harbour the Graf Spee (1) stopped, and about 30 minutes later ship’s boats began putting off from the Panzerschiff, carrying away the last of her skeleton crew to the Tacoma (2), which was waiting a mile away, accompanied by three smaller hired vessels, and a Uruguayan gunboat. The last boat to leave was the captain’s launch (3), bearing Kapitän Langsdorff off his ship for the last time. Then, just as the sun was setting over the Argentinian coast to the west (4), at 7:54pm the first of several scuttling charges was detonated in the engine room. Other larger explosions followed
a split-second later (5), in the after turret and the after magazine. This blast blew the stern off the ship, and hurled the after 11in. gun barrels into the air ‘like toothpicks’. The charges in the forward turret and magazine failed to detonate. Overhead the Ajax’s Seafox (6) watched the destruction of the ship – the pilot later described the scene as ‘quite Wagnerian’. The explosions were also seen from Montevideo, but Commodore Harwood’s squadron was out of sight, but the reports of the Seafox’s observer were met with wild cheering on the British warships. As the Graf Spee, now burning furiously, settled on the seabed, her upper decks still above the water, Kapitän Langsdorff turned away, and completed his journey to the waiting Tacoma.
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On 18 December, the day after the Graf Spee was scuttled, the ships of Harwood’s squadron steamed slowly past the smouldering remains of their former adversary so their crews could savour the spectacle. The fires were still burning at noon.
turret were thrown in the air ‘as if they were toothpicks’, and a cloud rose 300 metres in the air. The explosions continued as the ship was enveloped in flames. Within minutes the Panzerschiff began to sink. The river estuary water was shallow there, and, although her keel settled on the bottom, her upper deck remained above the surface. However, her superstructure was blazing furiously, and it was clear that the ship had been utterly destroyed. Beyond the English Bank Harwood’s squadron heard the news from Lieutenant Kearney in the Firefox and from the radio broadcast. The men cheered wildly, and those that could poured on deck. On the Achilles, the crew performed an impromptu Maori war dance. The ships then edged closer, until the crew could see the funeral pyre for themselves. Above them, Lewin, piloting the Seafox described the scene as ‘Wagnerian’. Then, a little after midnight, they turned away to spend the night safely out into the deeper waters of the estuary. It was with some relief that they realized they had been spared another battle. Their job was done. The Graf Spee had been sunk – not by their guns, but by her German captain’s own hand. The Tacoma tried to set a course for Buenos Aires, but her path was blocked by the Uruguayan warship Lavelleja. Officially, the tanker had breached neutrality by taking part in a hostile act. So, she returned to Montevideo where she was duly interned. Before she entered port, though, the crew of the Graf Spee was transferred to three waiting Argentinean tugs and tenders hired by the German ambassador. They were then taken across the wide river mouth to Buenos Aires. The German commander made the journey in his own captain’s launch. The Graf Spee’s crew arrived in the port the following morning, feeling tired, hungry and dispirited. There they waited until the Argentinean authorities decided what to do with them. Finally, they were landed, and housed in the Immigrants Hotel on the waterfront. Meanwhile, 110 miles away, at the mouth of the river, the Graf Spee was still smouldering and attracting the attention of sightseers, British warships and film cameramen alike. History had been made during the night, and participants and onlookers alike seemed reluctant to leave the scene until the Wagnerian flames had consumed the skeleton of a once-proud ship. 87
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THE AFTERMATH
The damaged heavy cruiser Exeter returned to Plymouth on 15 February 1940 after undergoing temporary repairs in the Falklands. Here she is seen approaching her berth in Devonport naval dockyard, watched by a crowd of cheering sailors and dockyard workers. (Museum of Naval Firepower, Gosport)
When the crew of the Graf Spee landed in Buenos Aires on 18 December Kapitän Langsdorff expected a friendly welcome. Instead, he and his men were met with dubbed cowards in the Argentinean press for scuttling their ship rather than going down fighting. Then, the Argentinean authorities told him that the crew faced internment rather than repatriation. On the evening of 19 December he bade goodbye to his officers and retired to his room. There he wrote three letters, to his wife, his parents and, finally, to the German ambassador. The latter explained his reasons for scuttling his ship and added that ‘a captain with a sense of honour cannot separate his own fate from that of his ship’. That final task done, he unfurled a German naval ensign on his desk, took out his revolver and shot himself. His body was discovered the following morning, and that afternoon Langsdorff was buried with full military honours in the German section of Buenos Aires’ La Chacharita cemetery. The crew of the Graf Spee were sent to a series of internment camps in Argentina and there they would sit out the rest of the war. A few dozen internees escaped and eventually made their way back to Germany, but most were content to remain where they were. In March 1945, when for purely diplomatic reasons
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Argentina declared war on Japan and Germany, the internees became prisoners of war. Finally, in February 1946, the remaining 900 officers and men of the Graf Spee were transported home on a British liner. A further 168 elected to remain in Argentina and later other former internees returned to join them. As for the Altmark, when she learned that the Graf Spee had been scuttled she abandoned her arranged rendezvous and headed south. She remained in the remote southern latitudes of the South Atlantic for several weeks, before the SKL advised that it was safe enough to attempt to return home. On board were 299 British prisoners of war. While Langsdorff had planned to land them in a neutral port, Kapitän Dau was less magnanimous. He had no love for the British – he had been their prisoner during the last war – and besides, he felt that putting in to port would be an unwarranted risk. So, his prisoners remained on board as he steamed home. He left his loitering area on 22 January 1940 and on 11 February he slipped unnoticed through the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland. Three days later the Altmark arrived in neutral Norwegian waters. During her voyage down the Norwegian coast the Altmark was intercepted three times by patrol boats of the Norwegian navy, off Trondheim, the
In February 1940 Captain Philip Vian (1895–1968) was the commander of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla, and it was he who took his flotilla leader Cossack into the Jøssingfjord to capture the Altmark, an operation he carried out with great dash and skill.
The Tribal-class destroyer HMS Cossack. On the evening of 16 February she entered Norwegian waters, then entered the Jøssingfjord to board and capture the Altmark. A total of 305 captive British merchant seamen were set free as a result, including 67 Lascars.
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Officers of HMS Ajax pictured on the occasion of a new honour being added to the ship’s list of battle honours. Before the war ended Ajax, the seventh British warship to bear the name, would accrue another eight battle honours.
The Altmark, pictured in the Jøssingfjord in Norway after her capture by the destroyer Cossack in February 1940. The supply ship was recovered by the Germans after the incident, and after being renamed the Uckermark she resumed her duties. She was eventually destroyed by an accidental explosion in Yokohama in November 1942.
Sognefjord and finally off Bergen. Each time she was given a perfunctory search, but the boarding parties believed Dau when he told them he had no prisoners on board. On the third occasion off Bergen Dau refused a more thorough search, which would have revealed his captives in the hold. So, escorted by a small Nowegian warship, the Altmark continued on past Bergen to the Jøsingfjord south of Stavanger. By putting in to a fjord each night Dau hoped to avoid being spotted by the British. However, on 16 February, the ship was sighted by the RAF’s Coastal Command and reported to a British naval group in the area. It consisted of the light cruiser Arethusa and five destroyers. They were ordered to intercept the German tanker. One of these destroyers was the Cossack commanded by Captain Philip Vian. On the evening of 16 February he entered Jøsingfjord to find his path blocked by the two escorting Norwegian torpedo boats. Vian radioed the Admiralty for instructions and was eventually told to capture the Altmark come what may. So, taking the risk of being fired on by the Norwegians, Vian brought the Cossack alongside the Altmark. Dau tried to ram the destroyer, but only managed to run his tanker aground. The British boarding party sprang across and quickly took control of the tanker. Six armed German seamen were killed during the assault and six wounded, while only one of the boarders was injured. Then, Lieutenant Turner had the hatches opened and shouted down, ‘Any British down there?’ On the answer ‘Yes’, Turner told the prisoners to come on up, and added the celebrated line, ‘The navy’s here!’ The 299 prisoners – all victims of the Graf Spee – were duly liberated.
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On 23 February 1940 the ships’ companies of Exeter and Ajax marched through London to Whitehall, before being inspected by King George VI on Horse Guards Parade. This scene by Sir Muirhead Bone commemorates the occasion. (Private Collection, London)
As for the three warships that fought the Graf Spee, all of them were sent away for repairs. First, though, Ajax and Achilles paid courtesy calls to both Montevideo and Buenos Aires, where they received an enthusiastic welcome. Achilles then went to New Zealand by way of the Falklands and arrived in Auckland on 23 February 1940. Her repairs would last three months. After temporary repairs in the Falkland Islands, the Exeter began her journey home on 21 January escorted by a replay of British warships. She finally arrived at Devonport naval dockyard in Plymouth on 15 February, and began the repairs that would last for the rest of the year. Ajax was already there, having arrived on 31 January. She, though, would be sent round to Chatham for her repairs, which would last until June. On 23 February, as Achilles berthed in Auckland amid the cheers of wellwishers, the crews of Exeter and Ajax were paraded in front of King George VI on Whitehall’s Horse Guards Parade. Then the crew paraded through the streets of London before attending a Lord Mayor’s Banquet in Guildhall. The guest of honour was newly promoted ViceAdmiral Harwood, who had been knighted by the king that morning. In the speeches that followed, the First Lord of the Admiralty said, ‘The brilliant sea fight which Admiral Harwood conceived and which those here executed takes its place in our naval annals, and I may add, that in a dark cold winter, it warmed the cockles of the British heart.’ This summed up the national mood. The British public were delighted by the outcome of the battle, and by the spirited way it had been fought, in the finest tradition of the Royal Navy.
The funeral of Kapitän Langsdorff took place in the German section of the La Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires, attended by his officers and men, by Argentinean officials and by Captain Pottinger of the SS Ashlea, one of his victims.
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THE BATTLEFIELD TODAY Naturally there isn’t anything to see of the battlefield 200 miles off the coast of Uruguay – just the open sea. However, it still lies astride the shipping lane leading in and out of the River Plate, one of the busiest waterways in South America. The Rio de la Plate (‘River of Silver’) was named for its economic value to the Spanish and today it remains just as important to the economies of Argentina and Uruguay. Few of the crews of the great ships which pass over the battlefield today, though, even know what happened there in December 1939. Little too remains of the four ships who fought there. The Exeter rejoined the fleet in 1941 and was then sent east to join the British Eastern Fleet, based in Ceylon. She was en route to Singapore when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In January 1942 she formed part of ABDA, a joint American, British and Dutch naval force tasked with protecting the East Indies. On 27 February she took part in the battle of the Java Sea, but although damaged she survived the debacle. Two days later, on 1 March, she was overwhelmed by a Japanese heavy cruiser squadron. She and her escorting destroyers
The Admiral Graf Spee carried two rangefinders to help direct the ship’s main guns. Two more secondary ones were housed on the turret roofs. These were 10.5m (34.5ft) long and made by Zeiss. This one, recovered from the wreck in 2004, is displayed in Montevideo. (Private Collection, Montevideo)
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were sunk. While most of her crew were captured, many of them, including veterans of the River Plate, died in captivity. Both Ajax and Achilles survived the war. Ajax saw extensive service in the Mediterranean and took part in the D-Day landings. She was finally decommissioned in 1948, and scrapped the following year. Achilles was formally transferred to the Royal New Zealand Navy when it was formed on 1 October 1941, and so became HMNZS Achilles. She fought in the Pacific before being badly damaged off New Georgia in January 1943. She only returned to service during the final weeks of the war against Japan. She was returned to the Royal Navy in 1946, and two years later she was transferred to the Royal Indian Navy and renamed the INS Delhi. In 1956, she starred in the film Battle of the River Plate, where she played her former self. She remained in Indian service until 1978. Appropriately, two of her turrets have been preserved – one in New Zealand, the other in India. As for the Graf Spee, her wreck slowly settled into the muddy bottom of the River Plate estuary until, by 1948, only the top of her forward superstructure was still visible. It had been partly broken up during 1941–43 when her smaller guns and fittings were removed by a Montevideo salvage company. Her fire-control systems were duly examined by British experts. In 1946 the survivors of the Graf Spee sailed past it on their way home to Germany. By the early 1950s the wreck finally remained submerged below the surface: her hull had broken in two during the scuttling, just in front of the bridge. One of her 6in. guns was removed in 1997, and, after restoration, it was put on display in front of the National Maritime Museum in Montevideo. Then, in early 2004 a commercial salvage team in conjunction with the Uruguayan government examined the wreck prior to dismantling her remains,
A 6in. (15cm) SK C/28 gun from the Graf Spee, one of eight mounted on the ship, each in their own single turret, with four guns on each side of the ship’s main superstructure. Although 377 rounds were fired from them during the battle, no direct hits were scored by them. This gun is now on display in Montevideo (Private Collection, Montevideo)
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which had been deemed a hazard to navigation. However, elements of the ship were duly recovered in order to be preserved, the recovery funded in part by private backers. One of these artefacts was the ship’s main rangefinder which is now on display in Montevideo. More work was undertaken in 2006, when the German eagle and swastika which emblazoned the ship’s stern were recovered. However, the wreck remains in situ and is still relatively intact. Plans have been mooted to recover her so she can be preserved as an historic ship, but financial and legal obstacles mean that, for now, she remains exactly where was on 17 December 1939, when Kapitän Langsdorff stepped off her for the last time.
FURTHER READING Bekker, Cajus, Hitler’s Naval War, Macdonald & Jane’s: London, 1974 Bennet, Geoffrey, Battle of the River Plate, Ian Allen Ltd: Shepperton, 1972 Breyer, Siegfried, Pocket Battleship Admiral Graf Spee, Schiffer Publishing Ltd: Atglen, PA, 1999 Campbell, John, Naval Weapons of World War Two Conway, Maritime Press: London, 1985 Dove, Patrick, I was Graf Spee’s Prisoner, Cherry Tree Books: London, 1940 Friedman, Norman, Naval Firepower: Battleship Guns and Gunnery in the Dreadnought Era, Seaforth Publishing: Barnsley, 2008 ——, British Cruisers: Two World Wars and After, Seaforth Publishing: Barnsley, 2010 Gardiner, Robert (ed.), Conway’s All the World’s fighting Ships, 1922–1946, Conway Maritime Press: London, 1980 ——, The Eclipse of the Big Gun: The Warship, 1906–45, Conway Maritime Press: London, 1991 Grove, Eric J., The Price of Disobedience: The Battle of the River Plate Reconsidered, Sutton Publishing: Stroud, 2000 Hansen, Hans Jügen, The Ships of the German Fleet, 1848–1945, Naval Institute Press: Annapolis, MD, 1988 Jackson, Robert, Kriegsmarine: The Illustrated History of the German Navy in WWII, Aurum Press: London, 2001 Lavery, Brian, Churchill’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1939–1945, Conway: London, 2006 Mallmann Showell, Jak, Hitler’s Navy: A Reference Guide to the Kreigsmarine, 1939–1945, Seaforth Publishing: Barnsley, 2009 Mashall, Ian, Armoured Ships: The Ships, Their Settings, and the Ascendancy that Sustained them for 80 Years, Conway Maritime Press: London, 1990 Miller, David, Langsdorff and the Battle of the River Plate, Pen & Sword Naval: Barnsley, 2013 Millington-Drake, Eugen, The Drama of Graf Spee and the Battle of the River Plate: A Documentary Anthology, 1914–1964, Peter Davis: London, 1964 Pope, Dudley, The Battle of the River Plate, Chatham Publishing: London, 1999 Powell, Michael, Graf Spee, Hodder & Stoughton: London, 1956 Preston, Anthony (ed.), Jane’s Fighting Ships of World War II, Bracken Books: London, 1989 Roberts, John, British Warships of the Second World War, Conway Maritime Press: London, 2000 Roskill, S. W., The War at Sea, 1939–45 Volume 1: The Defensive, HMSO: London, 1954 Stephen, Martin, Sea Battles in Close-Up: World War 2, Ian Allan Ltd.: Shepperton, 1988 Whitley, M. J., Cruisers of World War Two: An International Encyclopaedia, Arms & Armour Press: London, 1995 ——, Battleships of World War Two: An International Encyclopaedia, Arms & Armour Press: London, 1998 ——, German Capital Ships of World War Two, Arms & Armour Press: London, 1989 Woodman, Richard, The Battle of the River Plate: A Grand Delusion, Pen & Sword Naval: Barnsley, 2008
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INDEX Note: page locators in bold refer to illustrations, captions and plates. ABDA 92 Admiralty War Memorandum 16 after triple turret ‘Dora’ 23 Allied diplomacy before German invasion of Poland 10 Allied hunts for the Graf Spee 52– 57, 53, 54, 55, 56 Allied warship complement in hunt for the Graf Spee 31 American Civil War, the 9 AP shells 62, 67 Arado Ar-196 floatplane (Germany) 35, 38–39, 39, 41, 42, 46, 71 Argentinian treatment of Graf Spee crew 87, 88–89 armaments 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 59, 66 armour protection 67, 70 Ascher, Korvettenkapitän 59, 61, 62, 79 Atlantic Trade Warfare Plan 13, 14 B-Dienst (Funkbeobachtungsdienst Naval Radio Monitoring Service) 13, 32, 37, 40, 42, 52 battle ensigns 58 battle honours 90 Battle of the River Plate (film) 55, 93 Bell, Captain Frederick 20, 20, 55, 58, 61, 61, 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 75 Bongardts, Fliegerunteroffizier 35, 37 breach of Uruguayan neutrality 87 British Admiralty, the 14, 15, 15–16, 26, 32, 90 British naval strategy to protect merchant shipping 11, 14–16 British reliance on maritime trade 11 casualties and deaths 9, 59, 61, 62, 65, 67, 75–78, 82, 90, 93 chronology of events 5–8 Churchill, Winston 61 clarification of orders for the Graf Spee 35 commerce raiding 9, 10–11, 12, 13 ‘concentrated fire’ plan 65 convoy system 14, 15, 16
coronation naval review 25, 63 Dau, Kapitän Heinrich 34, 35, 39, 41, 89, 90 DCT (director control tower) 62, 65, 70 deceptions used to mask naval identity 37, 38–40, 41, 46, 47, 54 design of British heavy cruisers 26–27 diplomatic negotiations in Montevideo 80, 80 diplomatic protocol at neutral ports 52, 79, 80 displacement 21, 22, 25, 26, 29, 63 Dove, Captian Patrick 45, 45 Edwards, Captain John 41, 41–42 ensign of the Kriegsmarine 10, 10, 24 Fairey-Seafox float plane (UK) 57, 65, 72–74, 75, 82–83, 84–86 ‘flank marking’ 55–56 focal points 16, 55 food provision 43 Forbes, Admiral Sir Charles 32 Force G 31, 34, 54 Force H 52, 52 Force K 27, 30, 31, 54, 80 Force X 54, 55 Franco-Polish Treaty (1921) 9 French Navy, the 52–54 funding for the Panzerschiffe 23–24 funeral of Kapitän Langsdorff 91 George VI, King 25, 91, 91 German naval development 10, 22–23 German naval strategy before World War II 10–11, 12–14 gunnery salvo tactics 56, 62 Harwood, Vice-Admiral Henry 16, 16, 18, 18–19, 34, 52, 54–56, 56, 58, 62, 63, 66, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80, 82–83, 91 Hitler, Adolf 10, 13, 32, 35 Horse Guards Parade and inspection 91, 91 hunting grounds selected for commerce raiding 34–35, 43
intelligence gathering 12, 13, 16, 51, 52 international maritime law 14, 35, 80 Jennings, Lt. Cdr. Jennings 59 KM (Kriegsmarine) Panzerschiffe 9, 9, 10, 11, 14, 19, 21–24 Admiral Scheer 10, 24 Deutschland 10, 24, 34 Troßchiffe (supply ships) 13 Altmark 4, 12, 14, 32, 34, 39–40, 41, 42, 46, 47, 51, 89–90, 90 KMS Admiral Graf Spee 4, 4–5, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 24, 30, 32, 36, 43, 54–55, 92 and battle of River Plate 57–61, 60, 62–65, 63, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 71–75, 72, 74 breakout into Atlantic Ocean 32–34, 33 cruise route for commerce raiding 36, 37–45, 44, 46, 47–51 last voyage and scuttling of 5, 80– 82, 82, 83, 83–87, 84–86, 87 pursuit into Montevideo 75–79, 76–77 salvage of wreck 92, 93, 93–94 Langmann, Otto 82 Langsdorff, Kapitän zur See Hans 5, 17, 17–18, 25, 30, 32, 34–35, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45–46, 47, 50, 51–52, 57–58, 62, 63–64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 75, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 86, 87, 88, 91 Lascars 89 Leander-class light cruisers 19, 19, 28, 29–30, 31 London Naval Treaty, the 28 Lyon, Vice-Admiral Sir George D’Oyly 52, 54, 75, 80 Marineleitung (Naval Command) 22 merchant shipping victims 36, 37, 37–40, 40, 41, 41–42, 42, 43–45, 45, 46, 46–47, 48–50, 51, 51, 54, 78, 80 Millington-Drake, Eugen 80
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National Maritime Museum, Montevideo 93 naval hunting groups 27, 30, 31, 34, 52, 52, 54, 55 Nelson, Vice-Admiral 11 North Sea maritime exits 15, 32 outbreak of World War II 4, 5 Panzerschiffe design 22–23 Parry, Captain Edward 20, 20, 55, 65, 75, 79 Plan Z 10 ‘pocket battleship’ (battlecruiser) as new warship type 9, 18, 21, 21–22, 23 Pottinger, Captain 39, 91 Pound, Sir Dudley 15 Presse, Paul 22 prisoners 18, 35, 39, 41, 45–46, 47, 51, 51, 80, 89, 90 privateering 9 pursuit of Graf Spee to Montevideo 75–79, 76–77 radio damage 7 radio signals 13, 35, 40 radio silence, importance of 14, 35, 40, 42 Raeder, Grossadmiral Erich 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 23–24, 32, 80 RAF Coastal Command 90 rangefinder 92, 94 reconnaissance 35, 38–39, 39, 41, 42, 46, 57, 57 refuelling 12, 13, 35, 45, 55 remains of the battlefield 92–94 rendezvous of Altmark and Graf Spee 4, 14, 34, 37, 39–41, 42, 45, 47, 51
repairs 15, 75, 80, 88, 91 restrictions on naval armaments 21, 28, 63 River Plate, battle of the 26, 28, 57–75, 59, 60, 62, 64, 68, 70, 71, 72–74 River Plate estuary 81 RM (Reichsmarine) 17 German East Asia Squadron 9, 24 Royal Australian Navy 20 Royal Navy 11, 13, 15, 16, 42 4th Destroyer Flotilla 89 HMS Achilles (light cruiser) 20, 20, 26, 28, 29–30, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 62, 62, 65–66, 68, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72–74, 75, 78, 79, 82, 87, 91, 93 HMS Ajax (light cruiser) 19, 19, 28, 29–30, 31, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72–74, 75, 78, 78, 79, 90, 91, 91, 93 HMS Ark Royal (carrier) 7, 30, 39, 54, 80 HMS Cossack (destroyer) 89, 90, 90 HMS Cumberland (heavy cruiser) 34, 35, 37, 38, 52, 55, 80 HMS Exeter (heavy cruiser) 19, 20, 20, 26, 27, 27, 28, 29, 37, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58–62, 59, 60, 65, 66, 66–68, 69, 71, 72–74, 75, 78, 88, 91, 91, 92–93 HMS Hermes (carrier) 54, 55 HMS Neptune (light cruiser) 52, 54 HMS Renown (battlecruiser) 5, 27, 30, 54, 80–82 HMS Shropshire (heavy cruiser) 52, 52, 80
New Zealand Division 20, 20, 26, 28 RFA Olynthus (tanker) 55, 80 Royal New Zealand Navy 20, 28, 93 RRR distress signal 38, 41, 41, 45, 46–47, 50 signal pad 56 sinking of the Graf Spee 5 SKL (Seekriegsletiung, Naval Warfare Command) 5, 35, 37, 40, 42, 43, 51, 52, 79, 80, 89 Spanish Civil War, the 17, 25 specifications 25, 29–30 Spee, Countess Huberta von 24 Spee, Vizeadmiral Graf von 9 Spee, Vizeadmiral Maximilian von 24 speed 23, 25, 29, 30, 66, 75 SS Doric Star (merchant ship) 4647, 46, 48-50, 51, 54 Stubbs, Captain William 46, 50, 51 Tacoma (merchant ship) 82, 83, 86, 87 transmitting station 24 Treaty of Versailles, the 21, 63 trials 25 ‘Underway Replenishment’ 13 Vian, Captain Philip 89, 90 Washbourn, Lt. 65, 66, 71, 82, 83 Washington Naval Treaty, the 26 Wattenberg, Korvettenkapitän 83 Wilhelmshaven dockyard 10, 11, 24 Woodhouse, Captain Charles 19, 19, 20, 70 Zenker, Vizeadmiral Hans 22, 24
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