Got busy yesterday and forgot to post.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1939/dec39/f02dec39.htm
Finns appeal to League of Nations
Saturday, December 2, 1939 www.onwar.com
In Geneva... Finland appeals to the League of Nations to mediate in their quarrel with the Soviets.
In the Winter War... There are Soviet landings with naval support near Petsamo and other units of 14th Army are attacking overland nearby. Elsewhere the slow advance of the Soviet forces continues. The Finnish defenses have not yet been reached in most areas.
In Lausanne... In Switzerland, the International Olympic Committee announces the abandonment of the Helsinki Olympic Games, planned for 1940.
In Italy... Pro-Finnish demonstrations take place in Rome.
In the Vatican... The Pope condemns Soviet aggression.
On the Western Front... A French communique reports: “A quiet day on the whole front... the air forces, on both sides, were completely inactive.”
In Britain... Conscription is extended to all men between 19 and 41 years of age, with limited occupational deferments.
In the South Atlantic... The steamer Doric Star (Blue Star Line), homeward bound from New Zealand and Australia, is attacked and sunk by the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. Meanwhile, off the coast of South Africa, the German liner Watussi is scuttled under shellfire from the battle cruiser HMS Renown.
http://www.bluestarline.org/doric.html
Built: Lithgows Ltd., Port Glasgow, Scotland
ON: 146193
Dimensions: As built: 499.8 x 64.0 x 37.0 feet As
lengthened: 529.8 x 64.0 x 37.0 feet
Tonnage: As built Gross: 10441 Net :6576 As lengthened
Gross: 10086 Net: 6347
Propulsion: Two Steam Turbines by Metropolitan Vickers Co. Ltd., Manchester, double reduction geared to single shaft.
Type: Refrigerated Cargo Liner
Launched: 24/2/1921 ( Yard No.731) as Doricstar for Eastmans Ltd., Blue Star Line (1920) Ltd. managers
Completed: 10/1921
Renamed: 1929 as Doric Star
Owners restyled: 1930 as Blue Star Line Ltd.
Lengthened: 1934 and fitted with Maierform bow by Palmers Shipbuilding & Iron Co. Ltd., Jarrow
Transferred: 1939 to Union Cold Storage Ltd., Blue Star Line managers
Captured & sunk: 2/12/1939 by the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and sunk by gunfire south of St. Helena in position 19.15S, 05.05E.[2] She was on a voyage from Auckland, Sydney, NSW and Table Bay to the UK with 8,000 tons of general cargo, including meat, dairy produce, calf skins and casein.
DORIC STAR ~ December 2nd, 1939
ON the outbreak of war on September 3rd, 1939, the 5,600 ton steamer Ionic Star, completed in 1917, lay at Rio de Janeiro. Wrecked in the Irish Sea on October 17th, she was the first war loss sustained by the Blue Star Line.
When war was declared the Doric Star, a 12-knot, 10,000 ton steamer built in 1921 and commanded by Captain William Stubbs, was on passage from the Panama Canal to Auckland, New Zealand. Laden with a full refrigerated cargo of mutton, lamb, cheese and butter from New Zealand and Australia, with a quantity of wool in bales in the ‘tween decks, she sailed for England by way of the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope. Noon on December 2nd, 1939, found her in the South Atlantic on her way home some 1,200 miles from the Cape of Good Hope and 660 miles roughly East by South of St. Helena.
Two months previously, actually on October 1st, the Admiralty had passed a message to all British merchant ships at sea warning them that a German raider might be operating off the east coast of South America. This was the result of the British Steamer Clement, of the Booth Line, having been sunk 75 miles south-east of Pernambuco, Brazil, on September 3rd. The next day American press reports announced that one of the Clement’s lifeboats had been picked up by a Brazilian coasting steamer, and that another had come ashore at Maceio, south of Pernambuco. The captain and chief engineer, it was stated, had been taken on board the raider, which, as we know now, was the pocket-battleship Admiral Graf Spee.
Having thus advertised herself the Graf Spee steamed east, and during October sank four more British ships on the trade route to the Cape. Their officers and crews were made prisoners, the bulk of them being transferred to the notorious Altmark, with which the Graf Spee was working. The last of that batch of sinking’s, the Trevanion, was on October 22nd, not far from St. Helena.
Thereafter the Graf Spee disappeared until November 15th when, having cruised for a time east of the Cape of Good Hope without success, she broke north and sank the small tanker Africa Shell at the southern end of the Mozambique Channel. The captain was made a prisoner; but the rest of the Africa Shell’s crew were allowed to make for the shore in their boats. It was on November 16th that the warning went forth that an enemy raider was at large in the Indian Ocean. On this same day the Graf Spee held up and released the Dutch cargo liner Mapia to the southward of Madagascar. Again the raider’s captain, Langsdorf must have known that these incidents would soon be reported. No doubt he hoped the news would cause a still further dispersal of the Allied naval forces already carrying on the hunt in the South Atlantic. Accordingly, he doubled back into the South Atlantic, and on November 28th met the Altmark in that lonely part of the ocean near Tristan da Cunha, and replenished his oil fuel and stores. All captains, chief officers, second officers, chief and second engineers, and radio officers were transferred from the Altmark to the Graf Spee by motor launch.
On December 2nd, homeward bound from the Cape, Captain Stubbs and the officers of the Doric Star must have known that one or more raiders were operating. All the same, it cannot have been anything but a very unwelcome surprise when at about 1.0 p.m. on that calm afternoon with its long ocean swell, a heavy shell splashed into the sea and exploded within 100 yards of the Doric Star. “A couple of minutes later a vessel was sighted about a point on the port quarter,” Captain Stubbs wrote later.
“At about 1.10 p.m. a second shell exploded within 200 yards off the starboard bow, and the overtaking vessel was seen to be a battleship.”
Those shells were fired at extreme range, before the Graf Spee’s hull was visible. What Captain Stubbs saw was the top of her tall control tower showing over the clear-cut rim of the horizon.
Some of the prisoners in the Graf Spee lived in a small central room immediately beneath the aeroplane. They had heard the ‘plane catapulted oft and the pilot, apparently, had first sighted the Doric Star and reported back by wireless.
“After first sighting the vessel,” Captain Stubbs continues,
“I ordered the Wireless Operator (Mr. William Comber) to transmit the raider distress call, also signalled the engine-room for all possible speed. After the second shot I realised it was impossible to escape, so stopped the engines and ordered the wireless operator to amplify the message and state battleship attacking. By this time I could read the daylight morse lamp from battleship signalling ‘Stop your wireless,’ but I took no notice of this signal As the battleship approached I gave orders to the engine-room to stand by for scuttling, and as it appeared that our distress call had not been heard I ordered Chief Engineer (Mr. W. Ray) to start and scuttle. A few minutes later the wireless operator reported that our message had been repeated by another British vessel and also a Greek vessel, so I countermanded the orders for scuttling, then threw overboard all confidential papers and books, breech of gun, ammunition and rifles, also all papers about cargo. After distress call had been transmitted I ordered the wireless operator to cease transmitting, as the battleship was exhibiting a notice—’ Stop your wireless or I will open fire.’ The Doric Star, a 12-knot ship with one anti-submarine gun right aft, had no alternative but to obey.”
The Graf Spee lowered a fast motor-boat, and the British ship was boarded by a party of three officers and about 30 men. They dispersed to various parts of the ship with drawn revolvers—the bridge, the wireless room and engine-room. The captain was taken to his cabin and questioned, while every hole and corner was closely examined. The wireless room was searched for codes and cyphers, and the radio officer asked if he had sent out his position, to which he replied that of course he had. Asked about his cargo, Captain Stubbs replied that he carried only wool, whereupon the Doric Star’s crew were ordered to remove the hatch covers of two of the holds. The Germans, simpler than usual, saw only bales of wool in the ‘tween decks and were satisfied. (Great was their fury, hours after the Doric Star had been sunk by gunfire and a torpedo, when they discovered she had carried more than 8 tons of refrigerated meat, butter and cheese, just the things they most urgently needed after more than 100 days at sea.)
The crew were given ten minutes to collect lifebelts, blankets, eating utensils and any effects they could carry, and were then transferred to the Admiral Graf Spee in the launch. Like other ships, the Doric Star appears to have been looted of instruments like sextants, chronometers, binoculars, telescopes and even typewriters. One British captain, who had tried to keep his presentation sextant, was roughly informed it was confiscated by the Reich. He was given a receipt for it, as well as for his ship. As for the sextant, no doubt Mr. Churchill would pay for another.
Just before he left the Doric Star Captain Stubbs saw three or four bombs exploded over the starboard side. These did not sink her, for an hour later the Admiral Graf Spee fired seven 5.9 in. shell into her, and finally sent her to the bottom with a torpedo.
Not to worry. I figured out how to throw up the onwar.com daily update. Which I did for 12/1 and 12/2.