Posted on 12/05/2019 6:37:12 AM PST by C19fan
The Hood was long over due for a complete refit and upgrade. She was carrying mines and torpedoes for pete’s sake. A good hit got their magazine and that was the end.
Yes, but the Germans could not out run or out shoot the British.
That’s pretty cool.
Like a door in a horror movie.
I should say the building did take a hit one time.
A bomb crashed through the roof and two apartments (of 5 floors) then exploded.
No one was injured.
The building is a few blocks from Tempelhof Airport (now a National Park).
The British ships, even though alerted, were in harbor but didn't have up a full head of steam and were sitting ducks, as some were coaling. There was also the possibility of sinking any ship in the harbor's mouth and bottling up the fleet. Spee's ships all had torpedo tubes and, IMO, could have done some serious damage.
Sure, they would have been blown apart, but some of the survivors might have made it to shore. The argument still goes on with enough arguments pro and con to make the "What Ifs" ambiguous.
Two light cruisers of that China squadron created some "Holy Cow" history:
The Emden raised pure Hell in the Indian Ocean before being tracked down off the Cocos islands and run aground to prevent sinking. The stranded 53-man landing crew grabbed a schooner and sailed it to Yemen, fought through British-paid Arabs and six months and almost 7,000 miles later made it back to Germany with only four lost.
Another Emden officer escaped the British POW camp, made it through the ENTIRE length of Borneo, was recaptured and then, in Singapore, instigated a revolt of the Indian troops there.
The Konigsberg ran for Africa, holed up in the Rufigi delta, was damaged beyond repair. The crew took her 10-gun armament, converted them to field pieces and joined von Lettow-Vorbeck's guerrilla campaign.
In 1976 the Brits made a VERY loosely based movie on that one, but if you delve into the history of some of these "minor" WW I naval battles, you see the potential for a series of great war/adventure films.
Those guys were made of sterner stuff than what we see in Germany today.
In the Falklands, what a great place.
“The complete destruction of the German squadron killed about 2,200 German sailors and officers, including two of Spee’s sons.”
“All 860 officers and men on board Scharnhorst, including Spee, went down with the ship.”
A family friend in the Navy during WW2 filmed the scuttling of the Graf Spree, Only to lose the film when his third ship was sunk under him. Howard Coleman, USN, WW2, RIP.
Go to Montevideo today and part of the Admiral Graf Spee is still visible above water.
That footage would have been a valuable memento. Better to get out with his life though.
“Blucher”
(Horses going crazy!)
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