Divers Aim To Raise The Graf Spree

IC Wales ^ | 2-4-2004

[blam]

Divers aim to raise the Graf Spee

Feb 4 2004

Divers will begin this week raising pieces of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, scuttled off Uruguay in the early days of the Second World War to avoid being sunk by a British armada.

The Battle of the River plate that led to pride of the German fleet's humiliating end rapidly become nautical folklore ... and a film.

Hector Bado, a spokesman for the salvage team, said work on the Graf Spee was scheduled to begin tomorrow but high winds and choppy waters on the broad waterway separating Uruguay from Argentina could delay the project until Friday.

A symbol of Nazi naval might, the ship prowled the South Atlantic chasing and sinking as many as nine allied merchant ships before it was crippled by British warships in a December 1939 naval engagement.

Scuttled by its captain fearing a battle with a larger naval force, the Graf Spee has remained in waters less than 25 feet deep only miles outside the port of Montevideo.

Mr Bado said the recovery team will first attempt to remove a 27 ton communications tower equipped with an early radar and what was then sophisticated sighting equipment for its 11 guns.

"The radar was one of the first to be used in that era," said Mr Bado, whose group has private funding and Uruguayan government backing for the operation which could take years.

The recovery operation is a private effort that could take three years or more and would cost millions of pounds.

The team is aiming to salvage as much of the warship as possible to put on display in Uruguay.

"It was a masterpiece in its time," said Mensun Bound, a marine archaeologist from Oxford University.

"And it doesn't have a dark history. Its captain was a man of great dignity and honour. It was a battle in which both sides came out with their honour intact."

Feared by many navies at the outset of the war, the Graf Spee - a pocket battleship which carried less powerful guns and was smaller than a conventional battleship - fought one of the early important naval battles of the war when it was spotted by British forces off the South American coast.

The Battle of the River Plate began on December 13, 1939, near the mouth of the river as the German warship was pursued by a group consisting of the British light cruisers Exeter and Achilles, and the Ajax of New Zealand, under the command of Commodore Henry Harwood.

Uruguayans by the thousands followed the battle from clifftops along the coast and from high rooftops during a booming gun battle offshore.

The Graf Spee was crippled in the fight after receiving several direct hits and Captain Hans Langsdorff decided to seek refuge in Montevideo harbour but was unable to make the necessary repairs within the 72-hour period afforded in a neutral harbour by international convention.

In a decision that avoided the Graf Spee's capture, the German warship subsequently limped out of the harbour and was sunk by Capt Langsdorff on December 17, 1939.

The crew was taken by ship to Buenos Aires and the captain committed suicide days later.

[Cobra Scott]

she was built in violation of the tonnage limits placed on the Germans by the Treaty of Versailles. But she wasn't a true Battleship by any stretch...

Once more another reference surfaces that amazes me at the similarities between the Gulf war II and WWII. (Those weren't ICBMs by any stretch, but they were built in violation of resolution 1441....)

Pretty cool. Especially since we have leadership who obviously studied some history and made some obvious conclusions.

[backhoe]

A search for "Battle of the Falkland Islands ( WWI ) and the Battle of Coronel" should yield a wealth of info regarding Admiral Graf Spee, armored cruisers versus battlecruiser, etc.

[Tallguy]

Siege of the Graf Spee

[Orangedog]

Brings back memories of the urban legend that the Ballester-Molina, the .45 ACP manufactured by HAFDASA and was rumored to have been made from salvaged Graf Spee armor.

[PAR35]

I believe the Graf Spee was completed in the '20's -- before Hitler came to power.

You must be thinking of a different ship.

Graf Spee

Laid down - Oct 1, 1932 As Panzerschiff C or Ersatz Braunschweig
Commissioned January 1, 1936 as Panzerschiffe Admiral Graf Spee

More key dates here:
http://www.feldgrau.com/grafspee.html

[Tallguy]

No, you're right. She entered service in 1936.

[curmudgeonII]

I was under the impression that much of the Graf Spee has already been salvaged for scrap metal.

[colorado tanker]

The British should have worked with the League of Nations and their European allies to disarm Germany instead of unilaterally attacking the Graf Spee. I mean, once Germany had conquered every country they wanted, weren't the effectively "contained"?

[Jimmy Valentine]

Von Spee was a very famous German Admiral in the First World War. His squadron (including the cruisers Scharnhort and Gneisnau) raised havoc in the Southern Atlantic and sank Adm. Christopher Craddock's squadron off the coast of Argentina (I think).

Von Spee in turn was sunk with all of his ships by HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible (I think) Commanded by Admiral Sir Dovton Sturdee.

Regards,

[leprechaun9]

My recollection is that the original damage that caused the Graf Spree to go into Montevideo ws caused by a shell from a destroyer that happened to take out the ship's electrical system. The delay in restoring power permitted some destroyers to get inside the minimum depression angle of their big guns. At that point Captain Langsdorff decided to enter the neutral port.

This power failure led the U.S. Navy to analyze the power distribution systems on our own ships. This task was assigned to Hymen Rickover and the A-B-C power distribution system was adopted as the U.S. Standard. This is one of the significant Rickover achievements that led to his being assigned the task of developing our first nuclear powered submarine, the Nautilis.

Another reason for Rickover's assignment to the Nautilis was the Navy high command recognized that all nuclear development was under the authority of the Atomic Energy Commission ("AEC"). As such many in the Navy command believed that Rickover would be stymied by the civilians on the AEC. He overcame this obstacle by making the point that there was no Navy liason in the AEC.

He got that position created and applied for the job. He wrote the requisitions for materials for the Nautilis with his Navy hat and approved them with his civilian hat. By the time the Navy realized what happened, the Nautilis was almost ready for sea trials.

Then Rickover was passed over for promotion and told that he had to leave. He persuaded several members of Congress that he had the world's first nuclear submarine ready for sea trials and that the Navy wanted him out. The Congress backed him and made it clear to the Navy that their budget would have a tough time, if Rickover wasn't promoted. We all know many of the milestones of the Nautilis and the birth of the submarine fleet as a dominant part of our strategic defense.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks for the ping.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: ...caused by a shell from a destroyer...

Sorry, no destroyers present. The Garf Spree battled HMS Ajax, HMS Achilles and HMS Exeter, all cruisers.

[sonofatpatcher2]

The cruisers did not have destroyer escorts. I have seen this battle plotted several times and there was only the three cruisers and the Graf Spee.

The following from: http://www.ocean98.org/spee.htm

"In the heavy engagement with the 3 allied cruisers, the Graf Spee received 20 hits, and 36 crew members were killed, 60 wounded. Langsdorff decided to disengage from the battle and head to the neutral port of Montevideo in Uruguay, to seek shelter and to repair some of the serious battle damage inflicted.

"The sailors of the merchant vessels, who were taken aboard before their ships were sunk, were set free. Although the ship was still able to fight, the holes caused by the hits would make it questionable how the ship would encounter heavy weather at sea. An additional problem was that one of the hits had destroyed the kitchen and bakery of the ship which made it almost impossible to feed its crew. These damages could not repaired by the crew while at sea."

[Paladin2b]

Actually it's even more interesting than that. Under the so-called "Cruiser Rules" the German ship couldn't leave a neutral port within a certain time period (I think it was 24-hours) of the departure of a ship from a hostile nation.

Warships in neutral ports are allowed to make repairs in order to make themselves seaworthy, they are not permitted to do anything that makes them more combatworthy. Warships that are in neutral ports for more than 24 hours can be interned for the duration. The Uruguay authorities did an inspection and gave a 72 hour extension on top of the 18 hours the ship had already been in port.

The Brits had several merchant ships in Montevideo harbor and they were letting them leave one-at-a-time in order to prevent the Graf Spee's early departure. By this gambit the British consulate was attempting to 'hold' the Graf Spee in the harbor until more Naval Forces arrived.

After realizing the real status quo the British invoked the 24 hour pursuit rule by sailing a merchant ship, Graf Spee had to then wait 24 hours before being allowed to start a (possible) pursuit. Later a second merchant ship was sailed thereby ensuring the Graf Spee could only legally leave port in daylight hours before the granted time extension expired. That was effing brilliant of the British, and that sort of thinking is why we should be happy they are close allies in 2004.

[shaggy eel]

HMNZS Achilles.

[Poohbah]

Von Spee was a very famous German Admiral in the First World War. His squadron (including the cruisers Scharnhort and Gneisnau) raised havoc in the Southern Atlantic and sank Adm. Christopher Craddock's squadron off the coast of Argentina (I think)

he raised havoc in the Pacific and sank Craddock's squadron off the coast of Chile.

The Graf's command was originally based in Tsingtao, China, and was the German East Asia Squadron.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Damn! Thanks for the clarification. I knew I was off on that (at least I got it right with South America!). If I remember von Spee ran into Sturdee by accident by sailing up to the Falklands where Sturdee's ships were refueling.

Regards,

[solitas]

Followup article (for reference): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1576482/posts

[Balding_Eagle]

The deception worked: Capt. Langsdorff was convinced that he was going to run into a British Battle Fleet instead of a few damaged light cruisers, and so he slipped anchor with a skeleton crew and scuttled the ship

Was this the reason he committed suicide? He found out he'd been fooled?

[Tallguy]

Was this the reason he committed suicide? He found out he'd been fooled?

Langsdorf & his crew were interned after the scuttling of the Graf Spee. It was very shortly thereafter that the Captain committed suicide. I would imagine that he stated his reasons in a note, but I just don't recall the specifics...