ON GRAF SPEE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1940, Page 10

ON GRAF SPEE.

PRISONER'S STORY. YOUNG AUCKLAND MAN. WENT AWAY TO ENLIST ! Born In England during the Great War nnd largely educated there, a young man Mi led away from Auckland i" October last with the intention of e.nlisting with his old schoolfellow* at ITomp. He is still on hi* way—but alronrly ho hna been in action, ha a been wounded, held as a prisoner by the liormans and been a participant in the urea tost naval action of the war to tin to.

Tho young mnn was Archard D. Dixon, whose mother, Mrs. Margaret Dixon, lives at 28, Brighton Road, I'arncll. Dixon whs one of the British seamen prisoners who secured his routine when the. Nazi pocket-battleship Admiral (Irnf Spec, was driven into Montevideo harbour, and to her doom, by the British cruisers, Exeter, Achilles nnd Ajax. In a letter to his mothe.r he told some of his adventure* of the [mat threo months.

Dixon wa« educated partly in England nnd partly in China, and for the past, four years ho had been in Xew Zealand, working mostly in the country. Whcvn tho war broke out ho decided to travel to England and to enlist there with some of his old colleagues at St. freorsre's, a public school at Harpenden. He left here on the Mariposa on October 13 for Sydney, and he had b<ven only two days in Australia when he gained a passage on the S'haw Savill vessel Tairoa a« a deck hand. Wounded in Action. 'I ho vessel, ho relates, was heading for thtt South American coast to pick up a convoy and was still some days off when, .it 4.45 a.in. on December .1, the cull cnino for "All hands on deck!" I here was a battleship on the horizon, and the Tairoa immediately signalled for identification. The warship bore down on them at full speed, however, and they saw that it wu a Nasi.

Realising her peril the Tairoa sent out a wireless S.O.S. stating that aha waa being attacked by the Deutachland. Immediately there came the boom of a gun and a shell struck the wireless room. The crew had been ordered to the boots, hut as Dixon ran to hia station lie was struck by o piece of shrapnel In the ankle. He reached the boat, but aa they pulled away a launch from the war"hip cam* alongside with a boarding party and.they wore ordered back on board.

With others of the Tairoa'a crow who had been wounded Dixon was taken oq the Graf Spee and was put into hospital, where ho states he waa well treated. The surgeon-commander who attended him tokl him that the shrapnel need not be removed if it did not cauae him any pain. He had recovered aufflciently in a week to be placed with the other prisoners in a small room jiMt above the magazine.

On December 13, he states, att hands were called to battle atations and oven tho prisoners learned that thoro wore three ships on the horizon. Tho Graf Spee made towards th#m, but when they were revealed as the Exeter, Ajax and Achilles the waitfcip warn turned again i rid made at full speed towards the Rivor Plate. Apparently, for some reason not mentioned in the letter, little is being said even by the prisoners regarding tho cctual fighting. It was a running battle for 10 hours, states Dixon, and "our (the British) shooting waa jolly good. Wa scored 19 hits, one right on top of whore we were."

When the_Graf Spee arrived in Montevideo Dixon was placed in the British hospital ashore and, at the time of writing; he was making a good recovery. His wound had practically healed and the shrapnel in hw ankle was giving him no trouble. He wag to be shipped with the other ex-prisoners to England on a British liner a few daya later.

Dixon gave no information regarding other prisoners or members of the crew, and from the form of the letter it seemed likely thai he had given an undertaking not to refer to certain aspects of the incidents in which had had • part.