Admiral conned Germans

Press, 31 March 1980, Page 2

Admiral conned Germans

NZPA London The British naval captain who conned the German High Command in the 1939 bqttle.of the River Plate and caused. the 1 ' German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee to be scuttled has died in London aged 84. Admiral Sir Henry McCall, whose career began in 1908 and ertded at the Coronation review at Spithead in' 1953, was Britain’s Naval Attache in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires for the first year of World War 11. When he learned of the big sea battle off Uruguay between the Graf Spee and the New Zealand cruiser Achilles and the British ships Ajax and Exeter, he flew across the River Plate to Montevideo to liaise with the British Consul there.

Sir Henry was closely, involved with the high-lev6l diplomatic manoeuvring while the Graf Spee waited inside the neutral port of Montevideo and the Achilles, the Ajax,, and the Cumberland, which had replaced the

damaged Exeter, waited outside.

He spread a story on local radio. . which was being monitored by the Graf Spee, and talked on a telephone line he knew to be tapped by the Germans about a much larger British squadron waiting outside the rivermouth for the Graf Spee. >

As a result the Germans believed the outgunned cruisers had been reinforced by a much more awesome battle fleet, including the carrier Ark Royal which was about a thousand miles up the South American coast at Rio de Janeiro.

The Graf Spee’s captain, Hans Langsdorff, relayed the story to Hitler and the High Command in Berlin. He was ordered not to let his ship be captured. Believing that he could not escape the “superior” opposing forces — later theories also believe he wanted to save lives — he scuttled his ship in the middle of the river. He committed suicide two days later.