ADMIRAL VON SPEE

Evening Star, Issue 21881, 19 November 1934, Page 10

ADMIRAL VON SPEE

appointment with death AMAZING STORY OF THE FALKLAHDS BATTLE True to tradition, the British naval authorities have had nothing official to say in the controversy about the Battle of Falkland Islands in which the German cruisers Seharnhorst, Leipzig, Nurnburg, and Gneisenan sunk hy the British dreadnoughts Invincible and Inflexible. The one man who might tell the whole - story is Adiniial Sir Reginald Hall, who was chief of the British Naval Intelligence Division during the war, but his bps are sealed. However, accounts which have ■ been written since the war ot the engagement, and particularly of the events which led to it, agree at so many points that it is possible to piece together a connected narrative which is as gripping as a work of fiction (writes Desmond Robinson in the Melbourne ■* Argus ’). The battle itself, important as it was to the • Allied cause, is, in retrospect, the least interesting event in the story. Jt was responsible lor the destruction of four light cruisers by two vessels of greater strength. The result was never in doubt. What amazed and worried the German- Admiralty at the time, and what has puzzled students of naval warfare since, was the fact that Admiral von Spee ,was pursuaded, contrary to laws of strategy, to run his squadron into danger when he had the seven seas to sail an, and millions of tons of enemy merchant shipping at his mercy. The In;vincible and Inflexible were dispatched to destroy von Spee, but they had first to find him. As far as the German Admiralty knew, his movements were being kept secret. Yet within a few days von Spee had been engaged and put out of action. The Germans asked themselves “ How?” The answer could have been supplied by the Naval Intelligence Division, the amazing efficiency of which was one of the most romantic and best kept secrets of the war. THE KEY s IS FOUND. That the British Admiralty was in possession of the key to the code which was being used by von Spee to communicate with Berlin is beyond doubt. It is said that the honour of discovering the key belongs to Dr. Wheatley, formerly head master of the Australian Naval College, who recently made some interesting disclosures in ‘ Reveille,’ the, Australian returned soldiers’ magazine. Dr -Wheatley said that after much fruitless effort and many disappointments in ■ seeking to decipher cryptograms, he went to see the Melbourne Cup racfi, and that it was at Flemington that the solution of the problem flashed across his mind. He at once returned to his office and spent the whole ■ night • decoding and translating intercepted messages from van Spee’s squadron. He then communicated the results of his labours to the British Admiralty. These disclosures have aroused much interest in London, where they have given rise to much, controversy. .Such discussions about, isolated, episodes of the war are always of interest, but they seldom settle anything to the satisfaction of everybody. The fact remains, in this case, that the British Admiralty obtained the key of the code from somewhere, and that the manner in which it made use of its knowledge was one of the masterstrokes of the Great War.

Ironically enough, it' is to a former enemy that we must refer for the most connected account of the episode. Captain von Rintelen was a German Naval Intelligence officer throughout the wax*. In, tixe service of the Fatherland he spent several" years in the. United States where he was head of a vast and dangerous organisation which specialised in espionage and sabotage oh a gigantic scale. He was captured at last by the astuteness of the British naval authorities, and. he learned to admire and respect the organisation which had brought about his downfall. His friendship for Admiral Sir Reginald Hall has been given wide publicity since the war. VON RINTELEN’S NARRATIVE. In his book, ‘ The Dark Invader,’ Count von Rintelen pays generous tribute to his former enemies, and gives an account of the downfall of von Spee, which he obtained partly from Sir Reginald Hall himself and partly from Lord Herschell, who was Sir Reginald Hall’s right-hand man in the intelligence service. The book contains photographs of letters written by Sir Reginald Hall to von Rintelen since the war, and the authenticity of the narrative appears to be beyond doubt. . Describing an exchange of war memo--1 ries which took place between himself. Sir Reginald Hall, and Lord Herschell many years after the Armistice, Count von Rintelen says that he asked his former enemies why Admiral von Spee had fallen so blindly into the British trap. The following conversation followed “ We knew where he would be,” said Lord Herschell, looking across at Admiral Hall. The • admiral’s eyes were staring in front of him._ “ I had telegraphed to him,” he said quietlv. “ I had telegraphed to him to let him know where our battle cruisers would meet him, and all that L ean tell you is that he turned up.” Count von Rintelen thought that he was being; laughed at, and he said 80, but. Sir Reginald Hall .was serious. He explained that he had an agent in Berlin, a clever British spy, who had informed him that when messages were to be sent to German cruisers abroad the German Admiralty merely sent a wireless message in the ordinary way. Special forms were used, however, and before the message could be sent it had to be stamped by the Admiralty and the censor’s office. “ 1 don’t know how my agent managed it, and I don’t believe I should have been much interested if I had; /all I knew was that he procured the required stamps and forms. Or they m'ay have been forged ones. Who knows?” What & story must lie behind that simple statement—a story of intrigue and adventure, which will . probably never be told. THE APPOINTMENT IS MADE. ■ At this time Admiral von Spce's squadron was anchored off Valparaiso. This was known because the Admiralty had intercepted messages from the squadron, or perhaps because of information supplied by Dr Wheatley. Sir Reginald Hall set his trap. To quote again from ‘ The Dark Invader ’:— “ . . . the moment I heard where van Spee was I instructed my agent in Berlin to act. He had been carrying a telegram we had sent him from London. The telegram was in the German code; it contained strict and definite orders to Admiral Spee to proceed to the Falkland Islands with all speed and destroy the wireless station at Port Sianley.” 1

Thus von Spee literally steamed to his doom, for at the Falklands the Invincible and the Inflexible were lying in wait. As Von Rintekm says: “ The death struggle of the German squadron against the superior forces of the enemy lasted only a few hours. At home (iii Germany) it was a standing mystery how the two squadrons '. . . could possibly have got at each other across so many thousands of sea miles within less than twenty-four hours. . i . To the official report of the disaster furnished by the senior surviving German officer (Commander Pochhammer) the Kaiser appended the following manuscript note: — “ ‘ It remains a mystery what made Spee attack the Falkland Islands. See Mahan’s “ Naval Strategy.” ’ ” The mystery was to remain unsolved for many'years. DUMMY WARSHIPS. There is another and even more amazing side to the story. The British Admiralty realised that to ensure the destruction of the brilliant fast-moving German squadron it would be necessary to release two battle-cruisers of the latest type from other vital duties. How was this to be done without arous ing the suspicions of the ever-watehful German intelligence section P It was assumed, undoubtedly correctly, that the Germans knew that the majority of the British battle-cruisers were in .the North Sea, but that two of them were in the Mediterranean, stationed not far from the Dardanelles. The disappearance of any ship would at once be noted by German agents. Admiral . Hall directed a piece of strategy which is probably unequalled in naval warfare. He had two dummy cruisers built of wood at an English dockyard. Behind smoke screens they were towed across the English Channel, through the Bay of Biscay, past Gibraltar, and through the Mediterranean to the Aegean Sea. where the Invincible and the Inflexible were anchored. One dark night the dummies were substituted for the real cruisers, which at once steamed to keeptheir “ appointment ” with Von Spee. On the following morning the dummies, surrounded by flocks of destroyers and patrol boats completely deceived the German agents on shore, and.it was not until news of the German disaster at the Falklands was received that a trick was suspected.

No wonder the German Admiralty was puzzled! Many fruitless months were spent in trying to discover by what ruse Von Spee had been lured to his doom. Later other things occurred which were equally as mysterious. How was it, for instance, that the British authorities always seemed to be well warned and prepared when an air raid by Zeppelins was being contemplated, and how was it that secret messages of the most damning kind from Germans in the United States to Berlin were picked up and deciphered ?

The answer was to be fount! in a small room at the Admiralty—room 40 O.B?—where a staff of brilliant 'cryptographers and linguists was constantly at work deciphering messages which had been picked out of the air by British wireless stations. It is said that no code defeated these experts for more than twenty-four hours, and that the key to some of them was discovered in a few minutes. The work done in ibis room was of such great value that it is suggested that without it the whole course of the war might have been different. and that, the end might have been disaster instead of victory to the Allied arms.