BATTLE OF THE PLATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26769, 12 May 1948, Page 5

BATTLE OF THE PLATE

CHURCHILL MEMOIRS

How the' Spee was Trapped

By WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

From the beginning of the war Commodore Harwood's special care and duty had been to cover British shipping off the River Piste and Rio de Janeiro. He was convinced that sooner or later the Graf Spee would come toward the Plate, where the richest prizes were offered to her. He had carefully thought out the tactics which he would adopt in an encounter. Together, his 8-inch cruisers Cumberland and Exeter, and his G-inch cruisers Ajax and Achilles, could not only catch but kill. However, the needs of fuel and refit made it unlikely that all four would. be present “on the day.” If they were not, the issue was disputable. On hearing that the Doric Star had been sunk on December 2, Harwood guessed right. Although she was over 3UOO miles away, he assumed that the Spee would come toward the Plate. He estimated with luck and wisdom that she might arrive by the 13th. He ordered all his available forces to concentrate there by December 12. Alas, the Cumberland was refitting at the Falklands; but on the morning of the 13th Exeter, Ajax and Achilles were in company at the centre of the shipping routes off the mouth of the river. Sure enough, at 6.14 a.m. smoke was sighted to the east. The longed-for collision had come.

The First Clash Harwood, in the Ajax, disposing his forces so as to attack the pocket battleship from widely-divergent quarters and thus confuse her fire, advanced at the utmost speed of his .small squadron. Captain Langsdorff thought at the first glance that he had only to deal with one light cruiser and two destroyers, and he too went full speed ahead; but a few moments later he recognised the quality of his opponents, and knew that a mortal action impended. The t*wo forces were now closing at nearly 50 miles an hour. Langsdorff had but a minute to make up his mind. His right course would have been to turn - away immediately so as to keep his assailants as long as possible under the superior range and weight of his 11-inch guns, to which the British could not at first have replied. He would thus have gained for his undisturbed firing the difference between adding speeds and subtracting them. He might well have crippled one of his foes before any could fire at him. He decided on the contrary to hold on his course and make for the Exeter. The action therefore began almost simultaneously on both sides. Commodore Harwood’s tactics proved advantageous. The eight-inch salvoes from the Exeter struck the Spee from the earliest stages of the fight. Meanwhile the six-inch cruisers were also hitting hard and effectively. Soon the Exeter received a hit which, besides knocking out B turret, destroyed all the communications on the bridge, killed or wounded nearly all upon it, and put the ship temporarily out of control. By this time, however, the six-inch cruisers could no longer oe neglected by the, enemy, and the Spee shifted her main armament to them, thus giving respite to the Exeter at a critical moment. The German battleship, plastered from three directions, found the British attack too hot, dnd soon afterwards turned away under a smoke-screen'with the apparent intention of making for the River Plate. Langsdorff had better have done this earlier. Exeter Knocked Out

At a conference presided over by the Fuhrer, at which Raedei; and Jodi were present, the following answer was decided on:— “Attempt by all means to extend the time in neutral waters.... Fight your way through to Buenos Aires if possible. No internment in Uruguay. Attempt effective destruction, if ship is scuttled.” As the German envoy in Montevideo reported later that further attempts to extend the time-limit of 72 hours were fruitless, these orders were confirmed by the German Supreme Command. Accordingly, during the afternoon of the 17th the Spee transferred more than 700 men, with baggage and provisions, to the German merchant ship in the harbour. Shortly afterwards Admiral Harwood learnt that she was weighing anchor. At 6.15 p.m., watched by immense crowds, she left harbour and steamed slowly seawards, awaited hungrily by the British cruisers. At 8.45 p.m., as the sun sank, the Ajax’s aircraft reported: 11 Graf Spee has blown herself up.” The Renown and Ark Royal were still 1000 miles away. End of the Chapter Langsdorff was broken-hearted by the loss of his ship. In spite of the full authority he had received from his Government, he wrote on December 19: , . '•‘l can now only prove by my deatn that the fighting services of the Third Reich are ready to die for the honour of the flag. I alone bear the responsibility for scuttling the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. I am happy to pay with my life for any possible reflection on the honour of the flag. I shall face my fate with firm faith in the cause and the future of the nation and .of my Fuhrer.” That night he shot himself. Thus ended the first surface challenge to British trade on the oceans. No other raider appeared until the spring of 1940, when a new campaign opened, utilising disguised merchant ships. These could more easily avoid detection, but, on the other hand, could be mastered by lesser forces than those required to destroy a pocket battleship. As soon as the news arrived of the end of the Spee. I was impatient to bring our widely-scattered hunting groups home. The Spee’s auxiliary, the Altmark, was, however, still afloat, and it was believed that she had on board the crews of the nine ships which had been'sunk by the raider. I was also most anxious about the Exeter, and could not accept the proposals made to me to leave her unrepaired in the Falkland Islands till the end of the war. My view prevailed. The Exeter reached this country. safely I had the honour to pay my tribute to her brave officers and men from her shattered deck in Plymouth Harbour. She was preserved for over two years of distinguished service, until she perished under Japanese guns in the forlorn battle of the Straits of Sunda in 1942. A Fillip to Morale

After this turn the Spee once more engaged the Exeter, hard hit by the 11-inch shells. All her forward guns were out of action. She was burning fiercely amidships and had a heavy list. Captain Bell, unscathed by the explosion on the bridge, gathered two or three officers round him in the after control-station, and kept his ship in action with her sole remaining turret until at 7.30 failure of pressure put this too out of action. He could do no more. At 7.40 the Exeter turned away to effect repairs and took no fur ther part in the fight. The Ajax and Achilles, already m pursuit, continued- the action in the most spirited manner. The Spee turned all her heavy guns upon them. By 7.25 the two after-turrets in the Ajax had been knocked out, and the Achilles had also suffered damage. These, two light cruisers were no match for the. enemy in gun-power, and finding that his ammunition was running low, Harwood, in the Ajax, decided 10 break off the fight till dark, when he would have better chances of using his lighter armament effectively, and perhaps his torpedoes. He therefore turned away under cover of smoke, and the enemy did not follow. This fierce action had lasted an hour ana 20 minutes. During all the rest of the day the Spee made for Montevideo, the British cruisers hanging grimly on her heels with only occasional interchanges of fire. Shortly after midnight the Spe^'entered Montevideo, and lay there repairing damage, taking in stores, landing wounded, transhipping personnel to a German merchant ship, and reporting to the Fuhrer. Ajax and Achilles lay outside, determined to dog her to her doom should she venture forth. Meanwhile on the night of the 14th the Cumberland, which had been steaming at full speed from the Falklands. took the place of the utterly crippled Exeter. The arrival of this eight-inch gun cruiser restored to its narrow balance a doubtful situation. A Bluff that Worked

It had been most exciting to follow the drama of this brilliant action from the Admiralty War Room, where I spent a large part of the 13th. Our anxieties did not end with the day. From the moment when we heard that action was joined we instantly ordered powerful forces to concentrate off Montevideo, but our hunung groups were naturally widely dispersed and none was within 2000 miles of the scene. In the north, Force K, comprising the Renown and Ark Royal, was completing a sweep which had begun at Capetown 10 days before and was now 600 miles east of Pernambuco, and 2500 miles from Montevideo. • Farther north still, the cruiser Neptune with three destroyers had just parted company with the French Force X and were coming south to join Force K. All these were ordered to Montevideo; they had first to fuel at Rio. However, we succeeded in creating the impression that they had already left Rio and were approaching Montevideo at 30 knots. On the other side of the Atlantic, Force H was returning to the Cape for fuel after an extended sweep up the African coast. Only the Dorsetshire was immediately available at Capetown and was ordered at once to join Admiral Harwood, but she had over 4000 miles to travel. She was followed later by the Shropshire. In addition, to guard against the possible escape of the Spce to the eastward, Force I, comprising the Cotnwall, Gloucester, and the aircraft-carrier Eagle from the East Indies station, which at this time was at Durban, was placed at the disposal of the C.-in-C., South Atlantic. Meanwhile Captain Langsdorff telegraphed on December 16 to the German Admiralty as follows: “Strategic position off Montevideo. Besides the ermsers and destroyers, Ark Royal and Renown. Close blockade at night; escape into open sea and break-through to home waters hopeless. . . . Request decision on whether the ship should be scuttled in spite of insufficient depth in the Estuary of the Plate, or whether internment is to be preferred.

The effects of the action off the Plate gave intense joy to the British nation and enhanced our prestige throughout the world. The spectacle of the three smaller British ships unhesitatingly attacking and putting to flight- their far more heavily gunned and armoured antagonist was everywhere admired. The impression was exhilarating, and lightened the dreary and oppressive winter through which we were passing. The Soviet Government were not pleased with us at this time, and their comment on December 81, 1939, in the Red Fleet is an example of thenfactual reporting: “ Nobody would dare to say that the loss of a German battleship is a brilliant victory for the British Fleet. This is rather a demonstration unprecedented in history of the impotence of the British. Upon the morning of December 13 the battleship started an artillery duel with the Exeter, and within a few minutes obliged the cruiser to withdraw from the action. According to the latest information, the Exeter sank near the Argentine coast en route for the Falkland Islands.” Formal Protest On December 23 the American Republics made a formal protest to Britain, France and Germany about the action off the river Plate, which they claimed to be a violation of the American Security Zone. It also happened about this time that two German merchant ships were intercepted by our cruisers near the coast of the United States. One of these, th£ liner Columbus, of 32,000 tons, was scuttled and survivors were rescued by an American cruiser; the other escaped into territorial waters in Florida. President Roosevelt reluctantly complained about these vexations near the coasts of the Western Hemisphere; and in my reply I took the opportunity of stressing the advantages which our action off the plate had brought to all the South American Republics. Their trade had been hampered by the activities of the German raider and thenports had been used for his supplyships and information centres. By the laws of war the raider had been entitled to capture all merchant ships trading with us in the South Atlantic, or to sink them after providing for their crews; and this had inflicted grave injury on American commercial interests, particularly in the Argentine. The South American Republics should greet the action off the Plate as a deliverance from all this annoyance. The whole of the South Atlantic was now clear, and might perhaps remain clear, of war-like operations. This relief should be highly valued by the South American States, who might now in practice enjoy for a long period the advantages of a security zone of 3000, rather than 300, miles. I could not forbear to add that the Royal Navy was carrying a very heavy burden in enforcing respect for international law at sea. The presence of even a single raider in the North Atlantic called for the employment of half our battle fleet to give sure protection to the world’s commerce. The unlimited laying of magnetic mines by the enemy was adding to the strain upon our flotillas and small craft. If we should break under this strain, the South American republics would soon have many worse worries than the sound of one day’s distant seaward cannonade, and in quite a short time the United States would also face more direct cares. I. therefore, felt entitled to ask that full consideration should be given to the burden Which we were carrying at'this crucial period, and that the best construction should be placed on action which was indispensable if the war was to be ended within reasonable time and in the right way. (World Copyright Reserved)