WELL TREATED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21556, 19 January 1940, Page 6

WELL TREATED

Prisoner Aboard Graf Spee

Wounded When Tairoa Was Shelled

By Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND, January 19.

An account of how he was wounded and taken prisoner on board the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee and the subsequent action resulting in the defeat of the warship by the British cruisers Exeter, Ajax and Achilles is given in a letter from Mr A. D. Dixon, who left Auckland last October. The letter has been received by his mother, Mrs Margaret Dixon, of Parnell. Mr Dixon, who had been in New Zealand for the previous four years, left Auckland with the intention of enlisting with his old schoolfellows in England. At Sydney he joined the Tairoa and was working his way to England as a deck hand.

In his letter Mr Dixon said the Tairoa was en route to join a convoy when, at 4.45 a.m. on December 3, the order was given for all hands on deck. A battleship had been sighted on the horizon and the Tairoa signalled for identification. The ship bore down on them at full speed and they saw it was German. The Tairoa sent out an SOS but immediately there came the boom of a gun and a shell struck the wireless room. The crew had been ordered to the boats, but as Mr Dixon went to his station he was struck in the ankle by a piece of shrapnel. He reached the boat but as it left the ship a launch from the Graf Spee came alongside and ordered it back to the Tairoa.

Mr Dixon was taken aboard the Graf Spee with others of the Tairoa’s crew who had been wounded. He was well treated in the warship’s hospital and at the end of a week was transferred to a small messroom above the magazine where there were 31 prisoners from a number of ships. When the crew of the Graf Spee were ordered to battle stations on December 13 the prisoners learned that three ships had been sighted on the horizon. The German warship made toward the ships, but when they were revealed as British cruisers the Graf Spee turned and made at full speed toward the River Plate. It was a running battle for 16 hours during which the British scored 19 hits, one right on top of where the prisoners were situated. After the Graf Spee reached Montevideo Mr Dixon was placed in the British hospital ashore and was making a good recovery. At the time of writing his wound was practically healed and the shrapnel in his ankle was giving no trouble. He expected shortly to leave for England with other ex-prisoners on a British liner. It appeared from Mr Dixon’s account of the battle that an undertaking had been given not to refer to certain aspects of the engagements.

Mr Dixon’s elder brother is serving with the Royal Air Force in Britain. Another brother enlisted with the First Echelon of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force.