Plate 021 — Battles
REF: BF-BTL-021Battle of the River Plate
Battle of the River Plate: the action on the chart
13–17 December 1939. Times are GMT/local (Uruguay observed a zone close to UTC−4 in 1939); most published accounts of the battle use this local time.
- 06:10
Smoke sighted
Cruising off the estuary of the River Plate, Commodore Henry Harwood's squadron sighted smoke to the northwest; Exeter was sent to investigate and soon signalled she believed it was a pocket battleship.
- 06:18
Graf Spee opens fire
Captain Hans Langsdorff opened fire on Exeter at about 19,000 yards with his six 28cm (11-inch) guns; Exeter, Achilles and Ajax returned fire within the next five minutes as Harwood split his cruisers to divide the pocket battleship's aim.
- 06:26
Exeter's B turret destroyed
An 11-inch hit wrecked Exeter's forward B turret and swept her bridge with splinters, killing or wounding everyone there except the captain and two others; further hits soon after knocked out A turret and started serious fires, leaving her listing and steering from the aft conning position.
- 07:25
Ajax hit
As Ajax and Achilles closed to torpedo range, an 11-inch shell destroyed Ajax's X turret and jammed her Y turret, cutting her main armament roughly in half.
- 07:40
British break off under smoke
With Exeter already out of the fight and Ajax down to two turrets and short of ammunition, Harwood turned his light cruisers away under a smoke screen, shadowing Graf Spee at long range for the rest of the day rather than pressing the attack further.
- 19:15
Graf Spee turns on the shadowers at dusk
Langsdorff briefly reopened fire on the shadowing Ajax as the sun set behind his ship, forcing her to turn away under smoke once more, before turning west for the River Plate estuary and the neutral port of Montevideo.
- 00:10 (14 Dec)
Graf Spee anchors at Montevideo
Her fuel-processing system wrecked by an 8-inch shell that had penetrated two decks and left her with only sixteen hours of usable fuel, Graf Spee entered Montevideo harbor to make repairs, land her wounded and bury her dead.
- ≈ 18:00, 17 Dec
Graf Spee weighs anchor
Denied more than a short extension under the Hague Convention, and misled by British diplomatic pressure and false signals into believing a powerful force including the carrier Ark Royal and battlecruiser Renown was waiting outside, Langsdorff took Graf Spee out of harbor past a crowd of tens of thousands lining the Montevideo waterfront.
- ≈ 20:00, 17 Dec
Graf Spee scuttled
Rather than risk his crew in a hopeless action against what he believed was an overwhelming force, Langsdorff scuttled Graf Spee in the shallows of the River Plate estuary; scuttling charges set her ablaze, and the wreck burned and smoked for several days, watched by crowds on both shores.
- 19 Dec
Langsdorff's death
Two days after scuttling his ship, Captain Langsdorff shot himself in a Buenos Aires hotel room, having written that a captain's honor did not allow him to survive his ship under the circumstances forced upon him.
Outcome. The action cost Britain 72 dead and 28 wounded, mostly aboard the badly damaged Exeter, against 36 killed and 60 wounded aboard Graf Spee; no British ship was lost, while the German raider was scuttled as a total loss four days after the battle. The action ended the Graf Spee's commerce-raiding cruise, which had already sunk nine merchant ships, and gave Britain its first major naval success of the war.
The Battle of the River Plate WW2 Naval Battle
The Battle of the River Plate
The Battle of the River Plate (December 13, 1939) was the first major naval battle of World War II, which resulted in the eventual sinking of the German pocket battleship - heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee by scuttling, ending her successful three-month campaign against British merchant shipping.
The British force, comprising the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter (six 8" guns) and light cruisers HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles (both eight 6" guns), engaged the German cruiser close to the estuary of the Rio de la Plata, or Silver River, between Argentina and Uruguay. Following intense gunnery action where the German cruiser had the advantage of longer range and heavier guns, while the British were able to divide fire, the Graf Spee eventually headed for Montevideo harbour in Uruguay.
Exeter had been severely damaged in the battle, and British propaganda efforts were made to convince Captain Hans Langsdorff of the Graf Spee that an overwhelming British force was being assembled, when in fact only the heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland was available and was being sent from the Falkland Islands.
Intense negotiations were undertaken, Uruguay being neutral. While the ship was prevented from leaving the harbour, Captain Langsdorff consulted with his command in Germany. He received orders that permitted various options, but not internment in Uruguay. He chose to scuttle his ship in the Rio de la Plata estuary (December 17) to avoid risk to the crew, a decision that is said to have infuriated Hitler. The crew of the Graf Spee was taken to Buenos Aires, where Captain Langsdorff subsequently committed suicide.
The prisoners taken by the Graf Spee prior to her sinking of enemy ships were transferred to her German supply ship Altmark, from which they were freed (February 16, 1940) by a boarding party from the British destroyer HMS Cossack while in Jøssingfjord, in neutral Norwegian waters.
A film of the battle and the Graf Spee's end entitled The Battle of the River Plate (US Title: Pursuit of the Graf Spee) is regularly shown on television.