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The Battle of the River Plate
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Graf Spee scuttled
Graf Spee scuttled
On 17 December 1939 after expending her full time in Montevideo and with her sensitive items removed, the Graf Spee weighed anchor. At 2200, 4 hours after leaving Montevideo and after the crew had set scuttling charges and left, the Graf Spee blew up. Later that evening Langsdorff, who had raided merchant ships with such humanity and who had treated his prisoners with dignity, wrote a letter to the German Admiralty and his wife explaining his actions and shot himself. The Battle of the River Plate was over. For the British it was a well-executed, textbook attack of a more powerful ship through co-ordination and prior training. Unfortunately the opportunities to take on German surface ships were few and far between, it was to be the U-Boat threat which caused most damage, a threat the Royal Navy had little answer to in the early years of War.
