Battle of the Atlantic · United Kingdom and New Zealand vs Germany
Battle of the River Plate
13 December 1939 – 17 December 1939
The pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, after sinking nine merchant ships in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean, was brought to action by the cruisers Exeter, Ajax and Achilles off the Uruguayan coast. Damaged, she took refuge in Montevideo and was scuttled on 17 December.
Explore Battle of the River Plate on the interactive map · Wikipedia
Day by day
— Dawn action
Graf Spee sights masts at 05:52 some 300 miles east of Montevideo and closes, taking them for a cruiser and two destroyers. Harwood splits his force: Exeter attacks from the south, Ajax and Achilles from the north-east. By 07:30 Exeter has one turret left and is out of the fight; Graf Spee, hit about twenty times, turns west for Montevideo with the two light cruisers shadowing her until dark.
— Seventy-two hours
Graf Spee anchors off Montevideo just after midnight with 36 dead and holes in her bows. Uruguay allows 72 hours for repairs. Ajax and Achilles patrol the estuary mouth; Cumberland comes up from the Falklands at full speed and joins on the night of the 14th. The British let it be known that Renown and Ark Royal are close, when in fact they are a thousand miles away.
— Scuttled
Berlin refuses internment and forbids a break-out to Buenos Aires. At 18:15 Graf Spee weighs with a skeleton crew, watched by a crowd along the waterfront, and at about 20:00 is blown up in the shallow estuary four miles from the harbour. The crew go to Argentina in the tender Tacoma. Langsdorff shoots himself in Buenos Aires on the night of 19 December.
.jpg){kind=link}
