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Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class Panzerschiff (armored ship), nicknamed a "pocket battleship" by the British, which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after World War I Admiral Maximilian von Spee , commander of the East Asia Squadron who fought the battles of Coronel and the Falkland ...
The Battle of the River Plate was fought in the South Atlantic on 13 December 1939 as the first British naval battle of the Second World War.. The Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, engaged a Royal Navy squadron, [1] [2] commanded by Commodore Henry Harwood, [3] comprising the light cruisers HMS Ajax, HMS Achilles (on loan to the New Zealand ...
Hans Wilhelm Langsdorff (20 March 1894 – 20 December 1939) was a German naval officer, most famous for his command of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee before and during the Battle of the River Plate off the coast of Uruguay in 1939.
The Admiral Graf Spee used this unit successfully against shipping in the Atlantic. In December 1939, after heavy fighting during the Battle of the River Plate, the Admiral Graf Spee was severely damaged and the captain scuttled the ship in the neutral harbor off Montevideo, Uruguay. The ship sank in shallow water such that its radar antenna ...
Admiral Graf Spee ' s draft was 5.80 m (19 ft 0 in) and 7.34 m (24 ft 1 in), respectively. The displacement of the three ships increased over the class. Standard displacement grew from 10,600 long tons (10,800 t) for Deutschland to 11,550 long tons (11,740 t) for Admiral Scheer and 12,340 long tons (12,540 t) for Admiral Graf Spee.
Graf Spee retained five officers of Doric Star, including Captain Stubbs, who were onboard Graf Spee along with other Allied prisoners when she took part in the Battle of the River Plate on 13 December. After the battle, the damaged Graf Spee made passage to Montevideo, and upon arrival, all of the prisoners on board were released. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Graf Spee may refer to: Graf Maximilian von Spee, German admiral in World War I; or to several German ships that were named after the admiral: SMS Graf Spee, incomplete Mackensen-class battlecruiser of World War I, scrapped in 1923; The German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, launched in 1934, that saw action in World War II
The Graf Spee was scuttled by her own crew in the Battle of the River Plate, in the Rio de la Plata estuary in December 1939. Admiral Scheer was bombed on 9 April 1945 in port at Kiel and badly damaged, essentially beyond repair, and rolled over at her moorings. After the war that part of the harbor was filled in with rubble and the hulk buried.