Word: ajax
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Ajax dampered her fires and set a smoke screen behind which Formose escaped. Meanwhile the other two-now identified as the light Achilles (7,030 tons) and the heavy Exeter (8,390 tons) -were flanking out to sea. Ajax apparently did the same, astern of Spee. This meant two disadvantages for the German -shoals and shore to starboard, glaring rising sun behind the enemy to port. Captain Langsdorff gave the order to work out to sea, into deeper water...
...Ajax and Achilles turned out to be meat by no means. With spectacular coordination they kept each other smoked while driving in for bite after bite. They hurt the Spee, and badly. Some of her guns were silenced-one 5.9 turret tilted. Captain Langsdorff ordered his vessel to the nearest haven, Montevideo...
...they fought, ten and one-half hours more. Within full sight of the headland called Punta del Este, where Uruguayans gathered in crowds as if to watch a pelota match, Ajax and Achilles craftily slipped around Spee inshore of her, leaving the enemy silhouetted in the east by the reflected light of the setting sun, themselves under shore's gloom. Just before dark there were two sharp clashes, and it was evidently in one of those that Spee suffered a final disaster: A hit at the forefoot, at bow and waterline, so that as she went through...
Aboard the Exeter as she limped off toward the British base of Port Stanley* in the Falkland Islands, 1,000 miles to the south, were 61 dead men, and 23 wounded. Commodore Harwood was notified by radio that he had been knighted and promoted to Rear Admiral. Ajax and Achilles got off comparatively lightly: between them only eleven dead and eight wounded...
Outside the mouth of the Rio de la Plata where it spews its yellow silt, the Ajax and Achilles waited exultantly for the deadline. Reinforcements came up fast. The much-disputed aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the battle cruiser Renown...