Word: graf
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Into the estuary of the Rio de la Plata last week plowed the British light cruisers Ajax and Achilles. Ajax, steaming slowly past the still visible hulk of the scuttled Admiral Graf Spee, turned into Uruguay's port of Montevideo. Achilles went on up the estuary to Buenos Aires on the Argentine side. Each cruiser explained she came only to make a 48-hour courtesy call, give her crew shore leave, take on supplies and repair wear & tear sustained during many weeks at sea, not battle damage. Uruguay and Argentina each welcomed its visitor, though the Argentines left party...
...cause was published by El Dia of Montevideo: that Britain's lighter cruisers actually rendered Germany's vaunted sea terror harmless. Said El Dia, which may well have had access to the official Uruguayan commission that examined Spee: "We are authoritatively able to give assurance that the Graf Spee's fighting capacity was almost totally nullified in the battle. Its control tower had been damaged so that its artillery could not be managed. Its ammunition lifter had been paralyzed and heavy shells had to be carried on the shoulders of sailors. Therefore, when Captain Langsdorff ordered...
...German Embassy made a formal announcement: "The commander of the glorious battleship Admiral Graf Spee sacrificed his own life last night for the Fatherland, eliminating himself voluntarily. . . . From the first moment he made up his mind to share the fate of his magnificent ship. . . ." In Berlin, the German Admiralty explained: ". . . After bringing his crew to safety, he viewed his work as finished and followed his ship. The Admiralty understands and honors this step. Captain Langsdorff as a fighter fulfilled the expectations put upon him by his Führer, the German people and his Navy...
While the cruisers Exeter, Ajax and Achilles were holing up the Graf Spee in the South Atlantic; while the R. A. F. harried Helgoland and two British submarines smacked the Nazi Navy in its own waters (TIME, Dec. 25)-across the North Atlantic, obscured by these events, and by winter fog and an efficient blanket of censorship, a large group of long, grey shapes proceeded methodically in eight days from Halifax, N. S. to a port in west Britain.* In that camouflaged convoy were such crack passenger liners as Aquitania, Batory, Empress of Britain. Guarding them was Britain...
...personal column of the London Daily Telegraph, Lady Harwood, wife of newly promoted Rear Admiral Sir Henry Harwood, pocketer of the Admiral Graf Spee, ". . . wishes to express her sincere sympathy with relatives of the officers and men who fell in the gallant action in La Plata...