Word: spee
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Only way that the Spee could have overcome the British tactic was to get her two planes in the air for reconnoitering. It must have been early in the battle that a lucky British hit stripped to her fuselage the plane perched on the catapult-blocking the catapult so the other plane was also useless, and thus virtually blinding Spee. Despatches by week's end had not made it clear whether the British used their five available planes...
According to one of the German sailors, the enemy used torpedoes. None of them hit, but they made Spee alter course and lose maneuvering advantages. For a while Captain Langsdorff himself took the wheel...
Marksmanship on both sides must have been keen. Percentage of hits to tries in battle averages 2%. At Jutland, where the firing was tops, the Germans got 1.5%, the British 2.6%. Here the average may well have been 2% in the first phases. Spee suffered two especially bad hits-which must have been 256-pound shells from Exeter, since they both pierced heavy armament. One of them, high on the port quarter detonating a split second after getting inside, ripped gaping holes in side and deck. The other probably decided the battle. It pocked Spee's control tower fair...
...Spee was not without success. She gave Exeter an awful raking-practically demolished her superstructure, and blew one turret to bits. Finally she got at Exeter's vitals, crippled her speed, so that Exeter fell out. It was 10 o'clock. The battle was four hours old. Next for the light pair...
...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...