Floating crane maneuvered near sunken World War II era German warship off Uruguay

WCCO News Online / AP ^ | 2/9/04 | BILL CORMIER

[Johnny Gage]

Floating crane maneuvered near sunken World War II era German warship off Uruguay Monday February 09, 2004 By BILL CORMIER Associated Press Writer MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) Defying tricky winds and river currents, salvage experts on Monday maneuvered a floating crane near the submerged wreckage of a German battleship scuttled off Uruguay in the opening days of World War II.

The ship the Admiral Graf Spee was a symbol of German naval might early in the war. The vessel prowled the South Atlantic, sinking as many as nine allied merchant ships before British warships crippled it in a December 1939 naval engagement.

Scuttled by its captain who feared losing the ship in a battle with the larger British force, the Graf Spee has remained for decades in waters less than 25 feet deep only miles outside the port of Montevideo.

Private investors from the United States and Europe are helping to fund a multimillion dollar recovery effort to remove the ship piece-by-piece from the River Plate within three years.

On Monday, a work barge carrying a 195-foot crane moved into position around key pieces of a 27-ton communications tower that held sophisticated range-finding equipment for the Graf Spee`s 11-inch guns.

Hector Bado, head of the recovery operation, told The Associated Press that divers and team members were working in blustery winds and choppy waters in an attempt to remove part of the tower.

``Removing this piece of equipment is going to take more time than we originally anticipated,'' he said after divers managed to affix steel cables to the wreckage following days of delays.

Winds were gusting Monday at the site where the ship lies broken in two remains, mired in tons of mud and silt.

Two tugboats helped push the barge close to the Graf Spee, bobbling atop choppy three-foot waves. At least one small part of the ship juts out from the water.

Below the surface, divers worked on tightening steel cables being used to stabilize the communications tower the first piece that salvage experts hope to recover.

Dozens of onlookers on small yachts and motor launches watched the operation from a distance under partly cloudy skies within site of the coast.

Feared by many navies at the outset of the war, the Graf Spee a ``pocket battleship'' which carried less powerful guns and was smaller than a conventional ship of that class was tracked down by British forces off the South American coast.

The ``Battle of the River Plate'' began on Dec. 13, 1939, near the mouth of the river as the German warship was pursued by a battle group consisting of two British light cruisers, HMS Exeter and HMS Ajax, and the HMS Achilles of Zealand.

Historical accounts at the time reported that Uruguayans by the thousands followed the battle from cliff tops along the coast and from high rooftops during a booming gunbattle offshore.

The Graf Spee was crippled in the fight after receiving several direct hits, and Capt. Hans Langsdorff decided to take refuge in Montevideo harbor. The ship was unable to make the necessary repairs within the 72-hour period in a neutral harbor allowed by international convention.

Langsdorff took the limping craft out of the harbor and sank it on Dec. 17, 1939. The crew was taken by ship to Buenos Aires and the captain committed suicide days later.

[Johnny Gage]

WWII History Bump

[Johnny Gage]

Ping.

[martin_fierro]

¡HUIJA, PO!

[Puppage]

The Admiral Graf Spee

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Johnny. Nice to keep up with this story.

[blam]

Divers Aim To Raise Graf Spree

[Professional Engineer]

Cool. Thanks Johnny.

[Soaring Feather]

Thanks Johnny and bump.

[Johnny Gage]

Thanks. I did do a search on several words from title.

*oh well*

: )

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks Johnny. It will be interesting to see what's left of her.

[Semper Paratus]

The German strategy of using heavy warships to disrup sea born supplies was a miserable failure. If the resources were put into more U-Boats the Battle of the Atlantic would have been very different.

[Old Sarge]

"was a miserable failure"

To say nothing of a risky scheme... (G)

I have agreed with the U-boat alternate war for a long time. There was a quote from Grand Admiral Doenitz, something that, if there were fifty more U-boats on station in 1939, Britain would've starved.

[Semper Paratus]

if there were fifty more U-boats on station in 1939, Britain would've starved.

I think he said a hunndred, but if the heavy ships including the Bismarck were never built in favor of more U-boats that would have made the nut.

[Eastbound]

Not too awfully far from where I sailed in '46. Didn't get that far south.

http://www.grafspee.com/

[blam]

"Thanks. I did do a search on several words from title. "

No problem...just wanted to add to the thread and give it a bump. FReep on!

[Tallguy]

The German strategy of using heavy warships to disrup sea born supplies was a miserable failure. If the resources were put into more U-Boats the Battle of the Atlantic would have been very different.

I think that what the German Navy was trying to do was force the allies onto the horns of a dilemma: U-boat attacks force the merchant marine into convoys, but the convoys in turn are easy pickings for a heavy surface raider (like Graf Spee). There were attempts to disrupt the arctic convoys from occupied Norway in this manner. The strategy might have worked if the communications between surface and sub-surface raiders had been more effective AND the British not had sufficient battleships to accompany the convoys. Neither was the case, as it turned out.

[Semper Paratus]

I think that what the German Navy was trying to do was force the allies onto the horns of a dilemma:

The German High Seas Navy tried to do what they could do but they knew the correalation of forces vis a vis the British Royal Navy was way against them.

When the US came in they pretty much retired their surface ships.

[Khurkris]

I seem to remember pistols, .45acp & 38 super, touted as being made from steel from the Graf Spee coming from Argentina back in the 60's-70's. Supposedly better quality beacause they were made from fine German steel.

Any comments on this?

[Khurkris]

Allow me to debunk my own myth.

Ballester-Molina Pistols

[SLB]

I heard somewhere that you were interested in WWII naval history. If so, this might be of interest to you.

[Johnny Gage]

Sorry.. I hadn't heard of that before, so I don't have any info.

[Axenolith]

Finishing the Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser wouldn't have hurt either!

[Wumpus Hunter]

Thanks for pinging me. I love this stuff!

[Wumpus Hunter]

I have an old 1892 (or 90-something) Argentine Mauser. I'm thinking I read somewhere that it was made by Hispano-Suiza too. My father bought it for $15 in the mid 60's, when Montgomery Wards was moving from downtown (Lima Ohio) into the mall. It's like new, too!

[skeeter]

Bump.

BTW Exeter was a heavy, not light, cruiser sporting 6x 8" guns.

[Khurkris]

You have a quite valuable collectors item. And a family heirloom also. A bit of on-line research should give you further info about this piece.

[Stonewall Jackson]

The German Navy wasn't planning on the war beginning until 1944 at the earliest, so they were still spinning up their production efforts when the war kicked off. I saw a chart in one of my books where the German admirals hoped to have 4 carriers, 10 battleships, twenty-five heavy cruisers (including the pocket battleships), and four hundred submarines by the time the war began. If they had managed to produce these modern warships, they could have squared off against the older British Navy until the U-boats managed to starve the British into submission.

[Old Sarge]

Ah, WW2 history.

"He who forgets the past..."

There are a lot of bits and bobs of information about that war, that even now, percolte to the top.

[PsyOp]

Doenitz also complained that the steel used to build just one of those battleships could have built an entire fleet of U-Boats.

It's a good thing that most dictators aren't as smart as they like to think they are...

[PzLdr]

Under “Plan Z”, BISMARCK and TIRPITZ would have been the two SMALL battleships in the German Navy. And SCHARNHORST and GNIESENAU would have had their main armament upgunned from 9 x 11” to 9 x 15”.