BBC_The Battle of the River Plate
Transcript
00:00Against overwhelming firepower, three British ships took on the pride of the German fleet,
00:07the pocket battleship Graf Spee.
00:12It would become known as the Battle of the River Plate.
00:17The battle would pit two great naval officers against each other in a deadly duel.
00:23Graf Spee was commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, a decorated hero from the First World War.
00:28A thousand men owe their lives to Langsdorff.
00:37Facing him was Commodore Henry Harwood, a brilliant naval tactician.
00:43He had a happy neck of getting results by being nice.
00:48People trusted him.
00:51As the world watched, the battle moved ashore in a gripping story of deception, and one
00:57of the biggest bluffs of the Second World War.
01:00One of the commanders would be decorated and returned home a hero.
01:05The other would lose his ship, his reputation, and eventually his life.
01:13In this battle we have good versus evil, weak versus strong, the weak triumph over the strong.
01:25The strong is represented by a good man fighting for an evil cause.
01:31He pays the price of this impossible situation.
01:36It's a tragedy that most playwrights could make a great deal from.
01:40Tonight, Time Watch re-examines the evidence and tells the full story of the Battle of
01:45the River Plate.
01:55The Admiral Graf Spee was the pride of the German navy.
02:17Even before the Second World War had begun, she was central to secret plans for a guerre
02:23de cause, a war against commerce at sea.
02:28A special ship would need a special captain.
02:32The man chosen was one of the best and most highly respected officers in the German navy,
02:38Captain Hans Langsdorff.
02:41The great thing about Langsdorff was that he was a very gentlemanly officer.
02:47He was a very old-style naval officer.
02:50And he was a very attractive figure as well.
02:56Langsdorff came from a family of lawyers and Lutheran pastors and had been brought up in
03:00a strict moral tradition.
03:06The Christian concept of the world meant a lot to him, as did morality.
03:15These were the things which he valued.
03:22He had thought about becoming a vicar, which the family would have definitely approved
03:26of.
03:27But on reflection, he decided to join the navy.
03:37When I reported to Captain Hans Langsdorff, he struck me as someone who had a humanistic
03:42education.
03:48He was somewhat different from the image one had of an officer in the imperial navy.
04:01Langsdorff's Graf Spee was nicknamed a pocket battleship.
04:04It was boasted that she was bigger than anything faster, and faster than anything bigger.
04:12Her newly designed diesel engines allowed her to cruise for 16,000 miles without refueling.
04:18Bristling with huge 11-inch guns, she was capable of sinking ships 15 miles away.
04:31My father must have been really proud and happy to be on such a beautiful ship.
04:36Not only beautiful to look at, but great in every way.
04:44On August 21, 1939, Graf Spee sailed quietly away from her base in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
04:52On board were 1,134 crew.
04:57Her departure was carefully timed so that she would cross the main shipping lanes at
05:01night without being spotted.
05:04When Britain declared war on September 3rd, Germany already had an ace hiding in the Atlantic.
05:11Her orders were to act as a lone surface raider, and to wreak havoc with Allied merchant shipping.
05:23Langsdorff's intention was to create as much chaos as he could.
05:27So he'd sink something somewhere, and then motor away as fast as he could somewhere else
05:33to give the impression there was more than one ship, and to create as much chaos as possible.
05:38In fact, the main aim was not so much the physical damage that was involved in sinking
05:45the ships.
05:46It was the whole chaos that was inflicted on shipping in this broad area, shipping that
05:53was of crucial importance to Britain's survival in the war.
05:59On September 30th, Graf Spee sank the British steamship Clement, but she got off a radio
06:05message warning that she was being attacked.
06:08News of an unidentified German raider in the South Atlantic was met with swift action at
06:12the Admiralty.
06:14With merchant shipping vital to the war effort, Churchill made the German raider his number
06:19one target.
06:21Twenty warships were dispatched to hunt her down.
06:29Three of them were under the command of Commodore Henry Harwood.
06:34Henry Harwood is possibly the archetypal cruiser Commodore.
06:39He knew the area perfectly.
06:41He'd served there before the war.
06:43He knew it like the back of his hand, and he had thought long and hard before the war
06:49about how to deal with pocket battleships in general, when he'd worked at the Naval
06:53College at Greenwich, and how to deal with them in particular in South American waters.
06:58Langsdorff could not have faced a more formidable opponent.
07:06Henry Harwood was a family man who had joined the Navy as a 15-year-old cadet.
07:11In 1906, he passed out top of his class and went on to serve in the First World War.
07:19He was quite sociable.
07:23He enjoyed country sports.
07:26He was a good golfer.
07:30He had a happy neck of getting results by being nice.
07:35People trusted him, and his ship's company, I think, always realised that he acquired
07:43a high standard, and they gave a high standard.
07:49Serving under Commodore Harwood was 19-year-old Basil Trott.
07:54He was a great skipper.
07:56He was a great seaman.
07:58He decided that when we left England, we were going to be an efficient ship, didn't matter
08:03what time of the day or night it was.
08:05If he was up, he would think of something for us to do.
08:11Action stations at midnight.
08:13Lower a seaboat and try and pick up a lifebuoy, which he'd thrown over the side.
08:18Lower all the pulling boats and row them round the ship.
08:21But he also used to stop the ship in mid-Atlantic and say, hands to bathe, which was great.
08:26You just dropped whatever you were doing and leapt over the side.
08:30Anyway, by the time we'd been in commission six months,
08:34we found he wasn't really a bad old stick.
08:38Commodore Harwood and Captain Langsdorff were set on a very public collision course,
08:43one which would shape both their destinies.
08:51In a deadly game of cat and mouse, Langsdorff continued to hunt Allied merchant shipping.
08:57To cause the maximum confusion possible, he now also began to disguise his ship,
09:03adding a fake gun turret and an extra funnel.
09:08He played his sister ships.
09:11In the South Atlantic, he was the Admiral Shear.
09:14In the Indian Ocean, he was the Admiral Graf Spee.
09:16He made the Allies think there were a number of German raiders around
09:21when there was only one.
09:23He played this game, and I think he enjoyed it.
09:30Apparently, during the entire trip,
09:33he took great delight in avoiding being found by the English ships.
09:37To me, doing that seems almost boyish, even though he was 45 years old by then.
09:44Graf Spee next intercepted the Newton Beach, a British merchant ship.
09:49To keep his position secret, Langsdorff ordered the merchantmen
09:53not to use the radio to report his presence, or he'd open fire.
09:57He then transferred her crew to the Graf Spee before sinking their ship.
10:02On October the 7th, the Ashley, carrying 7,300 men,
10:09was sent to the bottom.
10:11Again, Langsdorff transferred her crew to the Graf Spee.
10:15He was worried about the fate of the crews of the ships he sank,
10:20and he would compromise his own position, in fact,
10:24in order to secure the lives of the crews that he'd sunk.
10:31In fact, one very touching moment,
10:34he'd sunk.
10:36In fact, one very touching thing is the way that
10:39when ships would not obey his orders and still signal,
10:42and he would shoot at them,
10:44he would congratulate the officers at the end to say,
10:47you did the right thing.
10:52Throughout October and November,
10:54Langsdorff led the British a merry dance
10:57around the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.
11:00He continued to sink merchant shipping,
11:02but insisted on saving lives.
11:12Hans Langsdorff conducted an outstanding cruiser war,
11:15which in the form it took was unique in naval war history,
11:19unique because he fulfilled his task as a merchant raider.
11:24And yet, during the deployment of the ship,
11:27not a single human life was lost.
11:32Because Graf Spee was a lone raider,
11:35thousands of miles from home,
11:37Langsdorff had strict orders from Berlin
11:40not to attack other warships.
11:42Hitler did not want to risk losing his prize asset.
11:46But these were orders that were not fulfilled.
11:51But these were orders that went against the grain
11:54for an old-school officer like Langsdorff.
12:02In his heart of hearts, he considered this somehow insulting,
12:06which was clearly shown by what he said.
12:14And my father also thought it dishonourable
12:17to attack a much weaker opponent who had no chance of defence at all.
12:26Graf Spee had been at sea for three months
12:29and was coming to the end of her patrol.
12:32Langsdorff was eager to win a significant victory
12:35over a British warship before returning to Germany.
12:38It is precisely because Graf Spee is disappearing from the South Atlantic
12:43and it cannot be foreseen when a second commerce raider can operate here
12:47that it must be perceived to have achieved an objectively significant success
12:51before leaving the area.
12:54You can see from the war diary
12:56that Langsdorff was getting very frustrated at just sinking merchant ships.
13:01He wanted a victory over the British before he went home.
13:06By early December, Commodore Harwood's cruiser Exeter
13:10and his two light cruisers Ajax and Achilles
13:13were patrolling the South American coast between Brazil and the Falkland Islands.
13:19Harwood, a tactical expert,
13:21had a hunch as to where Langsdorff might eventually be found.
13:25The idea had come to him on a day out with his wife.
13:29At the World Trade Fair, he was transfixed by a map
13:34which showed the shipping routes in the South Atlantic
13:37and how they all focused on the plate.
13:41And he was so transfixed that Mother, who was there at the time,
13:45had great difficulty in getting him away from it.
13:49On December 2nd, Graf Spee sank the steamship Doric Star,
13:53but not before she was able to send the emergency code signal
13:57announcing she was being attacked.
14:00Excuse me, sir.
14:02For the first time, Harwood now knew where the German raider was.
14:07I've got here a rough diagram which Father made in making his plans
14:13for where Graf Spee was after sinking Doric Star
14:18and various calculations of her speed and probable speed and range
14:23and where she'd get to.
14:25And he had three options.
14:27One was to go to Rio, where he'd get on the 12th,
14:30one to the plate for the 13th,
14:32or to the Falkland Islands on the 14th.
14:34So it's quite an interesting little bit of paper,
14:37which he sent home to Mother saying,
14:39keep it, it is of interest.
14:41Harwood's thinking that Langsdorff would head for the River Plate
14:46is one of the most classic examples of inspired intuition,
14:50I think, in naval history.
14:53He knew from his experience that the River Plate was a focal point,
14:58that if there was a German raider in the area,
15:01which it looked as if there was because of the sinkings,
15:04then it was more than likely he would come to the River Plate.
15:07There was no code-breaking, there was no intelligence.
15:10This was just inspired professional instinct,
15:13and he was absolutely right.
15:16On December 7th, Graf Spee sank the merchantman Straeonshau
15:20and captured secret documents that revealed
15:23Allied convoys were forming off the mouth of the River Plate.
15:27It was the opportunity for a major victory
15:29that Langsdorff had been looking for.
15:37He presumed that these convoys were protected by one or two destroyers,
15:44but he didn't reckon on finding Admiral Harwood's squadron there.
15:49Graf Spee headed towards the River Plate.
15:52Although neither Langsdorff nor Harwood knew it,
15:55they were now just 20 miles apart.
15:59There was tension building up in the ship.
16:01I mean, we knew that it was a German raider,
16:04and they were a modern ship.
16:07And the equipment we had was the same sort of equipment
16:12that the German raiders had.
16:15The equipment we had was the same sort of equipment
16:18that they had in the First World War.
16:20It was fairly hit-and-miss stuff.
16:36It was in the early hours of the morning,
16:38and the commander was asleep in the tower cabin.
16:46And when the tops of the masts could be made out,
16:51the commander was woken, and the alarm was sounded.
17:02I don't think the sailors had even got their breakfast from the galley
17:06when something was sighted,
17:08and they sounded off action stations on the bugle.
17:16And I can feel the cold shiver now,
17:21even sitting here.
17:23I felt then, what's going to happen?
17:29Of course, we were all snarling and abusing,
17:31who's joke is this? The commander's being funny.
17:34We all turned out until somebody's screaming,
17:36it's the real thing, it's the real thing.
17:38A messenger went down to Father in his cabin and said,
17:41I think I've heard that one before.
17:43But nevertheless, he put his uniform on, over his pyjamas,
17:46went up to the bridge, and was there all day.
17:54He waited for a moment, and then it became increasingly clear
17:57that these were warships.
18:04To begin with, he had assumed them to be destroyers.
18:08And then he said very calmly, OK, let's do it.
18:17The key moment is when Langsdorff sights three British warships.
18:23He chooses to engage.
18:25He knows that that's going against his basic orders,
18:29not to engage warships,
18:31but he thinks that the time has come to do it.
18:33He could have got away.
18:35His diesel engines allowed him to accelerate away
18:38in the opposite direction.
18:40He chose deliberately not to.
18:50Had he realised in time that he was faced with three cruisers,
18:54he certainly would not have engaged in battle.
19:01It sounds very unfair, really, three ships versus one,
19:04yet the one ship has the advantage.
19:06But you can see clearly from here why it does.
19:08It has got six guns that can fire these huge 670-pound shells.
19:13One of these hitting you, you know about it,
19:15as Exeter particularly found out.
19:23Whereas the British ships, the two smaller ones with the 6-inch shells,
19:26they can spew out large numbers of these,
19:29but clearly the effect of 100 pounds hitting you
19:31is going to be a good deal less than the effect of 670 pounds hitting you.
19:35All the British can hope to do is to peck their enemies to death.
19:42But Harwood had a brilliantly simple plan,
19:44which now came into its own.
19:47He was convinced that his smaller ships could beat a pocket battleship
19:51by using a simple strategy.
19:53He would split his ships into two flanks,
19:56thus forcing Graf Spee to make choices as to which side to fire at,
20:00effectively halving her firepower.
20:04Poor old Graf Spee, throughout the Battle of the River Plate,
20:07is firing at one ship and then at the other two ships,
20:10one ship, the other two ships.
20:12Its attention is entirely split.
20:15And that worked absolutely brilliantly.
20:21Harwood's tactics of dividing his ships were revolutionary at the time,
20:26but the plan called for the Exeter to head straight for Graf Spee.
20:30This exposed her to the full fury of Langsdorff's 11-inch guns.
20:35In the battle that followed, Exeter took seven direct hits.
20:41Some of us were directed up to the bridge area
20:44where a shell had passed through what was known as the remote control office,
20:50and the people there were cut to ribbons.
20:54And we had to sort of, really, I suppose, put people together.
21:04Well, it's difficult to sort of talk about it, I suppose,
21:08but there was a body here and an arm over there,
21:13and you knew that that arm belonged to that body
21:16because he had the right buttons on his sleeve.
21:21The Exeter was now a limping wreck.
21:24Amazingly, Graf Spee did not move into Sinke
21:27and bring Langsdorff the victory he had sought.
21:30But for Kurt Diggins, the answer lies in Langsdorff's character.
21:42He didn't pursue the Exeter
21:44because the Exeter had been rendered unfit for combat.
21:49And it's possible that his own personal attitude played a part here, too.
21:57Why sink a ship if it would entail six or 700 men losing their lives?
22:06Graf Spee now turned her guns on Harwood's other two ships.
22:10Seven men were killed on Ajax, four more on Achilles.
22:15When you hear them land, it's an almighty percussion.
22:24Because we were down below in a deck, and as you come down below,
22:28there's a steel hatch, and the steel hatch there
22:32is around about 2ft 6in square, I suppose,
22:36that we went down through with a wire lid,
22:39and that clang, stop, and you're shut in.
22:44Often thought afterwards, you know, it came to you,
22:47then there's fear after, hell, what if something had happened?
22:50How the hell were we ever going to get out of there?
22:53At 7.40, after 80 minutes of ferocious battle,
22:57Harwood ordered the Ajax and Achilles to break off the action under a smokescreen.
23:03To Harwood's surprise, Langsdorff didn't pursue,
23:07but instead turned Graf Spee away.
23:10Accurate British firing had taken its toll on the German ship.
23:15The impact was recorded by one of Langsdorff's officers.
23:21Above deck, they have punished us severely.
23:24What one sees there is disastrous.
23:27When from my control station I have to go to the command post
23:30or to one of the gun turrets, I have to cross the chief first aid post.
23:34The floor is running with blood.
23:38Er war sehr beeindruckt.
23:43It made a huge impression on him.
23:49There's one of those pictures of him standing there,
23:52his head bare, wearing a coat, receiving the first reports.
23:59He then walked through the ship and visited the hospital below deck,
24:03where the injured and also some of the dead were laid.
24:08And this made a profound impression on him.
24:13Having finished his inspection of the damage,
24:15Langsdorff decided that his ship urgently needed repairs.
24:20He headed for the nearest major port, Montevideo, in neutral Uruguay.
24:27It was a move that would have grave consequences.
24:33Langsdorff telegraphed Berlin, explaining his fateful decision.
24:3836 killed, 5 seriously wounded, 53 slightly wounded.
24:43As ship cannot be made seaworthy for breakthrough to the homeland with means on board,
24:48decided to go into the River Plate, at risk of being shut in there.
24:54With Graf Spee's arrival in the harbour,
24:57the Battle of the River Plate turned into the first great media event of the war,
25:01as the world's press arrived to cover the story.
25:06First on the scene was local reporter, 22-year-old Hugo Rocha.
25:13The first assignment was to cover the arrival of the ship on Wednesday night.
25:17It was tremendously impressive.
25:19We had never seen anything like that, especially inside the harbour.
25:26The second day, I went around the ship with my photographer.
25:30My impression was of pity.
25:34Pity. I knew that 36 of them had died, that many more were wounded.
25:39Most of the crew, I saw them, were boys, 18, 19 years old.
25:46We were very conscious that we were suddenly part of the great world war
25:52that had started three months earlier in Europe,
25:56that we were following with passionate interest,
25:59and that suddenly the war was happening here.
26:06The following morning, as the cameras rolled,
26:09Langsdorff released 61 British merchant sailors
26:12who had been held captive on board Graf Spee after their ships were sunk.
26:23Langsdorff's next task was to bury his dead.
26:30Hundreds of German citizens attend the ceremonies at the grave.
26:34Captain Langsdorff watches in silence
26:36as the boys he once commanded find final peace.
26:45This is a good photo of Graf Spee, isn't it?
26:4966 years after he first sailed the seas around the River Plate,
26:53Bob Batt and fellow veteran Roy Dickey return for the first time since 1939.
27:02They have come back to Montevideo for a memorial service
27:05and to remember their fallen shipmates.
27:16We actually collected together the 62 bodies on that morning
27:21and laid them out on the focal for burial.
27:31And the captain stood there with his prayer book and read the burial service.
27:39Then he said, we now commit their bodies to the sea
27:42and each one is then gently allowed to slide over the side.
27:51The reality came home to you that you had lost chaps and that you knew.
27:58It did come home to you really, as I can live it now.
28:03I remember just watching those bodies slide down the plank,
28:10pipes and what have you, it does come home to you.
28:14It's a very moving moment, I don't think you ever really sort of get over it.
28:20It's something you like to try and forget.
28:35The morning after the battle, it was headline news
28:39The morning after the battle, it was headline news across Britain.
28:44Here is the news.
28:46There has been an important naval engagement between a German pocket battleship
28:50and three British cruisers in the South Atlantic.
28:54I was at prep school in my last year.
28:57It was Stephen Wilson's first year and we were rehearsing a play
29:02in which fortunately I had a very minor part.
29:05And I remember one of the masters coming in with the evening papers
29:09and I saw them and I was very frightened.
29:15But the news was good.
29:17Commodore Harwood had been knighted and promoted to Rear Admiral.
29:23Churchill, obviously and rightly,
29:27wanted to make much of what really was the first British victory in the war.
29:34And he did this in spades.
29:36I mean, he promoted father immediately.
29:40He had him made a Knight Commander of the Bath.
29:43He made the Captains Commanders of the Bath
29:47and BBC Press full of it, etc, etc.
29:53It was rather unkind because
29:56there, as father said, here we were showered with honours
30:01and the job not completed.
30:03The first half of the story is a classical naval battle.
30:06The second half of the story is a story of guile and deception
30:12and perhaps one of the biggest bluffs of the Second World War.
30:22In Montevideo, Langsdorff requested a meeting with the Uruguayan government.
30:28Accompanied by the German Minister,
30:32Langsdorff was seeking permission to stay in the port for two weeks
30:36to complete repairs to his ship.
30:39The Uruguayans eventually agreed to permit him to stay for a maximum of four days.
30:46Outside the harbour, the British force was now reduced to two small cruisers,
30:51the Achilles and Ajax.
30:55Harwood was concerned that without reinforcements
30:58he would not be able to stop Graf Spee if she made a run for it.
31:02A plan had to be found to ensure Langsdorff was kept in Montevideo longer.
31:08The man given responsibility for this
31:11was the senior British diplomat, Eugène Millington Drake.
31:16My grandfather was a great eccentric and a very colourful character.
31:21He was known for his enthusiasm for taking exercise
31:26and he was a great sportsman.
31:29And he would walk down the street
31:33and possibly stop suddenly on the way to the office
31:36and do a few press-ups or a few stretches.
31:44Millington Drake quietly recruited a band of British pensioners
31:49and sent them down to the harbour to spy on the new arrival.
31:53He then went to meet the Uruguayan foreign minister
31:58and in a cunning move invoked an international law called the 24-hour rule.
32:04If a merchant ship sailed, a foreign warship was not allowed to sail within 24 hours.
32:10And the British used this mercilessly to try and keep Graf Spee in Montevideo,
32:16much to the disgust of the Uruguayan government.
32:21Millington Drake secretly arranged for a British merchant ship to leave Montevideo every day.
32:28Eventually the Uruguayans got so frustrated that they said,
32:31you aren't allowed to send any more ships to sea,
32:33because they could see how they were being manipulated by the British.
32:40Undaunted, Millington Drake and naval intelligence kept up the pressure on Langsdorff.
32:47The British knew that their telephone line was tapped by the Germans.
32:53A call was deliberately put in to the ambassador in Buenos Aires,
32:57pretending to arrange for the imminent arrival of two more heavy British warships.
33:05As anticipated, the call was intercepted by German intelligence and reported to Berlin.
33:12The British also leaked the story to the press.
33:16The Germans were convinced that Harwood had major reinforcements arriving in the river plate.
33:24Millington Drake had been pulling the strings again.
33:27He was, as I like to put it, the man behind the curtain.
33:32And he was very good at it.
33:35My grandfather would have loved the cloak and dagger element of the diplomatic battle, of the drama.
33:42In particular, the need to create a lot of force intelligence,
33:48which would cause the Germans to think that there is a huge force out there waiting.
33:56Langsdorff and his officers became totally of the view that if they went out of the plate,
34:03they would run into a much more powerful force.
34:06The deception had worked brilliantly.
34:12And now time had run out for Langsdorff.
34:18Despite his appeals, the Uruguayan government insisted Graf Spee had to leave Montevideo before 8 o'clock Sunday evening.
34:27A second battle now seemed inevitable.
34:41It was clear from the outset that whatever was to happen,
34:44were the ship to leave the harbour and engage in battle,
34:47one way or another it meant destruction.
34:54Langsdorff signalled Berlin, explaining his predicament and asking for instructions.
35:00Inside Montevideo, we have Langsdorff who is increasingly worried about the presence of allied capital ships.
35:08Outside the harbour, we have Harwood who is only too aware that those capital ships have not turned up and are miles away,
35:15and is very, very concerned that if Langsdorff does come out, he'll be able to get by him,
35:20out into the open ocean, he'll be lost and he might even get home.
35:28On board HMS Ajax, Harwood wrote of his fears in a letter to his family.
35:34I have a most difficult problem to catch him again, and if he escapes, all the good we have done will be upset.
35:42Not all, but a lot of it.
35:44The mouth of the plate is wide, and there are so many ways out that it's very difficult.
35:49Probably another battle, and who knows.
35:52I hope for the best. You'll know by the time you get this.
35:58If the worst happens, bring my sons up to be men.
36:04Everybody was waiting for the battle to continue, naturally.
36:07That was the assumption. It's an unfinished battle.
36:12The Graf Spee cannot remain in Montevideo.
36:18The British are waiting outside. The German has to leave the port.
36:22Naturally, a clash has to occur.
36:29To begin with, nobody knew what was going to happen.
36:32Is the Graf Spee going to set sail again?
36:35Will the Graf Spee try to reach another harbour?
36:38Will the ship engage in battle with the English ships anchored off the River Plate estuary?
36:44What is going to happen?
36:48The pressure on Langsdorff was becoming intolerable.
36:51Again, he signalled Berlin for instructions.
36:54The reply was not helpful.
36:57He was ordered not to let the ship fall into enemy hands,
37:01but was given no direct orders as to what action to take.
37:11Why Langsdorff did what he did next
37:14is one of the enduring mysteries of the Second World War.
37:20But Timewatch has, for the first time,
37:23been given access to Langsdorff's personal archive.
37:28THE LAST LETTER
37:33For 66 years, his daughter has kept his last letter home, hidden away,
37:38secret even from her own children.
37:41I am writing this letter on my last day as commander of this proud ship.
37:46My decision was not an easy one, but two rules served as guiding principles.
37:52Firstly, being prepared to take on any responsibility
37:56as long as there was the slightest chance of harming the enemy.
38:00Secondly, the dispassionate consideration
38:03not to send my men to their deaths unnecessarily,
38:06but to maintain the ship's honour and the flag's honour to the last.
38:11THE LAST LETTER
38:22The Graspe slowly started moving, just at sunset.
38:30It was very theatrical, you know. It was a beautiful summer day.
38:34Half the population of Montevideo, hundreds of thousands of people,
38:38was concentrated along the Rambla.
38:42Langsdorff's final showdown with Harwood now seemed inevitable.
38:49But as the crowds watched, most of her crew was transferred to tugboats
38:54before the pocket battleship slowly left the harbour.
38:57THE LAST LETTER
39:03I remember this precisely. 1955, 7.55,
39:08the disk of the sun was slowly sinking on the ocean.
39:15And then the sound, an explosion,
39:21which at first it seemed like a cannon.
39:25People thought the battle had started.
39:28Others said, no, that's only a smoke screen.
39:33No, actually, it was a suicide.
39:36It was a suicide.
39:40The German ship was committing suicide.
39:48Langsdorff, outmanoeuvred, believed all was lost.
39:52With no clear orders forthcoming from Berlin,
39:55he disembarked the rest of his crew and scuttled the Graf Spee.
40:04The English had managed to surround us in such a way
40:07that leaving to engage in battle with an opponent overwhelmingly superior to us
40:12would lead to our certain demise.
40:15THE LAST LETTER
40:23I think this was the deciding factor for Langsdorff.
40:30His conscience told him that it was pointless
40:33to sacrifice the lives of a thousand young men
40:36in pursuit of a task that could not succeed.
40:40If he sailed, he was facing certain death,
40:43and a death that would mean dishonour
40:45because the ship might well sink in shallow water
40:48and a lot of his secret equipment, especially his radar, be captured.
40:54The Battle of the River Plate was over.
41:05Harwood and his men would return home as heroes.
41:09THE LAST LETTER
41:14Everyone wants to see these men who gave the Graf Spee such a beating.
41:18A memorable day for Londoners able to watch the sailors march past.
41:22The sinking of the Graf Spee was hugely important.
41:26It was the first major naval victory of the war
41:29and was immediately used to full effect by the Allied propaganda machine.
41:34And I may add that in a dark, cold winter,
41:39it warmed the cockles of the British heart.
41:49Langsdorff took his crew across the River Plate to Buenos Aires.
41:56On arrival, he was branded a coward by the press
41:59for not taking the fight back to the British,
42:02even though the odds were against him.
42:05When he landed in Buenos Aires, he came under great pressure from the press
42:08as to why had he come to Buenos Aires.
42:11And the pressures on the man must have been absolutely unbearable.
42:14He knew that on his personal decision,
42:17he had thrown away one of the German navy's greatest assets,
42:21that instead of a victory, he'd suffered a defeat.
42:25And it was understandable, therefore,
42:28that he would decide that there was only one way out.
42:32Saying goodbye to me in Montevideo when I was transferred,
42:37he said,
42:40say hello to Germany for me,
42:43say hello to my family.
42:46There's a lot in that sentence.
42:53That was a truly moving moment for me when he said this
42:59and said goodbye.
43:06On December the 19th,
43:09Langsdorff gathered his crew together in Buenos Aires
43:12and assured them that they were now safe and would be looked after.
43:18That evening, he joined fellow officers in the senior ratings mess
43:22of the Arsenal building where they had been stationed.
43:29He was said to have been at ease and in good spirits.
43:33He then retired to his room and wrote a letter home to his family.
43:37It would be his last.
43:40Now deep down inside me I am happy and content.
43:43Everything is being prepared and I have the peace and quiet
43:46in which to write you this letter,
43:49to bid you farewell and thank you.
43:53If this is God's will, then I shall cheerfully meet my death,
43:58despite life having been so dear to me,
44:01because it gave me all that it had to offer.
44:06Then there are some very personal lines,
44:09and then in conclusion my father writes,
44:12be proud in your grief and prove yourself to be a true soldier's wife.
44:16Give my love to Jochen and Inge.
44:20And then his signature.
44:24It still moves me.
44:34Sometime in the early hours of the morning,
44:37Captain Hans Langsdorff shot himself.
44:40The captain of the pocket battleship Graf Spee
44:43was buried with full naval honours in Buenos Aires.
44:47His officers and crew were joined by Argentine armed forces
44:51in forming a guard of honour through the streets.
44:55German and Argentine dignitaries stood next to representatives
44:59of the British merchant sailors,
45:02whose lives Langsdorff had saved.
45:05The Battle of the River Plate was the first great media event
45:08of the Second World War.
45:10The world looked on as Langsdorff made his fateful decisions.
45:14Many branded him a coward for not leaving Montevideo with all guns blazing.
45:19I think in a way, Langsdorff was more heroic
45:23than he was a hero.
45:26I think he was more heroic than he was a hero.
45:29I think he was more heroic than he was a hero.
45:33Langsdorff was more heroic doing what he did
45:37than going out and immolating himself at the hands of the British,
45:41because Langsdorff was very conscious
45:44that the young man in his crew
45:47should not pay the price for his error,
45:50for his disobedience, for his mistake.
45:54I maintain that Langsdorff's decision
45:57was the correct one at the time,
46:00that it was the correct one later on,
46:03and that it remains the correct one today.
46:08A thousand men owe their life to Langsdorff.
46:16But Langsdorff was only one of many victims.
46:20A total of 108 men lost their lives that day.
46:2466 years later, survivors from both sides
46:27joined together in a cemetery in Montevideo
46:30to remember those who fell in the Battle of the River Plate.
46:34They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
46:39Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
46:44At the going down of the sun and in the morning
46:47we will remember them.
46:50We will remember them.
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