Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Another History Lesson - Admiral Graf Spee

I've been catching up on my WW2 reading. This time about the Deutschland class cruisers. Amazingly a chap at work had not heard of the River Plate encounter. The film must have been shown on TV hundreds of times.

Anyway, something I didn't know - the power plant(s) were 9 cylinder double acting two stroke diesels. Four of them producing 56,000 shaft HP - via two Vulcan reduction gearboxes. (28.5 knots). The benefits over steam turbines were a much greater range, and the ability to attain maximum speed much quicker than with a turbine.
Amazing technology for the 1930's.
The whole story of the development of this class (of three) is fascinating. And how in the early stages of WW2, the crew were taken off enemy ships, before either requisitioning, or where the engines had been sabotaged (as per instructions), sinking an empty ship.
After the battle, where he inflicted huge damage on the three British cruisers, British intelligence misled the Captain into believing that he faced insurmountable odds, which is why he blew his ship up, then shot himself in the head the following day after making sure his crew were safe.

Being an ex sea going Chief Engineer I sailed on a couple of ships with opposed piston 2 stroke diesel engines - built by Doxford of Sunderland.
Quite a balanced engine compared to normal large bore 2 role engines which would rattle the ship to death.

I've always thought it a remarkable coincidence that Maximilien Graf Spee (after whom the WWII pocket battleship of the battle of the river plate was named) himself died almost 25 years to the day before the Graf Spee was scuttled.

Graf Spee died at the battle of the falklands on 8th december 1914; the ship which bore his name was sunk on 14th december 1939 less than 1000 nautical miles away.

The Royal Navy played one of the greatest games of poker in maritime history with the bluff they sold to Capt Hans Lagsdorff.

When I was 12 I used to play football in a kid's team. Seven-a-side, you know what it is. We made a travel to Uruguay to play some games there and we stayed in the houses of the uruguayan players, kind of interchange thing, they did the same when they came to our country. My father and I were the last ones to find accomodation, he was the coach and I was the captain of the team, we had the task to find a house for every player. And then some tall, blonde, moustached man came in and invited us to stay at his home. His name was Rolf Haag Claas, he was the chauffeur of the West Germany ambassador in Montevideo and his father was a helper in the kitchen of the Graf Spee. The old man had decided to stay in Uruguay, got married and had kids. Being kind of a scholar of WW2 myself we talked a lot about the war and the River Plate in the days that we stayed there but never met Rolf's father, can't remember why.
I recently saw a History Channel documentary about that battle and this post brought a lot of memories of that trip and, of course, of my father, God bless his soul.

Wonderful history Dhango.

Dave,

when the QE2 was refitted in 1986/87 I think the oil fired steam turbines were replaced with the sort of marine diesels used in the AGS. She lost some speed, but reduced fuel consumption massively.

I do wonder if the relatively low speed of AGS was one of the reasons for the decision to scuttle; the Captain didn't have the speed to out run the British fleet, even if he had the range. Exeter and similar ships could all do over 30kts, AGS 28.5 undamaged. In the condition she was in who knows.

If you are into WW2 books pick up Decisive Battles Of The Second World War .It contains .
BLITZKRIEG 1940 by Heinz Guderian.
BATTLE OF BRITIAN by Adolf Galland .
MATAPAN by Viscount Cunningham .
SINGAPORE by Masannobu Tsuji .
MIDWAY by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumlaa
EL ALAMEIN by Viscount Montgomery.
STALINGRAD by Vasili Chuikov .
ATLANTIC CONVOY by Sir Peter Gretton .
MONTE CASSINO by Frido von Senger und Etterlin.
IMPHAL by Vicount Slim .
D-DAY by Omar Bradley .
LEYTE GULF. by Douglas MacArthur.
STRATEGY 1944 by Dwight D. Eisenhower.
THE ARDENNES by Omar Bradley.

Its very good reading to hear it from the other side . Dad was in the Ardennes in the winter along with many other places . Told me about the Americans along with many other stories .

Also a Ex Chief, also sailed on Doxfords, the MAN engines were double acting, not opposed piston.

This was a piston with a combustion chamber above and below the piston.

A horrid thing to work on as anyone who sailed on the B&W disasters built by Harland and Wolf will attest.

They were prone to scavenge fires and crankcase explosions.

The world will not see their like again, at lest I hope not.

Jon the Chief

Thanks for the tips, JTL. There are not as many books about WW2 in the shelfs today and what it is is too expensive. I have a 10 volumes encyclopedia about WW2 written by a swiss colonel so it has some kind of neutrality on the issue. But I try to see as many documentaries as I can and from time to time I surf the web for information and pictures. And anecdotes, of course.

There are some interesting stories about the Gurkhas .