Battle of the River Plate, The Hunt for Graf Spee - Animated

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use of their fantastic services please follow the link below and use promo code tor to get 83 off plus three extra months for free with a 30-day money-back guarantee why not try it out yourself it's late august 1939 and the admiral graf spay is just leaving her anchorage at the port of wilhelmshaven with the prospects of war between nazi germany and great britain increasing by the day the head of the kriegsmarine admiral eric raider wants germany's u-boats and commerce raiders out in the atlantic before the invasion of poland begins once there they can be swiftly called upon to cause chaos in the shipping lanes of germany's enemies and so in the waning days of august graf space slips along the coast of norway then past iceland and into the atlantic ocean remaining undetected by the royal navy soon graft spay will begin her mission of disrupting allied commerce in the south atlantic and in turn the allies will have to begin the difficult mission of eliminating the threat she poses [Music] known to the germans as a panzerschiff graf's bay is the latest in the deutschland class of modern light battle cruisers with six 11-inch guns in two triple turrets and a maximum speed of 28 knots craft spay has been designed to be able to outrun any warship more powerful than it and outfight any warship faster than it thus due to her speed and potent armament she is ideal for implementing the kriegsmarine's atlantic trade warfare plan to interdict and disrupt allied merchant shipping and to force the allies to commit large numbers of warships in an effort to protect their merchant shipping commanded by the experienced captain hans lansdorff it is early september by the time graf spey reaches her intended operational area in the south atlantic maintaining strict radio silence she waits in the area until the 25th of september when langsdorf is finally granted permission to begin interdicting british merchant shipping with permission granted graf spain moves to the coast of south america and on the 30th of september the merchant ship ss clement becomes her first victim to keep the allies guessing as to where she might strike next langsdorf decides to move to the west coast of africa where in the first weeks of october graf's bay proceeds to sink four merchant ships however on the 23rd of october a merchant ship eludes grafts bay after likely citing her erado reconnaissance aircraft and flees to cape town concerned the allies may have been alerted to his position langsdorff moves west as quickly as possible bringing forward his rendezvous with the supply ship altmark concluding that staying off the coast of southwest africa is too risky langsdorff decides to move into the indian ocean and attempt to draw allied warships away from the south atlantic in mid-november she locates and sinks the ss africa shell satisfied that the attack would be reported and that the indian ocean would soon become the focus of efforts to find them langsdorf chooses to return to the south atlantic and to avert any possible encounter with the royal navy after again refuelling from altmark graf spay heads back to the african coast sinking two more british merchant ships on arrival however before the cruise of the merchant ships can be subdued they are able to send radio distress messages indicating that they are under attack by an armed raider and the royal navy are soon alerted it would be this information that would finally give the royal navy the chance to sink graf's bay [Music] with german commerce raiding by surface vessels and u-boats now underway across the atlantic and indian ocean the allies deploy eight hunting groups in an attempt to combat them three aircraft carriers and battle cruisers and up to 16 other warships are being used to hunt for gruff spay however the responsibility of taking on and stopping her would ultimately fall to three british cruisers after hearing of the sinkings off the south west african coast commodore henry harwood commander of force g at the falkland islands in the south atlantic believes graf spey could attempt to move to south america to avoid any allies hunting groups sent to find her he deploys three of his four cruisers to the coast off the river plate to hopefully intercept graf's bay his belief is correct and grouch bay steams for south america intercepting another merchant ship on her way upon finding documents detailing british shipping routes out of the river plate langsdorff moves graf's bay forward to the river plate hoping for further success whilst german intelligence has warned langsdorf that a british light cruiser was in montevideo this does not dissuade him and he presses on as the sun rises on the 13th of december harwood squadron is cruising 180 miles from the uruguayan coast heavy cruiser hms exeter and two light cruisers hms achilles and ajax exeter's armament consists of six 8-inch guns in three twin turrets if exeter can get close enough her 8-inch shells could penetrate the armor of grass spay and cause considerable damage achilles and ajax are more lightly armed with eight six-inch guns in four twin turrets thus despite outnumbering graf's bay harwood's squadron is outgunned and their chance of successfully stopping her is uncertain at 5 54 a.m grass bay's lookouts spot three british warships on the horizon fearing the faster cruisers could tell him langsdorff chooses to fight aiming to inflict enough damage to force the british warships to retreat graf's bay swings towards harwood squadron the british warships cite a vessel to their north harwood orders exeter to move northwest to investigate the vessel and ajax and achilles continue forwards at 6 16 captain frederick bell on exeter signals harwood i think it's a pocket battleship just as the crew of exeter realized that they might be facing down a pocket battleship at the range of just under 10 miles a group of 11 inch shells land just 200 yards short of them exeter raises her battle ensigns and promptly returns fire with her two forward turrets harwood orders achilles and ajax to increase speed and begin to engage a second salvo lands all around exeter before another showers her starboard torpedo mount and float planes with shrapnel ecstasy is finding her range and after just straddling her with a salvo an 8 inch shell penetrates grass bay and detonates inside her searchlight workshop graphspay responds scoring two direct hits on exeter with the latter knocking out her b turret and sharing the exposed bridge with deadly shrapnel killing almost everyone and wounding captain bell [Music] return fire lands close to grass bay but not close enough and minutes later a hit on exeter's water line causes flooding having brought graf spey into a position to bring all of her guns against all the british cruisers langsdorff content the extra has been dealt serious damage decides to fire on the light cruisers almost immediately achilles and ajax are straddled by shells the light cruisers respond with their combined sixteen six-inch guns but to their surprise graf's bay deploys smoke and seemingly retreat [Music] langsdorff is maneuvering to eliminate exeter which is continuing to fire on grafts bay at 6 38 exeter hits her twice damaging the primary rangefinder and leaving langsdorff wounded in response ruff's bay exacts a crippling toll on exeter hitting her with numerous 11 inch shells knocking out her remaining forward turret and causing numerous fires effectively out of the fight captain bell slowly turns exeter away firing her aft guns as she withdraws [Music] despite the damage to exeter ajax and achilles press on and their combined fire causes langsdorf to make smoke and alter cause awareness as the light cruisers get closer the potential for torpedo attack increases langsdorf deploys smoke again and speeds west hoping to shake the british off ajax and achilles keep up the chase and continue to pummel her with six inch fire grafts bay swings to port to bring all guns to bear ajax is covered in large plumes of water from the salvo but continues on turning north east she again fires at ajax this time scoring a hit disabling her two-arc turrets ajax launches four torpedoes at graf's bay which replies with four torpedoes herself all miss by 7 34 the number of hits on graph spay is starting to tell and langsdorff decides to deploy more smoke in an effort to slip away assessing his own situation harwood learns that ajax is low on ammunition and that her bee turret has failed he orders firing to cease exeter's remaining turret has been disabled by flooding she limps away to the south east with gruff spain moving southwest at speed harwood orders his cruisers to pursue her langsdorf concludes that graft spain needs substantial repairs and heads straight for neutral uruguay she anchors in montevideo at 11 45 pm harwood is forced to wait the sudden appearance of craft bay and montevideo ignites extensive diplomatic activity and becomes the focus of international attention according to international law langsdorf only has 24 hours to make repairs german authorities want two weeks in the end langsdorff gets three days meanwhile the eccentric british diplomat eugene millington drake seeks to persuade uruguayan authorities to keep graft's bay in montevideo until substantial british reinforcements can arrive the heavy cruiser cumberland is on route from the falkland islands while the heavy cruisers dorsiture and shropshire are on route from cape town the aircraft carrier arc royal and battle cruiser renown are on their way from rio and will arrive in six days on the 15th british diplomats turn to deception by claiming that arc royal and renown have already arrived this false information soon spreads to langsdorff who concludes that they have no chance of successfully getting back to germany at 6 30 pm on the 17th of december graf spay raises her anchor and with a crew of only 220 sails to a point four miles off the coast by 7 30 the remaining crew have left the ship for a nearby german tanker langsdorff has decided to save his men instead of wasting their lives in a battle he views to be unwinnable and to scuttle the ship at 7 54 graf spa explodes in a massive flames and slowly begins to sink to the shallow waters of the estuary grass bay's threat to merchant shipping has come to an end upon returning home the men of exeter ajax and achilles are greeted to a hero's welcome with the first lord of the admiralty declaring the brilliant sea fight which admiral harwood conceived and which those here executed takes its place in our naval annals and may i add that in the cold dark of winter it warmed the cockles of the british heart on the 19th of december after saying farewell to his men and family langsdorff takes his own life you

Channel: The Operations Room

Views: 621,645

Keywords: Time-Lapse, History, Second World War, ww2, Documentary, time lapse, animated, war, admiral graf spee, royal navy, Kriegsmarine, battleship, cruiser, battlecruiser, hms ajax, hms achilles, hms exeter

Id: 4sri-aYukis

Length: 13min 35sec (815 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 13 2021