All language subtitles for The Battle of the River Plate [1956].en

On December 13th 1939, 200 miles
off the coast of South America,

the first major naval battle of
World War Two exploded into action.

Against overwhelming firepower,
three British ships took on the

pride of the German fleet, the
pocket battleship, Graf Spee.

It would become known as the
Battle of the River Plate.

The battle would pit two
great naval officers

against each other
in a deadly duel.

Graf Spee was commanded by
Captain Hans Langsdorff,

a decorated hero from
the First World War.

A thousand men owe their
lives to Langsdorff.

Facing him was Commodore Henry
Harwood, a brilliant naval tactician.

He had a happy knack of getting results
by being nice. People trusted him.

As the world watched, the battle
moved ashore in a gripping story

of deception, and one of the biggest
bluffs of the Second World War.

One of the commanders would be
decorated and return home a hero.

The other would lose his ship, his
reputation, and eventually his life.

In this battle we have good versus evil.

Weak versus strong.

The weak triumph over the strong.

But the strong is represented by a
good man fighting for an evil cause.

He pays the price of this
impossible situation.

It's a tragedy that most playwrights
could make a great deal from.

Tonight, Timewatch re-examines
the evidence and tells

the full story of the
Battle of the River Plate.

-==[ www.OpenSubtitles.org ]==-

The Admiral Graf Spee was the
pride of the German navy.

Even before the Second World War had
begun, she was central to secret

plans for a guerre de corse, a
war against commerce at sea.

A special ship would
need a special captain.

The man chosen was one of the best
and most highly respected officers

in the German navy
- Captain Hans Langsdorff.

The great thing about Langsdorff was
that he was a very gentlemanly officer.

He was a very old style naval officer.

And he was a very
attractive figure as well.

Langsdorff came from a family of
lawyers and Lutheran pastors,

and had been brought up in
a strict moral tradition.

The Christian concept of the
world meant a lot to him,

as did morality.

These were the things which he valued.

He had thought about
becoming a vicar, which

the family would have
definitely approved of.

But on reflection, he
decided to join the navy.

When I reported to Captain Hans Langsdorff,

he struck me as someone who'd
had a humanistic education.

He was somewhat different from the image one
has of an officer in the imperial navy.

Langsdorff's Graf Spee was
nicknamed a pocket battleship.

It was boasted that she was
bigger than anything faster,

and faster than anything bigger.

Her newly designed diesel
engines allowed her

to cruise for 16,000 miles
without refuelling.

Bristling with huge 11 inch guns, she was
capable of sinking ships 15 miles away.

My father must have been really proud and
happy to be on such a beautiful ship.

Not only beautiful to look
at, but great in every way.

On August 21st 1939,

Graf Spee sailed quietly away from
her base in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.

On board were 1,134 crew.

Her departure was carefully
timed so that she would cross

the main shipping lanes at
night without being spotted.

When Britain declared war
on September the 3rd,

Germany already had an ace
hiding in the Atlantic.

Her orders were to act
as a lone surface raider

and to wreak havoc with
allied merchant shipping.

Langsdorff's intention was to
create as much chaos as he could.

So he'd sink something somewhere
and then motor away as

fast as he could somewhere
else to give the impression

there was more than one ship, and to
create as much chaos as possible.

In fact, the main aim was not so much
the physical damage that was involved

in sinking the ships, it was the
whole chaos that was inflicted on

shipping in this broad
area, shipping that was of

crucial importance to Britain's
survival in the war.

On September 30th, Graf Spee sank
the British steamship Clement.

But she got off a radio message
warning that she was being attacked.

News of an unidentified
German raider in the South

Atlantic was met with swift
action at the Admiralty.

With merchant shipping
vital to the war effort,

Churchill made the German
raider his number one target.

20 warships were dispatched
to hunt her down.

Three of them were under the command
of Commodore Henry Harwood.

Henry Harwood is possibly the
archetypal cruiser Commodore.

He knew the area perfectly.

He'd served there before the war.

He knew it like the back
of his hand, and he had

thought long and hard before
the war about how to deal

with pocket battleships in general,
when he'd worked at the naval college

at Greenwich, and how to deal with them
in particular in South American waters.

Langsdorff could not have faced
a more formidable opponent.

Henry Harwood was a family man who had
joined the navy as a 15 year-old cadet.

In 1906, he passed out top of his class and
went on to serve in the First World War.

He was quite social.

He enjoyed country sports.

He was a good golfer.

He had a happy knack of getting
results by being nice.

People trusted him,

and his ship's company, I think, always...

realised that he required a high
standard and they gave a high standard.

Serving under Commodore Harwood
was 19 year-old Basil Trott.

He was a great skipper.

He was a great seaman.

He decided that when we left England,
we were going to be an efficient ship.

It didn't matter what time of the
day or night it was, if he was up,

he would think of something for us to do.

Action stations at midnight.

Lower a sea boat and try and pick up a
lifebuoy which he'd thrown over the side.

Lower all the pulling boats
and row them round the ship.

But he also used to stop
the ship in mid-Atlantic

and say, "Hands to
bathe", which was great.

You just dropped whatever you were
doing and leapt over the side.

Anyway, by the time we'd
been in commission six

months, we found he wasn't
really a bad old stick.

Commodore Harwood and Captain
Langsdorff were set on a very

public collision course, one which
would shape both their destinies.

In a deadly game of cat
and mouse, Langsdorff

continued to hunt allied
merchant shipping.

To cause the maximum confusion
possible, he now also began to

disguise his ship, adding a fake
gun turret and an extra funnel.

He played his sister ships.

In the South Atlantic, he
was the Admiral Scheer.

In the Indian Ocean, he was
the Admiral Graf Spee.

He made the allies think
there were a number of

German raiders around
when there was only one.

He played this game, and
I think he enjoyed it.

Apparently during the
entire trip, he took great

delight in avoiding being
found by the English ships.

To me, doing that seems almost boyish -

even though he was 45 years old by then.

Graf Spee next intercepted
the Newton Beach,

a British merchant ship.

To keep his position secret,
Langsdorff ordered the merchantman

not to use the radio to report
his presence or he'd open fire.

He then transferred her crew to the
Graf Spee, before sinking their ship.

On October the 7th, the
Ashley, carrying 7,300

tonnes of sugar, was
sent to the bottom.

Again, Langsdorff transferred
her crew to the Graf Spee.

He was worried about the fate of
the crews of the ships he sank.

And he would compromise his
own position, in fact,

in order to secure the lives
of the crews that he'd sunk.

In fact, one very touching
thing is the way that when

ships would not obey his
orders and still signal,

and he would shoot at them,
he would congratulate the

officers at the end to say,
"You did the right thing."

Throughout October and November,
Langsdorff led the British

a merry dance around the South
Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.

He continued to sink merchant shipping,
but insisted on saving lives.

Hans Langsdorff conducted
an outstanding cruiser war,

which in the form it took, was
unique in naval war history.

Unique, because he fulfilled
his task as a merchant raider.

And yet, during the deployment of the
ship, not a single human life was lost.

Because Graf Spee was a lone raider,
thousands of miles from home,

Langsdorff had strict orders from
Berlin not to attack other warships.

Hitler did not want to risk
losing his prize asset.

But these were orders that
went against the grain

for an old-school officer
like Langsdorff.

In his heart of hearts, he
considered this somehow insulting.

Which was clearly shown by what he said.

And my father also thought it dishonourable

to attack a much weaker opponent, who
had no chance of defence at all.

Graf Spee had been at sea for three months
and was coming to the end of her patrol.

Langsdorff was eager to
win a significant victory

over a British warship
before returning to Germany.

It is precisely because Graf Spee is
disappearing from the South Atlantic

and it cannot be foreseen when a second
commerce raider can operate here,

that it must be perceived to
have achieved an objectively

significant success
before leaving the area.

You can see from the war diary
that Langsdorff was getting

very frustrated at just
sinking merchant ships.

He wanted a victory over the
British before he went home.

By early December, Commodore Harwood's
cruiser Exeter, and his two light cruisers,

Ajax and Achilles, were
patrolling the South American

coast between Brazil and
the Falkland Islands.

Harwood, a tactical
expert, had a hunch as to

where Langsdorff might
eventually be found.

The idea had come to him on
a day out with his wife.

At the World Trade Fair,
he was transfixed by a map

which showed the shipping
routes in the South Atlantic,

and how they all focused on the Plate.

And he was so transfixed that
Mother, who was there at the time,

had great difficulty in
getting him away from it.

On December the 2nd, Graf Spee
sank the steamship Doric Star.

But not before she was
able to send the emergency

code signal announcing
she was being attacked.

Excuse me, sir. We've just had a...

For the first time, Harwood now
knew where the German raider was.

I've got here a rough
diagram which Father made

in making his plans for where Graf
Spee was after sinking Doric Star.

And various calculations
of her speed and probable

speeds and range, and
where she'd get to.

And he had three options.

One was to go to Rio, where
he'd get on the 12th,

one to the Plate for the 13th, or to
the Falkland Islands on the 14th.

So, it's quite an interesting little
bit of paper, which he sent home

to Mother, saying, "Keep
it, it is of interest."

Harwood's thinking that Langsdorff
would head for the River Plate,

is one of the most
classic examples of

inspired intuition, I
think, in naval history.

He knew, from his experience, that
the River Plate was a focal point.

That if there was a German raider
in the area, which it looked as

if there was because of
the sinkings, then it was

more than likely he would
come to the River Plate.

There was no code breaking,
there was no intelligence,

this was just inspired
professional instinct.

And he was absolutely right.

On December the 7th, Graf Spee
sank the another merchantman,

and captured secret documents
that revealed allied

convoys were forming off the
mouth of the River Plate.

It was the opportunity for a major victory
that Langsdorff had been looking for.

He presumed that these convoys were
protected by one or two destroyers.

But he didn't reckon on finding
Admiral Harwood's squadron there.

Graf Spee headed towards the River Plate.

Although neither Langsdorff
nor Harwood knew it,

they were now just 20 miles apart.

There was tension building up in the ship.

I mean, we knew that there was a German
raider and they were a modern ship.

And the equipment we had
was the same sort of

equipment that they had
in the First World War.

It was fairly hit and miss stuff.

It was in the early hours
of the morning, and

the commander was asleep
in a tower cabin.

And when the tops of the
masts could be made out...

..the commander was woken
and the alarm was sounded.

I don't think the sailors,
any of them, got their

breakfast from the galley,
when something was sighted,

and they sounded off action
stations on the bugle.

And I can feel the cold shiver now,

even sitting here, that I felt then.

What's going to happen?

Of course, we're all starting
up, "Whose joke is this?"

The commander's being funny.

We all turned out till
somebody's screaming,

"It's the real thing!"

A messenger went down to
Father in his cabin and

he said, "I think I've
heard that one before."

But nevertheless, he put
his uniform on over his

pyjamas, went up to the bridge,
and was there all day.

He waited for a moment, and then it became
increasingly clear that these were warships.

To begin with, he had assumed
them to be destroyers.

And then he said, very
calmly, ' "OK, let's do it."

The key moment is when Langsdorff
sights three British warships.

He chooses to engage. He
knows that that's going

against his basic orders
not to engage warships.

But he thinks that the
time has come to do it.

He could have got away.

His diesel engines allowed him to
accelerate away in the opposite direction.

He chose deliberately not to.

Had he realised in time that he
was faced with three cruisers,

he certainly would not
have engaged in battle.

It sounds very unfair really,
three ships versus one.

But yet the one ship has the advantage.

And you can see clearly
from here why it does.

It has got six guns that can
fire these huge 670lb shells.

One of these hitting you, you know about
it, as Exeter particularly found out.

Whereas the British ships, the two
smaller ones with the six-inch shells,

they can spew out large
numbers of these, but clearly

the effect of 100lbs hitting
you is going to be a

good deal less than the
effect of 670lbs hitting you.

All the British could hope to do
is to peck their enemies to death.

But Harwood had a brilliantly simple
plan, which now came into its own.

He was convinced that his
smaller ships could beat

a pocket battleship by
using a simple strategy.

He would split his ships into two flanks,

thus forcing Graf Spee to
make choices as to which

side to fire at, effectively
halving her firepower.

Poor old Graf Spee, throughout the Battle
of the River Plate, is firing at one ship.

And then at the other two ships.

One ship, the other two ships.

Its attention is entirely split.

And that worked absolutely brilliantly.

Harwood's tactics of dividing his
ships were revolutionary at the time.

But the plan called for the Exeter
to head straight for Graf Spee.

This exposed her to the full fury
of Langsdorff's 11-inch guns.

In the battle that followed,
Exeter took seven direct hits.

Some of us were directed up to
the bridge area, where a shell

had passed through what was known
as the remote control office.

And the people there were cut to ribbons.

And we had to sort of

really, I suppose, put people together.

You know...

Well, it's difficult just to sort
of talk about it, I suppose.

But there was a body here
and an arm over there.

And you knew that that arm
belonged to that body

because he had the right
buttons on his sleeve.

The Exeter was now a limping wreck.

Amazingly, Graf Spee did
not move in to sink her

and bring Langsdorff the
victory he had sought.

But for Kurt Diggins, the answer
lies in Langsdorff's character.

He didn't pursue the Exeter because the
Exeter had been rendered unfit for combat.

And it's possible that his own personal
attitude played a part here too.

Why sink a ship if it would entail
600 or 700 men losing their lives?

Graf Spee now turned her guns
on Harwood's other two ships.

Seven men were killed on
Ajax, four more on Achilles.

When you hear them land, there's
an almighty percussion.

Because we were down below in the
deck, and as you come down below,

there's a steel hatch,
and the steel hatch

there's around about 2ft
6 square, I suppose,

that we went down through.

And that's with a wired-up
lid, and that clang, stop.

And you were shut in down there.

I often thought afterwards, you know, it
came to you, then there's fear after.

"Hell, what if something had happened? How
the hell were we going to get out of there?"

At 7.40, after 80 minutes of
ferocious battle, Harwood ordered

the Ajax and Achilles to break off
the action under a smokescreen.

To Harwood's surprise,
Langsdorff didn't pursue,

but instead turned Graf Spee away.

Accurate British firing had taken
its toll on the German ship.

The impact was recorded by one
of Langsdorff's officers.

Above deck they have punished us severely.

What one sees there is disastrous.

When, from my control station, I
have to go to the command post

or to one of the gun turrets, I have
to cross the chief first aid post.

The floor is running with blood.

It made a huge impression on him.

There's one of those pictures
of him standing there,

his head bare, wearing a coat,
receiving the first reports.

He then walked through the ship and
visited the hospital below deck,

where the injured and also
some of the dead were laid.

And this made a profound impression on him.

Having finished his inspection
of the damage, Langsdorff

decided that his ship
urgently needed repairs.

He headed for the nearest major port,
Montevideo in neutral Uruguay.

It was a move that would
have grave consequences.

Langsdorff telegraphed Berlin
explaining his fateful decision.

36 killed, five seriously
wounded, 53 slightly wounded.

As ship cannot be made
seaworthy for breakthrough

to the homeland with means
on board, decided to go

into the River Plate, at
risk of being shut in there.

With Graf Spee's arrival
in the harbour, the Battle

of the River Plate turned
into the first great

media event of the war, as the world's
press arrived to cover the story.

First on the scene was local
reporter, 22 year-old Hugo Rocha.

The first assignment was to cover the
arrival of the ship on Wednesday night.

It was tremendously impressive. We had
never seen anything like that, especially

inside the harbour.

The second day, I went around
the ship with my photographer.

And my impression was of pity.

Pity. I knew that 36 of them had
died, that many more were wounded.

Most of the crew, I saw them,
were boys, 18, 19 years old.

We were very conscious that we were
suddenly part of the great world war

that had started three
months earlier in Europe,

that we were following
with passionate interest.

And that, suddenly, the
war was happening here.

The following morning, as the
cameras rolled, Langsdorff released

61 British merchant sailors
who had been held captive

on board Graf Spee after
their ships were sunk.

Langsdorff's next task
was to bury his dead.

Hundreds of German citizens
attend the ceremonies at the grave.

Captain Langsdorff watches in silence as the
boys he once commanded find final peace.

This is a good photo of
the Graf Spee, isn't it?

66 years after he first
sailed the seas around the

River Plate, Bob Batt and
fellow veteran Roy Dickey

return for the first time since 1939.

They have come back to
Montevideo for a memorial

service, and to remember
their fallen shipmates.

We actually collected together
62 bodies on that morning

and laid them out on the
forecastle for burial.

And the captain stood there with his
prayer book and read the burial service.

Then he said, "We now commit
their bodies to the sea."

And each one is then gently
allowed to slide over the side.

Reality came home to you that
you'd lost chaps that you knew.

It did come home to you, really.

I remember just watching
those bodies slide down...

..a plank.

Pipes and what have you. No,
it does come home to you.

It's a very moving moment.

I don't think you ever
really sort of get over it.

It's something you like to try and forget.

The morning after the battle, it
was headline news across Britain.

"Here is the news.

"There has been an
important naval engagement

between a German
pocket battleship

"and three British cruisers
in the South Atlantic."

I was at prep school in my last year,
and Stephen was in his first year.

And we were rehearsing a play, in which
fortunately I had a very minor part.

And I remember one of the masters
coming in with the evening papers

and I saw them, and I was very frightened.

But the news was good.

Commodore Harwood had been knighted
and promoted to Rear Admiral.

Churchill obviously and
rightly wanted to make

much of what really was the first
British victory in the war.

And he did this in spades. I mean,

he promoted Father immediately.

He had him made a Knight
Commander of the Bath.

He made the captains
Commanders of the Bath.

And BBC, press, full of it, etc, etc.

It was rather unkind, because Father said,

"Here we were, showered with honours
and the job not completed."

The first half of the story
is a classical naval battle.

The second half of the story is
a story of guile and deception,

and perhaps one of the biggest
bluffs of the Second World War.

In Montevideo, Langsdorff requested a
meeting with the Uruguayan government.

Accompanied by the German minister,
Langsdorff was seeking permission to

stay in the port for two weeks
to complete repairs to his ship.

The Uruguayans eventually agreed to permit
him to stay for a maximum of four days.

Outside the harbour, the
British force was now reduced

to two small cruisers,
the Achilles and Ajax.

Harwood was concerned that
without reinforcements he would

not be able to stop Graf Spee
if she made a run for it.

A plan had to be found to ensure
Langsdorff was kept in Montevideo longer.

The man given responsibility
for this was the

senior British diplomat,
Eugene Millington-Drake.

My grandfather was a great eccentric,
and a very colourful character.

He was known for his enthusiasm for taking
exercise and he was a great sportsman.

And he would walk down

the street and possibly stop suddenly

on the way to the office, and do a
few press-ups or a few stretches.

Millington-Drake quietly recruited
a band of British pensioners

and sent them down to the harbour
to spy on the new arrival.

He then went to meet the
Uruguayan foreign minister.

And in a cunning move, invoked an
international law, called the 24 hour rule.

If a merchant ship sailed, a foreign warship
was not allowed to sail within 24 hours.

And the British used this mercilessly
to try and keep Graf Spee

in Montevideo, much to the disgust
of the Uruguayan government.

Millington-Drake secretly
arranged for a British

merchant ship to leave
Montevideo every day.

Eventually the Uruguayans got
so frustrated that they said,

"You aren't allowed to send
any more ships to sea."

Because they could see how they were
being manipulated by the British.

Undaunted,
Millington-Drake and Naval

Intelligence kept up the
pressure on Langsdorff.

The British knew that their telephone
line was tapped by the Germans.

Well, it's a matter
of some urgency.

A call was deliberately put in
to the ambassador in Buenos Aires,

pretending to arrange for the imminent
arrival of two more heavy British warships.

As anticipated, the call was intercepted by
German intelligence and reported to Berlin.

The British also leaked
the story to the press.

The Germans were convinced
that Harwood had major

reinforcements arriving
in the River Plate.

Millington-Drake had been
pulling the strings again.

He was, as I like to put it...
"The man behind the curtain."

And he was very good at it.

My grandfather would have
loved the cloak and dagger

element of the diplomatic
battle, of the drama.

In particular,

the need to create a lot of false
intelligence which would cause the Germans

to think that there is a huge
force out there waiting.

Langsdorff and his officers became
totally of the view, that if they

went out of the Plate they would run
into a much more powerful force.

The deception had worked brilliantly.

And now time had run out for Langsdorff.

Despite his appeals, the Uruguayan
government insisted Graf Spee

had to leave Montevideo before
eight o'clock, Sunday evening.

A second battle now seemed inevitable.

It was clear from the outset
that whatever was to happen,

were the ship to leave the
harbour and engage in

battle, one way or another
it meant destruction.

Langsdorff signalled Berlin, explaining his
predicament and asking for instructions.

Inside Montevideo, we have Langsdorff,

who is increasingly worried about the
presence of allied capital ships.

Outside the harbour, we have
Harwood, who is only too

aware that those capital
ships have not turned up and

are miles away, and is very, very
concerned that if Langsdorff does

come out he'll be able to get
by him, out into the open

ocean, and he'll be lost,
and he might even get home.

On board HMS Ajax, Harwood wrote of
his fears in a letter to his family.

"I have a most difficult
problem to catch him again.

"And if he escapes, all
the good we have done

will be upset. Not
all, but a lot of it.

"The mouth of the Plate
is wide and there are

so many ways out that
it's very difficult.

"Probably another battle, and who knows?

"I hope for the best.

"You'll know by the time you get this."

If the worst happens, bring
my sons up to be men.

Everybody was waiting for the
battle to continue, naturally.

That was the assumption.

It's an unfinished battle.

The Graf Spee cannot remain

in Montevideo. The British
are waiting outside,

the German has to leave the port,
naturally a clash has to occur.

To begin with, nobody knew
what was going to happen.

Is the Graf Spee going to set sail again?

Will the Graf Spee try to
reach another harbour?

Will the ship engage in
battle with the English

ships anchored off the
River Plate estuary?

What is going to happen?

The pressure on Langsdorff
was becoming intolerable.

Again, he signalled
Berlin for instructions.

The reply was not helpful.

He was ordered not to let the
ship fall into enemy hands,

but was given no direct orders
as to what action to take.

Why Langsdorff did what
he did next is one of

the enduring mysteries
of the Second World War.

But Timewatch has, for
the first time, been

given access to Langsdorff's
personal archive.

For 66 years, his daughter
has kept his last letter

home hidden away, secret
even from her own children.

"I am writing this letter on my last
day as commander of this proud ship.

"My decision was not an easy one, but
two rules served as guiding principles.

"Firstly, being prepared to
take on any responsibility

"as long as there was the slightest
chance of harming the enemy.

"Secondly, the dispassionate
consideration not to send my men

"to their deaths unnecessarily,
but to maintain the

ship's honour and the
flag's honour to the last."

The Graf Spee slowly started
moving, just at sunset.

It was very theatrical, you know.

It was a beautiful summer day.

Half the population of Montevideo,

hundreds of thousands of people, was
concentrated along the Ramblas.

Langsdorff's final showdown with
Harwood now seemed inevitable.

But as the crowds watched, most
of her crew was transferred

to tugboats before the pocket
battleship slowly left the harbour.

I remember this precisely.

19.55, 7.55.

The disc of the sun was slowly sinking on

the ocean.

And then

the sound,

an explosion, which at first
it seemed like a cannon.

People thought the battle had started.

Others said, "No, that's
only a smokescreen."

No, actually it was a suicide.

It was a suicide.

The German ship was committing suicide.

Langsdorff, outmanoeuvred,
believed all was lost.

With no clear orders forthcoming from
Berlin, he disembarked the rest of his crew

and scuttled the Graf Spee.

The English have managed to
surround us in such a way

that leaving to engage in
battle with an opponent

overwhelmingly superior to us
would lead to our certain demise.

I think this was the deciding
factor for Langsdorff.

His conscience told him that it was
pointless to sacrifice the lives

of 1,000 young men in pursuit of
a task that could not succeed.

If he sailed, he was facing certain death.

And a death that would
mean dishonour, because

the ship might well
sink in shallow water.

and a lot of his secret equipment,
especially his radar, be captured.

The Battle of the River Plate

was over.

Harwood and his men would
return home as heroes.

Everyone wants to see these men who
gave the Graf Spee such a beating.

A memorable day for Londoners able
to watch the sailors march past.

The sinking of the Graf
Spee was hugely important.

It was the first major naval
victory of the war, and was

immediately used to full effect
by the allied propaganda machine.

And I may add,

that in a dark, cold winter,

it warmed the cockles of the British heart.

Langsdorff took his crew across
the River Plate to Buenos Aires.

On arrival, he was branded a coward
by the press for not taking the

fight back to the British, even
though the odds were against him.

When he landed in Buenos Aires,
he came under great pressure

from the press as to why had
he come to Buenos Aires.

And the pressures on the man must
have been absolutely unbearable.

He knew, that on his personal
decision, he had thrown

away one of the Germany
navy's greatest assets.

That instead of a victory,
he'd suffered a defeat.

And it was understandable,
therefore, that he

would decide that there
was only one way out.

Saying goodbye to me in
Montevideo when I was

transferred, he said, "Say
hello to Germany for me.

"Say hello to my family."

There's a lot in that sentence.

That was a truly moving moment for me
when he said this, and said goodbye.

On December the 19th,
Langsdorff gathered his

crew together in Buenos
Aires and assured them

they were now safe and
would be looked after.

That evening, he joined fellow
officers in the senior ratings mess

of the arsenal building where
they had been stationed.

He was said to have been at
ease and in good spirits.

He then retired to his room and
wrote a letter home to his family.

It would be his last.

"Now, deep down inside me
I am happy and content.

"Everything is being prepared
and I have the peace and quiet

"in which to write you this letter,
to bid you farewell and thank you."

"If this is God's will, then
I shall cheerfully meet

my death, despite life
having been so dear to me.

"Because it gave me all
that it had to offer."

Then there are some very
personal lines, and then

in conclusion my father
writes, "Be proud in your

"grief, and prove yourself
to be a true soldier's wife.

"Give my love to Jochan and Inge."

And then his signature.

It still moves me.

Some time in the early hours of the morning,
Captain Hans Langsdorff shot himself.

The captain of the pocket
battleship Graf Spee was

buried with full naval
honours in Buenos Aires.

His officers and crew were
joined by Argentine armed

forces in forming a guard of
honour through the streets.

German and Argentine dignitaries
stood next to representatives

of the British merchant sailors
whose lives Langsdorff had spared.

The Battle of the River Plate was the first
great media event of the Second World War.

The world looked on as Langsdorff
made his fateful decisions.

Many branded him a coward for not leaving
Montevideo with all guns blazing.

I think, in a way,

Langsdorff was more
heroic doing what he did

than going out and immolating himself
at the hands of the British.

Because Langsdorff was very conscious
that the young men in his crew should

not pay the price for his error, for
his disobedience, for his mistake.

I maintain that Langsdorff's
decision was the

correct one at the
time, that it was the

correct one later on, and that it
remains the correct one today.

A thousand men owe their
life to Langsdorff.

But Langsdorff was only
one of many victims.

A total of 108 men lost
their lives that day.

66 years later, survivors from both sides
joined together in a cemetery in Montevideo

to remember those who fell in
the Battle of the River Plate.

They shall grow not old, as we
are that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in
the morning, we will remember them.

We will remember them.

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