RIVER PLATE BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 November 1940, Page 3

RIVER PLATE BATTLE

IMPORTANT PART PLAYED BY PLANE AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT’S STORY. FIRE DIRECTED THROUGH GERMAN SMOKE SCREEN. According to the New York correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor,” a complete story of the naval battle off Montevideo, Uruguay, last December’ between the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and three British cruisers shows that an airplane played one of the most critical roles. The plane was British, from the light cruiser Ajax. Spotting by this plane enabled the two little cruisers Ajax and Achilles, with nothing larger than sixrinch guns, to outfight and chase off the pocket battleship after the latter had put the cruiser. Exeter, with eightinch guns, out of action. The story is told in the Chemical Warfare Bulletin, United States Army, by Capt. Carr P. Kitchen of Mineola. Texas, reserve officer of the United States chemical warfare service, stationed on active duty at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. He obtained the data from official and news accounts.

Contrary to early accounts of this sea fight, the little cruisers did not protect themselves with smoke screens after the Admiral Graf Spee. with her 11-inch guns, had only them to deal with. It was the Graf Spee which’put up the smoke screens. With smoke pots cast upon the sea and a stern smoke apparatus, the German vessel zig-zagged, laying smoke curtains, and dodging out from them to fire at the British cruisers. This manoeuvre was calculated to destroy the British, for both sides would have to spot their targets after the German emerged, both would be expected to make about an equal number of hits and the Germans with big shells should be victorious.

The Ajax plane spoiled this plan for Capt. Hans Langsdorff of the Graf Spee. The plane was able to keep the British cruisers informed of the pocket battleship’s position so well that their fire was the more accurate.

Captain Kitchen stated that the German’s failure to launch one of her two planes for spotting purposes at the outset of the battle was probably one reason for disaster. By the time the two light cruisers lined up parallel to the stronger ship to fight it out in the open, the Graf Spee’s planes could not be launched owing to a damaged catapult and partial destruction of one plane.

The British ships, Captain Kitchen pointed out, did not need a spotting plane so long as the Exeter was in the fight, since she was on the opposite side of the German from the other two British cruisers, and the British on each side could spot for their guns on the other side.

Captain Kitchen concluded that the German pocket battleship is not the invincible fighting machine it was supposed to be. The Graf Spec was supposed to be able to outrun the light cruisers, but failed, and her armour was supposed to be protection against their smaller guns, but was not.