Montevideo, Uraguay – Experts working to recover parts of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, sunk 66 years ago in Montevideo Bay, successfully retrieved from the bottom of the River Plate the bronze eagle originally mounted on its stern.
Press reprentative for the salvage operation Alfredo Eychegaray told EFE that among those working on Friday’s retrieval of the piece from the shipwreck were Oxford University archaeologists, deep-sea divers from the Uruguayan navy, and a technical rescue crew led by Hector Bado.
The eagle, which was the ship’s insignia, had long been thought lost forever.
To the cannon and the rangefinder of the Graf Spee, salvaged Feb. 27, 2004, may now be added the bronze eagle that was originally affixed to the stern of the German ship.
The insignia will be on exhibition to the public in Montevideo.
During the renowned Battle of the River Plate on Dec. 13, 1939, the Graf Spee was seriously damaged in combat by a British convoy made up of the Exeter, the Ajax and the Achilles which guarded the Atlantic coast of South America.
Thirty-six German seamen were killed in the battle and Capt. Hans Langsdorff was wounded, while five others were critically injured and 53 had wounds considered not serious, among whom 14 suffered the effects of poison gas.
The Graf Spee was hit 30 times, leaving it practically helpless.
As night fell that Dec. 13, the German battleship entered the River Plate at the risk of being intercepted in the port of Montevideo, as a document written by the captain himself recognizes.
The ship limped into Montevideo at midnight the day of the battle.
Capt. Langsdorff presented a report on damage to the battleship which affected its seaworthiness, in justification for his coming into port.
The dead German seamen were buried in a Montevideo cemetery and the wounded were cared for at hospitals in the Uruguayan capital.
Uruguay’s government, which remained neutral during the Second World War, applied international rules and asked the Graf Spee to leave port in four days, on Dec. 17, at which point the captain decided to blow it up.
The German battleship weighed anchor and before crossing Montevideo Bay en route to Buenos Aires it was blown up and sunk, after its crew had boarded a German freighter which took them to the Argentine capital. Capt. Langsdorff committed suicide three days later at the Argentine navy yard.
