Military Historian Reacts - The Battle of the River Plate 1939

In this video, historian and author Chris Bellamy talks about the history of the Battle of the River Plate 1939. The battle was a naval battle fought between the Royal Navy and the Peruvian Navy on December 8, 1939.

As World War II escalated, the Royal Navy began to fear a potential attack by Peru. The Peruvian navy was considered to be one of the strongest in South America, and the Royal Navy feared that the Peruvians would attempt to seize control of the River Plate straits. The Battle of the River Plate 1939 was fought to determine the control of these strategic straits.

If you're interested in military history, or just want to learn more about the Battle of the River Plate 1939, then this.

#history #reaction #historian

[Dyrla]

The film, released in 1956, of the same name does a great job in portraying all the events that lead up to the eventual sinking of the Graf Spee. It is split into 3 parts with the first concentrating on the coomerce raiding of the Graf Spee, including the capture of the merchant seamen from the sunk ships. The second part is all about the battle and shows what happens on both sides of the conflict and the third part covers the events that when the Graf Spee gets to Montevideo harbour and shows the cat and mouse antics that both sides used to speed up/delay the ships departure. Well worth a look and includes a lot of well known actors.

[liamc]

I always find it odd how some people assume that Panzerschiffe translates to Pocket Battleship when it doesn’t. Pocket Battleship was an overzealous term - I believe - coined by the British during the classes development. In actuality Panzerschiffe translates to Armoured Ship, which depend on your personal views on the class, is a somewhat misleading name.

[msrich]

The success of convoy raiding pre-1900 really doesn't come down to parity of fleet sizes so much as it does the speed of communications at the time. It could take weeks for a merchant ship to even be noted as late at the port she was due to arrive at, and months for messages to reach her home port. That made the practice of commerce raiding far safer as you could loiter in an area for several weeks and then simply move on.
The Graf Spee actually had a pretty successful war in the Southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans for several months before she stumbled across Harwood's group. She probably could have won out in the engagement as well given the damage she had dealt out, but Langsdorf appears to have been shaken by the degree of aggression displayed against him, and allowed himself to be convinced that this was a small detachment of a larger force. Based on the assumption that there could have been a Battlecruiser lurking around somewhere, Langsdorf's decision to run for Montevideo was absolutely the correct decision if he was prioritising the survival of his crew.
Also, to contradict the video narration, Cumberland was far from "almost obsolete". The County class was a class of 10, 000 ton heavy cruisers upon which the York class was based. The York class was lightened primarily by losing 2 guns and their turret, but otherwise shared more or less the same design and equipment as the County class. Cumberland was actually the superior unit of Harwood's force, and I believe his usual flagship, but was conducting maintenance in the Falklands. I recall a naval historian expressing the opinion, possibly shared by more official commentators, that it was good that it was the Exeter present on the day because her loss/damage was less significant than equivalent loss/damage of the Cumberland would have been. Of course, had Cumberland been present as well as Exeter it is far more likely Harwood would have won outright, as a total of 14 8" guns versus 6 11" guns lends superior weight of fire to the British force.

[HankD]

I enjoyed the film (1958) and the line about "submitting revised list of spares". The aftermath was always a great story to me - The Altmark incident, when the - Graf Spee's supply and tanker ship, with a couple of hundred British merchant seaman pows onboard tried to sneak home through Norwegian waters. Despite pleas from the British to the Norwegians to incept and free the prisoners, the Norwegians failed to do so - despite boarding it three times, and claiming no prisoners, and let the Altmark continue. Finally, the the destroyer HMS Cossack chased the Altmark into Jøssingfjord and boarded her - killing 8 and wounding 10 of her crew, for 1 wounded Royal Navy sailor. 233 prisoners were released from her hold. Diplomatic incident incited and ignored.

[thomasholmgren]

Check out Sabatons song "Bismarck". The official video version is really great!

[marting]

well, it was clear that the design of the deutschland class was flawd from the beginning, with no chance in a fight a long way from home.
You often hear, that they were designed to be stronger than faster ships (cruisers) but faster than stronger ones (battleships).
this wasnt even true when they were designed, as renown, repulse and hood were already in service and able to run them down and kill them.
And you can read this design-choice the other way: they couldn´t fight the battleships and they couldn´t run away the (shadowing) cruisers.
and with worldwide wireless being a thing, not to go into a fight but to avoid contact when possible was reasonable but helpless.
So the whole action in the South-Atlantic was a high gamble from the beginning and the battle a helpless display of bravery doomed from the beginning
just enough to kill 109 unlucky men

[lorddaver]

The Admirality??? Why can nobody find narrators who know correct English these days? Ye Gods! The British government department in charge of the Royal Navy (before the Ministry of Defence was created in 1955) was the Admiralty, NOT, as the narrator said, "the AdmiralITY".