100 years ago... The Battle of Jutland

Langsdorff couldn't go after the two surviving cruisers, because its ship wasn't fast enough, This could have led him to a trap. And I think it is proven by now that he was a gracious captain, worried by the fate of his own crew. He simply was intoxicated with false reports in Montevideo that led him to believe that the situation was helpless.

 

No Langsdorff went after Exeter to finish her off but was beaten back by Achillies and Ajax. The question was did he back off because he felt his ship might be damaged in a luck hit, was his ship already damaged and that is why he never fought to a conclusion, or was it just bad captaincy.

I discount the coward idea, I was being unfair, I do not think he was a coward.

 

That's most gracious of you. I appreciate such respect for a well-intentionned ennemy.

I think that Exeter still was faster than GS, even after being taken out as a fighting platform. There's no indication that her engines had been hit - and one of the cause may be that out of the seven 11" shells that hit her, a good number of them were duds.

Anyway, Langsdorff couldn't deal with Exeter because at this point he was in battle with two ships that actually represented a threath, and as a naval battle is a moving thing, that left Exeter out of the fight and free to retreat with relative ease.

IMO, Langsdorff entered Montevideo with the clear intent of repairing the damage done by Exeter to GS's machinery, something that, while not critical, must have been difficult to do at sea for some reason. He must have thought that repairs would have been made which wasn't the case, and in this sense, yes, he may have made a diplomatic mistake. His vessel was still something like 85% battle-ready, and as long as the battered UK cruisers did not engage he had nothing to fear from them.

But it wasn't that mistake that made him scuttle the Graf Spee: It was the certitude that a full British fleet awaited him out of Montevideo, and that a fight could have only resulted in his sailors dying without hope, or to surrender.

 

Whether her fuel system had been damaged or there was something else we will never know, but I agree that Landsdorff thought he could not risk his crew dying for nothing, and that in many ways was the bravest decision anyone took.

At the end of the day lets salute the 72 dead of the Royal Navy and 32 dead of the Kriegsmarine who fought that day and the bravery of all who fought in the battle on both sides.

On a personnel note Leading Seaman William H Hillman, HMS Exeter. My Grandfather.

 

I'm missing something here, and I admit to not being much interested in the battle of Jutland, but are you saying they would have scuttled the Spee even if there had been no battle and it wasn't damaged? That doesn't make sense.

 

Most navies will scuttle a ship preventing it from being captured. It's like the Bismark, the British didn't sink the Bismark, the Bismark was scuttled.

Any ship captain who allows his ship to be captured his military career is over. When North Korea captured the USS Pueblo ( Navy intelligence ship armed with just one M-2 50 cal. HMG) in 1968, the small Marine detachment was able to destroy all of the highly classified equipment onboard but the Pueblo's captain, Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, military career was over because he failed to scuttle the ship.

Just as we saw earlier this week when the XO of the patrol boat squadron where two patrol boats were captured by the Iranian Navy. The two patrol boats were well armed but didn't fire one round and allowed their boats to be captured. The two boats should have been scuttled. The XO walked the plank earlier this week The two boat commanders should also walk the plank since they ignored Article ll of the U.S. Military Code of Conduct.

The U.S. Navy regulations like most of the worlds navies states that the first priority of a ship's captain is protecting the ship including from being captured. The safety of the crew is second.

 

The Exeter and York class of cruiser (informally known as the Cathedrals) had busy WWII careers, that none survived. Exeter itself served in the biggest (as far as number of ships are considered) surface action since Jutland. It is interesting to note that while she survived seven 11" hits in the River Plate, she couldn't survive lesser 6" and 8" shells in both battles of the Java Sea.

Your grandfather served on one of the most distinguished ships of WWII - a full front-battle unit that was used as a battleship everywhere she went, despite her humble origin as the lightest heavy cruiser that could be built. That's quite gallant.

 

Well stated.

Tangential, but there is a Mad Greek on Beach and Chapman you gotta try the Gyros at. Had one at lunch.