The Wreck of Admiral Graf Spee - A German Raider in South America

When you look at shipwrecks, you quickly find that some are overlooked. This can be because they're difficult to reach, or because they're simply overshadowed by more famous ships. A good example of this is the wreck of Graf Spee.
In spite of being in shallow water, not that far from a larger port, this wreck is barely covered. The *ship*, certainly, but the wreck? With the exception of a salvage operation 20 years ago, it's barely talked about.
This seems to because visibility is terrible, and diving conditions little better. Sometimes, being in shallow water is as much a curse, as a benefit.
This video, as a result, will follow a similar format as the Mutsu and Tirpitz one. Period pictures, more than any modern stuff.
Spee Video:
• KMS Graf Spee - Raidin...
Forgotten Weapons Video:
• Ballester-Molina Pisto...

[@spankflaps1365]

My grandad sailed past the Graf Spee’s smoking wreck a couple days after it happened. He was in a British Merchant tanker. It was his first encounter of the war going “hot”.

[@gayprepperz6862]

I love hearing the personal experiences of people of the time, passed on to their offspring, and finally, shared with people like me. Thank you!

[@mikeyboy3054]

25 years ago I was a young backpacker traveling around South America and being a Second World War Naval Buff went to the Port of Montevideo specifically to see the small memorial to Graff Spee. Underwhelming at the time but now years later very happy I went. I also went to the Falklands War Memorial in Buenos Aires which was more interesting with more battle damaged remnants of the war.

[@steffeness1]

Graf Spee a dive-able wreck or is visibility near zero? At a depth of 50 - 75 ft?

[@Italian_Military_Archives]

Wrecks of famous ships are always super interesting. Thank you for showing those pictures (totally uknown to me!)

[@DragonShadowfire1]

Panzershiffe Graff Spee...There is so much about the story of this warship that I adore. The motto of her crew, 'Bigger than anything faster, and faster than anything bigger!', the idea of her class of ship basically being the little sisters to Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and her absolutely incredible fight against Exeter, Ajax, and Achillies! It's not very often that you her about a three to one fight ending with the one outgunning the other three, and were it not for one of the most ballsy games of information chicken ever played by the Royal Navy, Graf Spee may very well have won against her three tormenters...and the not so insignificant fact that Uruguay wanted nothing to do with getting in the way of the Second World War, especially if that meant getting on the wrong side of the British empire. The story of Captain Langsdorf is also a poignant one for me...he made sure the rest of his surviving crew was accounted for, and ensured their safe repatriation back to Germany, then wrapped himself in the Reichskreigeflagge of his own ship before taking his own life. Thank you for giving some attention to this proud ship, and her final resting place! I wasn't expecting a surprise cameo from the 'Machine Gun Cruiser', but I was pleasantly surprised to see yet another warship of renown enter into Graf Spee's story. Hope to see more thought given to the wreck, and someone may be able to help me understand this, but Montevideo is still a fairly busy shipping port, so fingers crossed they don't just dredge through her like they did with the Civil war ironclad in the Houston Shipping channel. Thank you again and can't wait for the next story you have for us!!

[@ingurlund9657]

Graf Spee had 750 pounders against 250 pounders and 100 pounders. So I guess it could end with one outgunning the other three. But she retreated into harbour instead of succeeding in driving off the cruisers and breaking contact which was what she needed to do. So the British succeeded in their objective, keep contact, and she failed in hers in spite of the damage to Exeter. The British replaced Exeter so if Graf Spee had emerged she would have just had to repeat the same fight all over again. I guess she may very well have won a second round with her tormentors or it may very well have gone the same as the first time with her back in Montevideo again. People think she failed to come out because Langsdorf thought a battlecruiser had arrived. But in fact damage inflicted by Exeter had made it impossible for the ship to produce water for the engines so she could never get back to Germany. So there was no point in another fight as even if she drove off the cruisers and broke contact, something she had failed to do before, she could not go home. So Langsdorf refused to risk his crew in a pointless fight and scuttled instead. It was Exeter that doomed Graf Spee.

[@Dave_Sisson]

@@ingurlund9657 At the time it was widely known that the British had aircraft carriers and battleships scouring the South Atlantic looking for the Graf Spee. So the three cruisers that found it first were easier for the panzershiff to take on. But there was no reason for anyone to believe that the larger ships were more than a couple of days sailing from Montevideo. Of course the British played this up and while they were only able to get one more cruiser in position by the time Graf Spee left harbor, absolutely everyone thought they would have a lot more. So trying to fight his way out was not an option for Langsdorf as he (and everyone else) was sure that it would be overwhelmed by the massive British firepower that they thought was waiting just off the coast.

[@ingurlund9657]

@@Dave_Sisson I don't know if Langsdorf thought the British capital ships had arrived or not. He may well have done. My point was he knew the damage to his ship. He knew that even if he could escape contact with the British, even if there was only a 1% chance of that, it was pointless. His engines would not take him back to Europe. So he scuttled it. There was no point trying it regardless of what forces he did or didn't believe were out there.

[@kennethrouse7942]

Actually, I believe that Langsdorff wrapped himself in the ensign of the Kaiserliche Marine rather than the Kriegsmarine. No National Socialist, he. 😉👍

[@DragonShadowfire1]

@@kennethrouse7942 I did not know that. Seems like a common trend with officers of renown during the Third Reich...cheers for the correction!

[@davekreitzer4358]

Another great video on a superb subject , thanks for sharing and for the awesome research ! 👌😎

[@alephalon7849]

I'm honestly surprised no one has dived the wreck and taken photos all these years. Perhaps the local government discourages any attempts to do so, even if Graf Spee isn't a gravesite.

[@jasonvant7714]

The River Plata has do much sediment in the water,diving there is like diving in pea soup hence no underwater pictures.

[@AlphaAiden1945]

I been waiting for this vid for a while as i havent seen many vids on Graf Spee's wreck

[@leroysgamesandmore2226]

There’s two more recent sonar scans I’ve seen on Google she’s in much worse shape than show her whole super structure is collapsed nearly flat but oddly enough the funnel is largely intact

[@FrankWalker-cu3ok]

@@leroysgamesandmore2226😢

[@victorbarnett4280]

We passed the wreck in 1972 when visiting Buenos Aires on HMS Glamorgan. We gave a Salute to her when passing and all on the upper deck faced towards what was then to be seen. I think that Captain Landsdorf was sold the propaganda that 3 British Battle cruisers were waiting for her and so he scuttled the ship so as not to allow it to be captured.

[@carlosmoyna62]

Visibility in the waters near Montevideo is next to zero. As it sits in the estuary of the River Plate it's mostly brown water

[@steffeness1]

how deep is the wreck?

[@carlosmoyna62]

@@steffeness1 It's not deep but it must be completely buried in the muddy bottom

[@steffeness1]

@@carlosmoyna62 50 ft ?

[@carlosmoyna62]

@@steffeness1 I think a bit deeper than that. You can calculate the depth by the pictures taken after the scutling

[@steffeness1]

@@carlosmoyna62 I have yet to see dive videos on this wreck. Must need a light to see properly. Wonder if the current is nasty?

[@briantilke]

My ex father in-law was chief petty officer on Exeter during the battle he was serious injured and burnt and left to die but servied and was left in the Falkland islands then taken to South Africa to be treated to his burns .He was on arriving back in UK the DSM medal by King George iv for his bravery on the day and when Exeter was refited they presented him with the starboard telegraph wheel as he was the last to use it on the day

[@Vaul_Fusbin]

you sir never cease to amaze me! keep up the good work

[@leroysgamesandmore2226]

There’s two sonar images of the wreck taken more recently idk when that you missed would share them but KZbin doesn’t do that lol

[@Idahoguy10157]

Captain Langsdorf chose not to sacrifice his crew

[@kristelvidhi5038]

WW2's first iconic and deadly ship.

[@robertstone9988]

My go to on wows.

[@ianashby3626]

I climed one of the 6 inch gun turrets of hmnz Achilles at motat in Auckland years ago also seen one of its other turrets and range finder at the gate of devonport navel base

[@jaylund9477]

In the 1990's (I think), British maritime archeologist Mensun Bound explored Graf Spee. It was the subject of a Discovery Channel documentary, and was also mentioned in an accompanying book as one the three or four shipwrecks he was searching for at the time. Unfortunately, that is the best my memory can provide. I can remember watching (and video taping) the episode in question, and browsing through the book at a book store (though, sadly, declining to purchase it). I don't know if either the video series or the book are still available or not. I don't think there were a great deal of images from the wreck itself as it looked at the time, as even in the video mention was made of the poor visibility. Most of the rest was about the ship's story and dramatic recreations of certain events (like the captain's suicide). In the 1980's, CBS put out a video series called "The CBS Video Library of WWII", which itself was, I think, from a series of shows Walter Cronkite did in the 1960's. One of the episodes was dedicated to Graf Spee's story, including interesting segments of Britain's Ambassador to Monte Video during the Spee time period who detailed Britain's efforts to keep Spee in port for as long as possible while reinforcements arrived. I have a copy of that video as well... somewhere... either in storage, or in a box packed during a move, but I don't currently have any way playing it even if I did find it in my collection--so I can't review it to gives names and dates of those who appear in it.

[@lawrencelewis2592]

I understand that it took more than a month for the ship to finally sink?

[@barracuda008l4]

The water is dark brown

[@javierigartua]

... that is true, i tried to figure out where is the ship to look the water really clear like that images. From my flat roof we never saw clear water like .

[@markgarin6355]

Wouldn't a skeleton crew be on the ship, not taken off? Or was that in reference to the last folks on the ship pre scuttling?

[@austinblack7991]

They plan to actually raise her and turn her into a museum ship

[@steffeness1]

Never happened

[@briankorbelik2873]

From what I have read, the Graf Spee's skipper ran a "dumb" battle. True, the 3 British Cruisers were faster, but the German Captain, instead of running at full speed, and pounding away at them with Spee's main battery, let the 3 RN ships stay close and do damage, resulting in Spee's loss. To me most of the entire Kriegsmarine's surface wartime campaign was run badly. It's like by acting that they'd get themselves hurt, they got themselves killed.

[@tiikerihai]

You can say that, but the Kriegsmarine surface fleet never had any real chance to perform well without having hindsight. They were far too outmatched by the British navy and the strategic focus of Kriegsmarine on the whole was on convoy raiding which split industrial resources between the surface fleet and u-boat fleet, ultimately resulting in neither actually getting the ideal amount of industrial support to bring the RN to its knees. Things like this end up coming down to luck a lot of the time. Sometimes there's no more than 10cm between sinking and sailing away without a care in the world.

[@rogercude1459]

It had damage so wasn't going anywhere quickly

[@machanicalgu]

They should at least bring up the bow turret

[@456swagger]

Why bring the ship up? It's useless.

[@tensaibr]

The Vasa is also "useless" and yet it was brought up. Why? Because they are history itself.

[@georgedistel1203]

I would like to see if any of the keel is exposed . If it's not covered in mud from the renderings it would be interesting to see how much damage from the scuttling would still be visible