The famed German warship Admiral Graf Spee
was scuttled in the estuary of the River
Plate, off Montevideo Uruguay, on Dec 17,
1939.
Graf Spee entering Montevideo
CLICK HERE FOR THE SHIP'S HISTORY.
The ship sank within easy sight of land,
only four miles outside the harbor, in very
shallow water, with her main deck above the
waterline. The position of the wreck is 35-degrees
11S, 56-degrees 26W.
Graf Spee burns, with most of the hull above
water
However, within hours the vessel began so
sink slowly but surely into the muddy bottom.
In the photo below, taken just days after
the scuttling, the water is already up to
the main turrets. British personnel boarded
the vessel as soon as the fires were out
and the ship was cool, and salvage what they
could carry. Fire control equipment, electronics,
and other items of interest had been destroyed
prior to the sinking, so very little of value
remained.
Graf Spee sinks into the mud
By 1942, very little of the ship was visible
above the water. Local salvage companies
cut off the superstructure for scrap, and
the wreck was abandoned by 1943.
A side-scan sonar rendering of the wreck.
Finger points to the forward turret. Note
stern laying several yards away, severed
by the explosion of the rear turret.
One of the ship's 5.9" guns is hoisted
onto a salvage barge in 1999.
In 1999, a team led by Oxford University
archaeologist Mensun Bound managed to salvage
a single 5.9-inch gun and mount from the
wreck. This gun has been restored, and now
is the centerpiece of a memorial park on
the Uruguayan coast.
The restored gun.
The wreck slowly settled to starboard as
it sank into the mud, and today has a substantial
list. The stern section was blown several
yards away from the rest of the hull, and
the rear turret is no place to be found.
I have no underwater pictures of the wreck,
because the water is so muddy; Visibility
is zero. A buoy marks the wreck, so it is
very easy to find. However, the currents
are very strong and the wreck is covered
with fishing nets. Because of these hazards
and the poor visibility, more divers die
on the wreck of the Graf Spee every year
than on any other wreck. Just days after
the ship was scuttled, Graf Spee claimed
her first diver: one of the top divers in
the Royal Navy attempted to enter the forward
11-inch turret to recover the gyro-firing
system, but drowned. A survey of the wreck
was attempted by the TV documentary film
crew that accompanied the 1999 salvage crew,
but the camera man described the attempt
as 'trying to understand Wembley Stadium
with only a microscope to look through."
While the memorial park, and Captain Langsdorff's
grave in Buenos Aries, are worth a visit,
the wreck itself is nothing but dangerous,
and should be avoided.
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