The Wreck of the Graf Spee

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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