Graf Spee to rise from her grave

Feared by mariners and hailed as one of the greatest ships of the German fleet, the "pocket battleship" with its oversized guns was no mean target as the Allied navy prepared for battle off the coast of South America.

In what was to become the first great naval battle of the Second World War, the Graf Spee took on three Allied ships on 13 December, 1939, and crippled one before being hit and later scuttled by its captain to settle in the thick mud of the River Plate.

Now, 64 years later, a team is about to begin work raising the legendary warship and turning it into a floating museum, a salvage operation to be filmed by Titanic director James Cameron.

The battleship, which had been dispatched to hunt down vessels from the British merchant navy, was defeated when it was attacked by three warships from the British and New Zealand fleet.

The Graf Spee was spotted by ships from the British navy’s South American cruiser squadron which engaged the German battleship as it crossed the River Plate between Argentina and Uruguay.

With its huge 11in guns, the Graf Spee could easily outgun the lightly armed Allied ships and crippled the HMS Exeter but received 20 direct hits from the Exeter, HMS Ajax and New Zealand’s HMS Achilles.

Holed on its port side, the Graf Spee limped into port at neutral Uruguay for repairs, rather than run the risk of making for Argentina, a German ally.

Under the rules of war, a warship could spend no more than 72 hours in a neutral port and after that time had passed the Graf Spee headed back to sea to face the gathered blockade of Allied ships.

But having shuttled most of his seamen ashore, German Captain Hans Langsdorff gave the order for his skeleton crew to abandon ship and scuttled the battleship four miles off shore rather than allow it to fall into Allied hands.

That night Captain Langsdorff shot himself in the head.

Since then the ship has rested four miles off shore and just eight metres below the surface, cloaked in the thick mud of the River Plate.

Now, a consortium led by Hector Bardo, a 43-year-old German financier and enthusiastic diver, has raised the money to attempt to bring the ship to the surface and turn it into a museum piece in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Floating cranes have been moved into place on the river and the salvage attempt is set to begin on Thursday.

"One of the biggest problems we will have to deal with first is clearing out an estimated 8,000 tonnes of mud from the river bottom which has silted throughout the ship," said Mr Bardo.

"We aim for a total restoration, with the ship then going on display for all time in the National Marine Museum. "The front of the ship is broken off and lies in a 39-metre segment. The rest of the ship is in a 146-metre piece."

The team has assembled state-of-the-art computer equipment to aid them in their underwater search for debris - and to attach the mammoth steel cables which will encircle the ship’s carcass prior to raising attempts - because visibility is down to inches.

Many of the German survivors from the ship stayed on in Argentina and Uruguay after the end of the war and one has been invited to witness the start of the salvage operation, which is expected to take several months to complete.

Friedrich Adolph, 84, the last of the surviving German seamen, said of Captain Langsdorff: "He didn’t want us to be killed. But we respected his decision to take his own life. It’s the tradition, a captain dies with his ship."

Speaking at the naval museum in Montevideo, a retired naval captain, Ricardo Barre, said: "The battle of the River Plate was fought by gentlemen of the sea.

"Langsdorff sank merchant ships, but always picked up the crews.

"Several of the British captains he rescued went to the funerals of the 36 German sailors who were killed.

"He preferred to save his young sailors’ lives rather than sacrifice them for the fatherland in a battle he could not win."