Speaker Ranald Ross-Watt

Rotary club of Stirling meeting of 8th June 2018.

President Stewart Wilson welcomed members to our Friday meeting. There were no visitors. The summer golf outing at Auchterarder was won by Mike Queen. John Rankin reminded us of our planned trip on the Boness railway on 15th September.

Our speaker Ranald Ross Watt returned to a topic in which he has a great interest, warships, on this occasion the battle of the river Plate in 1939. The Admiral Graf Spee was one several pocket battleships built by the Germans in the years before the war. They were diesel powered, faster, 28 knots, much more efficient than steam turbines, and in addition carried six eleven-inch guns, much larger than normal for a vessel of this size. Just before the war broke out these vessels were quietly dispersed to various parts of the ocean, in the case of the Graf Spee, the South Atlantic. when war was declared they began to sink merchant ships. Crucially it was not known exactly where they were, but one vessel the Doric Star, managed to radio its position before it was sunk, and the hunt was on. Admiral Harewood organised task groups with the specific purpose of sinking the raiders, in this case Force G, consisting of the Exeter with six eight-inch guns, and the Achilles and the Ajax, NZ navy, each with eight six-inch guns They soon made contact with the Graf Spee, which although outnumbered could fire on the British ships from well outwith the range of their smaller guns. Rather than maintain that advantage, the German captain closed with the British vessels. The most powerful vessel the Exeter attacked on its own, allowing the other two to approach the Graf Spee from another direction.
Bearing the brunt of the attack, the Exeter was soon severely damaged, but several of it's shells had struck home causing what turned out to be important damage. The Graf Spee ran on diesel but carried mainly cruder oil which had to be refined on board before it could be used. The Exeter had managed to put this refinery out of action, and this plus the general severe damage to his ship forced the German captain Admiral Von Langsdorf to run for shelter in the neutral port of Montevideo in
Uruguay.   There are strict rules governing how long a warship can stay
in a neutral port and enforcing these rules as well as putting out much misinformation about how many ships were waiting outside the estuary put pressure on Von Langsdorf. In fact, only the crippled Exeter, and the Ajax and Achilles awaited him. Unable to remain long enough to effect repair, with his fuel supply cut off and under strict instructions not to let his ship fall into enemy hands, Von Langsdorf decided to scuttle the Graf Spee in the estuary. Having taken off all the crew the ship was sunk and can still be seen on the bottom of the River Plate. The crew were all interned and Von Langsdorf subsequently shot himself.

Next meeting 15th June   Speaker's host Martin Ross, Visitor's host Alan
Skilling.

Ian Richardson