Battle of the River Plate: Amazon.co.uk: Dudley Pope: Books

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A excellent rendition of the classic WW2 naval action, 20 April 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Battle of the River Plate (Paperback)

The hunt for the German pocket battleship Graf Spee, culminating in the battle of the River Plate is a story known to nearly all naval wargamers and amateur historians. Many older members of that happy ban may well have been introduced to this opening chapter of the naval side of WW2 through the first edition of Dudley Pope's book. Well now it is the turn of the younger generation (and their older comrades who may have lost that precious earlier edition) to be gripped by the master storyteller's rendition of this piece of naval history.

Dudley Pope was one of Britain's foremost writers of naval fiction and his ability to weave an intricate story brings the hunt for the Graf Spee vividly to life. The narrative switches effortlessly between the Graf Spee herself, the ships of Commodore Harwood's squadron, the Admiralty and the merchants which were to fall victim of the German raider. It would have been easy, especially in post-war Britain, to tell the story purely from a British perspective, or to go some way to demonising Kapitan Langsdorff, but instead Mr. Pope maintained a healthy balance, which benefited from extensive research of both British and German archives. The attention to detail is considerable, as is the additional information and "colour" which Mr. Pope brought to his book; a good example is the use of transcripts of signals between ships written as they were sent, along with translations to more understandable English; another is the sad fact that little, if no official recognition was made to the brave radio operators of the Graf Spee's victims who risked their lives to send raider reports whilst under fire.

The narrative is ably supported by a series of informative appendices which cover a report from the German Navy Gunnery School on the tactics employed by Langsdorff in his action against Harwood's squadron, extracts from the German naval Staff war diaries, merchant ship losses, a detailed description of damage inflicted o the Graf Spee, and awards made to the officers and men of Harwood's squadron.

There have been many books on the Graf Spee campaign, but this one, despite having been over 43 years ago, still ranks as one of the best. Perhaps the only disappointment is that there are no illustrations other than several charts and a series of general arrangements showing the locations of hits scored on the Graf Spee. However, this is a minor point and does not detract from the book at all. Highly recommended.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read., 25 Jun 2007

By	David I. Howells "outlawcatcher" (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Battle of the River Plate (Paperback)

A brilliant military historian, Dudley Pope does not disappoint with this exceedingly well written account of the sinking of the German pocket battleship the Graf Spee in the South Atlantic during the early stages of the Second World War.

Pope covers in depth the full synopsis of the battle from both the German and the British side. He gives a detailed description of the men involved, the history of the naval vessels involved in the battle, the raiding accounts of the Graf Spee, the battle itself and the eventual scuttling of this great ship.

The raiding account is well explained especially in regard to the tactics employed by the Spee, descriptions of the vessels attacked and the bravery of the merchant radio operators per sec. These brave men sent out their distress signals despite the threat of action against them and there are several accounts of the Spee hosing radio shacks with machine gun fire and cannon shells...and the radio operators still continued with their messages. It is a shame these brave merchant men did not receive gallantry medals for their endeavours.

The detailed explanations on naval terminology and tactics are particularly useful. The explanation on gunnery tactics is particularly thorough and this helps the reader to comprehend the full and graphic account of the battle between the Spee with the cruisers Ajax, Achilles and Exeter. There is even an accurate synopsis of international naval law!

The mainstay of the book though is the overall narrative of how three outgunned British cruisers damaged a pocket battleship by their aggressive tactics and damaging it to such a degree that it had to seek shelter in Montevideo harbour. The reason why this modern powerful battleship did not wipe out the British hunting fleet will never really be known. What is known however is that the actions of the British ships that day made this into an historic encounter. Heavily outgunned they fought a desperately tenacious action that immortalised the battle into British naval folklore. This was at a high cost however with over fifty dead many more wounded and major damage to the ships involved in the action.

The culmination of the action is arrived at five days later when the Spee exits the harbour only to be scuttled by its crew under the watchful gaze of 750,000 spectators and the world wide press. The scuttling being done on the pretext that the Spee even if it defeated the waiting British ships...that again were heavily outgunned by the Spee...would not be able to reach Germany for a number of vacillating reasons. The incident is thus closed when the captain of the Spee commits suicide a few days after the scuttling.

The only negative points for me were the poor quality of the diagrams in the book. Apart from that this is a brilliantly told account of a British naval victory that should not have been. A truly great read from a great author.