The Altmark Affair and the Sinking of the Graf Spee

by Willi Frischauer

The Altmark Affair and the Sinking of the Graf Spee , first published in 1955 as The Altmark Affair (and as The Navy's Here! in England) is the exciting account of the German supply ship Altmark , which was tender for the heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee , and of the Altmark's attempts to return to Germany with nearly 300 prisoners from six captured British ships. The ship was intercepted and boarded by the Royal Navy in a fjord in Norway, at that time a neutral nation. The rescue of the seamen was a great uplift to British morale. In 1939, the Graf Spee plied the waters of the South Atlantic, sinking a number of merchant ships, Following a gun-battle with ships of the Royal Navy in December, the damaged Graf Spee put into port in Montevideo, Uruguay. To avoid capture, her commander decided to scuttle the ship in the River Plate flowing between Uruguay and Argentina. Included are 16 pages of maps and photographs.

263 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 10, 2014

Reviews

[Herb Hastings · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always find it a pleasure to be given a history book that covers a topic about which I had known nothing. This book covers the rescue of 300 British sailors, taken prisoner early in WWII by the commerce raider Graf Spee. It is an exciting story and should be remembered. The book was published in the early 1950's and is written with a style that would be frowned upon by today's professional historians: too often venturing to recount the thoughts of the people involved. Surprisingly for a book published this recently after the war, the jingoism is kept to a minimum.