> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:33:23 -0500
> From: Brooks A Rowlett
> Organization: None whatsoever
> To: Andrew Toppan ,
> Mahan Naval History Mailing List ,
> MARHST ,
> World War II Discussion List

> Subject: Wreck of ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE
> Reply-to: mahan@microworks.net

> Over the weekend i bought a January 1948 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
> magazine. There is an article in this issue, by Paul C Stimson (CO),
> ” ‘Round the Horn by Submarine”, detailing the June 1947 transit of
> Cape Horn by the USS SEA ROBIN (SS-407). The author believed it was
> the first time a submarine passed Cape Horn under its own power, all
> known Japanese and German transits being ’round the Cape of Good Hope.
>
> There are photos of Port Stanley in the Falklands: Montevideo: and
> perhaps most interesting from the WWII naval history standpoint, a
> photo of the wreck of the ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE. At this point the GRAF
> SPEE has been considerably cut down from the familiar pictures from
> the time of scuttling. Some 2&1/2 decks of the tower bridge extend
> above the water; some miscellaneous wreckage, and a portion of what is
> probably the funnel is elevated perhaps 6-8 feet (~2 meters) above the
> water, as well as a similar height of platform of some sort abaft this.
I would like to have a copy of that photograph for my archives. Here
in Argentina is quite difficult to find National Geographic issues.

>
> Correspondence last year revealed that today, the entire remains of the
> vessel are underwater, scrapped down to reduce the danger to fishing
> boats, but still a marked wreck posing danger to larger vessels.
I think I was the one that gave the information about the Graf Spee.
May be I wasn’t clear enough. What I said is that some small fishing
boats were lost on it recently. This tells us that the wreck is very
near the surface.
On other aspect, there were some investigators, who were thought to
be working on a program about old shipwrecks in the River Plate, who
pulled up some pieces of the wreck. Among them there was one of the
smaller cannons.

Greetings from Argentina. |>
Arturo L. A. Lisdero Molina /|\
lisderoa@overnet.com.ar /|| \ “The Pilot”
/_|| \
Larrea 934 1*B /___+–_\|>
1117 Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA ~~~\______/~~~~~