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.

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.
Moreover a good part of the hull has been submerged into the mud of the
seabed. This is the first picture I have seen showing an intermediate
state.

The National Geographic Society has recently issued the >entire< run of the magazine (through 1996 I believe) on a set of CD ROMs. IIRC this set is only $150. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine used to provide quite a lot of coverage of nautical, maritime, and naval subjects, and several interesting items exist in the pre-, during, and post- World War II era issues. Each page (or two page photo spread) is reproduced as a JPEG image on the CD-ROMs. This article is in the January 1948 issue, Vol XCIII, No 1, pages 129-144. The GRAF SPEE picture is on p 136. -Brooks