11 September 1939
Graf Spee Waits East of Bahia
Graf Spee begins an extended wait roughly 900 miles east of Bahia while Berlin withholds permission to attack Allied merchant shipping.
Historical place archive
Browse historical events and people recorded at South Atlantic in Germany. The records below are rendered directly from the World History Database into this page's initial HTML.
Graf Spee begins an extended wait roughly 900 miles east of Bahia while Berlin withholds permission to attack Allied merchant shipping.
Langsdorff receives orders authorising attacks on Allied merchant shipping and begins active commerce raiding.
Graf Spee captures the British merchant Newton Beech and temporarily uses the vessel to hold prisoners and a German prize crew.
Langsdorff sinks the British merchant Ashlea after removing her crew, who are transferred to the captured Newton Beech.
Graf Spee captures the British merchant Huntsman and uses the larger ship as a temporary prisoner vessel.
Graf Spee meets supply ship Altmark to receive fuel and stores while continuing the Atlantic raiding cruise.
After Huntsman's prisoners are transferred to Altmark, Langsdorff has the captured merchant ship scuttled.
Graf Spee sinks the British merchant Trevanion after the ship attempts to transmit a distress report.
Langsdorff turns Graf Spee toward the Indian Ocean to widen the search for merchant targets and complicate British tracking.
Graf Spee sinks Doric Star after the British refrigerated cargo ship transmits a distress report that helps reveal the raider's operating area.
Graf Spee sinks the British merchant Tairoa one day after Doric Star while moving back toward South American trade routes.
Graf Spee completes its final wartime rendezvous with Altmark before proceeding toward the River Plate shipping lanes.
Graf Spee sinks the British steamer Streonshalh, the final merchant ship destroyed during Langsdorff's commerce-raiding cruise.
Langsdorff heads toward the River Plate region, where heavy merchant traffic offers a final opportunity before an intended return voyage.
Provenance
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