Evening star., 1939-12-31

hourly the lifting OF the curtain
upon just another such scene as was
enacted off the South American
coast when thre British cruisers
finally caught the 10,000-ton Ger
man pocket battleship Graf Spec
and chased her to the harbor OF
Montevideo, where she was scuttled
by her own crew.
The Graf Specs sisters, the
Deutschland and the Admiral Scheer
also are on the high seas, according
to the last reports, with British and
French warships engaged in re-
lentless search for them. Another of
the new Nazi warships which has
been reported at sea after running
the allied blockade under cover OF
storm and darkness is the cruiser
Emden, namesake Of perhaps the
most famous Of the German World
War commerce raiders.
During flaming seven weeks be-
fore she finally was blasted into
wreckage by the guns of the Aus
tralian cruiser Sydney, the first En-
den destroyed 10000 tons of British
shipping, sinking five and capturing
two steamers in single day. During
her spectacular 90-day war career,
the Emden sent to the bottom total
OF "A ships. q record exceeded by
only one other German surface
raider.
Disguised Craft.
Destruction of the Graf Spec re-
vealed that she had been raiding in
the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and
had resorted to the German World
War stratagem of Disgusting herself
as British battleship to throw of
pursuit or to trick her victims. The
first Emden resorted to this same
species Of trickery.
Presence at sea of the German
pocket battleships, providing the
greatest potential drama of the
present war at sea, was suspected
by the allies soon after the war
began last September. These pow
erful vessels, unique among the
worlds warcraft, have proved a
will-o'-the-wisp nightmare to the
British and French navies for
months.
The first confirmation of the re-
port the pocket battleships were at
sea did not come, however, until
September 80, when a German war;
ship identified by the crew of her
victim as the Admiral Scheer sank
the British freighter Clement off
the eastern shoulder of South Amer
lea. The sinking of the Graf Spec,
however, revealed that among her
other stratagems, she had posed as
the Scheer on occasion.
Then, for weeks, the pocket ships
became almost az myth, reported
here, there and everywhere, in the
South Atlantic, Pacific and Indian
Oceans and later in the North At
lantic, even up into the Arctic.
There were stories of tankers put
ting out from Mexican and other
ports to fuel the elusive Germans;
one Of these tankers was stopped
IN the Caribbean by British patrol
ships.
After six nerve-racking weeks for
the British and French patrols and
for allied shipping, there came a re-
port on November 16 that the Ad-
miral Scheer was in the Indian
Ocean and had sunk the British
tanker Afried Shell off Mozambique.
The Graf Spec again?
Deutschland Active.
The Deutschland broke into the
news with regularity after October S,
when she was credited with sinking
the British freighter Stonegate, not
far from Bermuda. Four days
later, she captured the American
City Of Flint and precipitated one
of the world legal tangles of the
war. On october IA she sank the
Hansen off Newfoundland and
stopped two Norwegian ships. On
November 7 she was sighted off the
Azores and on the same day Brit
ish patrol picked up the German
freighter Uhenfels with fuel said to
have been intended for the Deutsch-
land. Most spectacular of the
Deutschland's feats was the sinking,
with heavy loss of life, of the con-
verted British commerce cruiser
Rawalpindi-the high light OF the
naval war up to the time Of the
Graf Specs suicide at Montevideo.