The Battle of the River Plate Trivia Quiz

Answer: United States

"The Battle of the River Plate" was shot during a period when the Royal Navy made a significant effort to cooperate with filmmakers, which also led to other allied navies cooperating on such projects. As a result, Powell and Pressburger were able to obtain the use of a number of warships assigned to the Mediterranean, where the majority of the footage of ships at sea was obtained. Among the ships they had use of was the cruiser USS Salem, which was the stand in for Admiral Graf Spee. At the time of the film's production, Salem was assigned to the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, which made her readily available for use in the film.

However, her appearance was significantly different to that of the German warship, the major difference being three main turrets to Graf Spee's two. This is referred to in the film, when Captain Langsdorff, commanding officer of the Graf Spee, is showing Captain Dove of the Africa Shell the various ways the Germans are camouflaging their ship, with wooden turrets, canvas funnels and false name plates.

Answer: Mozambique Channel

MS Africa Shell was a 700 ton coastal oil tanker owned and operated by the Shell Company. The tanker's primary purpose was the transport of aviation fuel around the coast of southeast Africa to be used by the flying boats of Imperial Airways on the so-called Empire Routes. It was in this capacity that, on 15 November 1939, Africa Shell was in the Mozambique Channel between Quelimane and Lourenço Marques off the coast of Portuguese East Africa when she was intercepted by Admiral Graf Spee.

Africa Shell was boarded, her supplies seized, and her crew ordered into their lifeboats to row for land, with the exception of the ship's master, Captain Dove, who was taken prisoner aboard the Graf Spee. Africa Shell was then sunk using scuttling charges. The final part of this is shown in "The Battle of the River Plate", with Captain Dove being taken aboard Graf Spee, where he meets Captain Langsdorff for the first time. Dove at this point complains that his ship was sunk in neutral waters, to which Langsdorff agrees to log Dove's protest and give him a receipt to that fact.

Answer: Bernard Lee

Bernard Lee's professional career began following his graduation from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the 1930s when he worked in repertory theatre before going into the West End. Following his army service during the Second World War, he returned to the theatre, in addition to beginning to work in film, where he developed a reputation for playing "solid, dependable characters such as policemen, serving officers or officials". It was in such a role that he was cast in "The Battle of the River Plate", playing Captain Dove, whose memoir "I Was A Prisoner on the Graf Spee" formed part of the basis of the film. It was this element, the relationship forged between Dove and Captain Langsdorff, played by Peter Finch, that made up the central human element of the film.

Six years after the release of "The Battle of the River Plate", Lee was cast in the role for which he became most famous, when he appeared in "Dr No", the first of his eleven appearances as 'M' in the "James Bond" series.

Answer: HMS Achilles

When Powell and Pressburger gained the use of warships for the film, one of the ships they obtained was INS Delhi, a cruiser of the Indian Navy. Delhi was purchased by India in 1948, having previously been in service in the Royal New Zealand Navy as HMNZS Achilles. Achilles was originally commissioned into the Royal Navy in October 1933, before three years later being assigned to the RN's New Zealand Division, an element of the Royal Navy manned by sailors from New Zealand. On the outbreak of the Second World War, Achilles was assigned to the South American station searching for German merchant vessels, before, in October 1939, she was attached to Commodore Harwood's squadron alongside Ajax, Exeter and Cumberland. Following the battle against the Graf Spee, Achilles returned to New Zealand in February 1940, before spending the rest of the war in the Pacific theatre. Achilles was eventually returned to the Royal Navy in 1946, before being sold to India. In the credits of the film, the ship is referred to as HMNZS Achilles. However, this is incorrect, as the prefix "HMNZS" (for His/Her Majesty's New Zealand Ship) was not used until the foundation of the Royal New Zealand Navy in October 1941, just under two years after the battle.

In the film, the fourth ship of Harwood's squadron, HMS Cumberland, was also portrayed by itself - however, during the battle, it was undergoing maintenance in the Falkland Islands, and only arrived to reinforce Harwood the day after the battle took place.

Answer: HMS Exeter

In September 1936, having served on the staff of the Royal Naval War College, Henry Harwood was promoted to Commodore and appointed as commander of the South American Division, part of the Royal Navy's America and West indies Station. As part of his command, Harwood was also appointed as the commanding officer of HMS Exeter as he was a Commodore Second Class, meaning that he had no flag captain. Harwood served as the captain of Exeter until just before the outbreak of the Second World War, when Captain Frederick Secker Bell took over command of the ship. Harwood retained Exeter as his flagship until 27 October, when he transferred his broad pennant to HMS Ajax when Exeter returned to Stanley in the Falkland Islands for repairs.

In the film, one of the first major scenes featuring the British ships is the meeting called by Harwood with his three captains - Woodhouse of Ajax, Bell of Exeter and Parry of Achilles. As Bell arrives on Ajax, Harwood is careful to warn him not to mention any of the commodore's "bad habits" to Woodhouse, his new flag captain.

Answer: Minister

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, a system of diplomatic ranks was established. In this system, ambassador was ranked at the top as the diplomatic representative of a head of state to another head of state, which at the time meant from one monarch to another. However, the system also took account of diplomatic missions accredited to the receiving country's government rather than its head of state, where the mission was named as a legation rather than an embassy, and the head of mission was the minister rather than ambassador. Until 1944, the United Kingdom's diplomatic mission to Uruguay was classed as a legation, with a minister as the head of mission.

Eugen Millington-Drake served as the British minister between 1933 and 1941. In the film, he was played by Anthony Bushell, where he plays a significant role in the efforts to prevent Admiral Graf Spee from sailing from Montevideo until the British have assembled sufficient forces to guarantee success against the German ship.

Answer: Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee's career began following his service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, when his cousin Nicolo Carandini, the Italian ambassador to Britain, suggested he become an actor. He was signed to a seven-year contract by Rank, and made his film debut in 1947. He appeared in a number of films over the next few years, including "Captain Horatio Hornblower RN" as the captain of a Spanish ship; his casting in this came about when the director, Raoul Walsh, asked if he could fence and speak Spanish, both of which Lee could do. Indeed, Lee was fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, French and German, as well as having proficiency in several other languages.

His linguistic proficiency aided his performance in "The Battle of the River Plate" as Manolo, the owner of the bar overlooking the harbour, as the character speaks not a word of English in the film. It is at Manolo's bar that reporter Mike Fowler sets up to report on the arrival of Admiral Graf Spee in Montevideo following the battle.

Answer: HMS Barham

Despite the relative success of Harwood's squadron in the battle against Admiral Graf Spee, it was apparent that the three ships at his disposal - Ajax, Achilles and Cumberland (Exeter was badly damaged during the battle and forced to withdraw to the Falklands) - would not be sufficient to ensure success in any subsequent action, and therefore it was necessary to employ disinformation that superior forces were immediately available to force Graf Spee to remain in Montevideo.

In the film, Captain Henry McCall, Britain's naval attache in Buenos Aires, alongside Ray Martin of MI6, devises a plan to "leak" that two British capital ships are approaching the area and need refuelling. By the following day the newspapers report that several British heavy units have arrived off the River Plate, including an eyewitness statement from the lighthouse keeper at Punta del Este that the force is led by the battleship HMS Barham. McCall and Martin are in a newspaper office listening to a translation of the newspaper article where they hear this, and McCall suggests the lighthouse keeper must have good eyesight, as Barham is in dry dock in Gibraltar. In fact, Barham had left the Mediterranean on 1 December for service with the Home Fleet in British waters.

Answer: Götterdämmerung

Upon the expiry of the deadline for Admiral Graf Spee to either leave Montevideo or risk being interned, the ship departs, with most people under the impression, given the belief that there is a sizeable British force just over the horizon, that the German ship is leaving for a suicide battle. Instead, having moved into the outer harbour, the ship then explodes as a result of the detonation of scuttling charges and the ship's remaining ammunition.

In the film, while watching from the balcony of the British legation, Millington-Drake observes that the initial explosion has been timed precisely for sunset, which he refers to as "twilight of the gods". "Twilight of the Gods" is the translation of the title of the last of Wagner's operas from the Ring Cycle, and refers to the Ragnarok, the Norse myth of a prophesied war between the gods that results in results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world.

Answer: Roger Delgado

Roger Delgado was born in London to a Belgian mother and a Spanish father. He made his professional debut in 1939, and his first television appearance in 1948, with army service in between. He was cast in "The Battle of the River Plate" in the small role of Captain Varela of the Uruguayan Navy, who commands the gunboat ROU Uruguay. It is Varela who boards the SS Tacoma following the scuttling of Admiral Graf Spee, and who informs Captain Langsdorff that neither he nor any of his crew are to be detained, as it is the Tacoma and its crew that have broken Uruguayan law.

Following his appearance in "The Battle of the River Plate", he continued his career as a character actor before his breakthrough role as Count Mendoza in the ITV series "Sir Francis Drake", produced by the ITC company. He made a number of appearances in ITC produced series throughout the 1960s, before he was cast in perhaps his most famous role when, in 1971 he made his first appearance as The Master in "Doctor Who".