Death At Sea

Death at Sea is the story of Graf Spee-not the German pocket battleship of WWII, but rather the man after which that ship was named. Count Maximilian von Spee commanded the German East Asiatic Naval Squadron in China at the outbreak of World War One. His was a powerful flotilla that threatened, variously, (1) British interests in the Far East, or, if he sailed west, (2) the heart of the British Empire surrounding the Indian Ocean, or (3), if he made a break for Germany to reinforce the home fleet his ships represented a threat to the British Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow and the battle cruisers at Cromarty Firth-it all depended on what he decided to do. In August 1914 Graf Spee opted to send one of his light cruisers, SMS Emden, into the Indian Ocean to raid commerce. Meanwhile, the remainder of the squadron sailed east for Chile, the Horn, and the vast spaces of the Atlantic-all the way around the world, they hoped, to increase Germany's chances of winning the naval war in the North Sea. In Death at Sea readers will learn the ultimate fate of Emden, Graf Spee's squadron, and the many ships the British sent to destroy them.