An item dated Montevideo, Uruguay 9th referred to a radio telegram reporting that in the South Atlantic Ocean a fight was going on between a German raider (1) and the British cruiser HMS Enterprise.(2) It was the same raider earlier battling with the Carnarvon Castle.(3) Well informed sources at Montevideo had no further prove of the battle except for the radio telegram.
Notes
1 Also known in the German navy as the HSK-4 and Schiff 10, but by the British Royal Navy as Raider E. In 1938 built as the merchant vessel Santa Cruz for the Oldenburg Portuguese Line (OPDR) by the Deutsche Werft, Hamburg, Germany in 1938, acquired by the Kriegsmarine in 1939, commissioned in March 1940 as the Thor and lost when fire broke while lying in the harbour of Yokohama, Japan on 30 November 1942.
2. The Emerald-class light cruiser HMS Enterprise, laid down by John Brown Shipbuilding&Engineering Company Lt., Clydebank, Scotland with yard number 484 on 28 June 1918, launched on 23 December 1919, commissioned on 7 April 1925, decommissioned on 13 January 1946 and arrived at the Cashmore’s yard, Newport, Wales on 21 April 1946 to be broken up. Together with the HMS Cumberland and Newcastle she indeed search for the Thor but fruitless.
3. Launched by Harland and Wolff, Belfast, Ireland with yard number 595 on 14 January 1926 for the Union-Castle Line, completed on 26 June 1926, acquired by the British Royal Navy on 8 September 1939, converted at the naval base at Simonstown, South Africa into an auxiliary cruiser, commissioned on 6 October 1939, decommissioned in December 1943, plans of converting her into an aircraft carrier not executed but instead at New York, USA into a troopship in 1944 and broken up in 1963. The battle mentioned in the news item was on 5 December 1939 with the German auxiliary cruiser Thor and she was heavily damaged with 4 dead and 27 wounded crew members. It seemed that for the repairs steel was used salvaged from th German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee.
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