Leander-class cruiser (1f/2m).
L/B/D:
554.5 × 56 × 19 (169m × 17.1m × 5.8m). Tons:
9,144 disp. Hull:
steel. Comp.:
570. Arm.:
8 × 6 (4×2), 4 × 4, 12 × 0.5 mg; 8 × 21TT; 1 aircraft. Armor:
3.5 belt, 1 deck. Mach.:
steam turbines, 72,000 shp, 4 screws; 32.5 kts. Built:
Vickers-Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness, Eng.; 1935.
On September 3, 1939, three hours after the British Admiralty broadcast the opening of World War II with the signal "Total Germany," HMS Ajax (Captain Charles Woodhouse) intercepted and sank the German merchant ship Olinda, the first merchant casualty of the war on either side. On October 27 Ajax became the flagship of Commodore Harry Harwood's South America Division. The British knew a German pocket battleship was prowling the South Atlantic, and on December 2 Harwood directed Ajax and
Exeter to rendezvous with
Achilles off the River Plate. At daybreak on December 13 they encountered
Admiral Graf Spee. In a classic cruiser deployment, Ajax and Achilles sailed together as the First Division to split Graf Spee's fire between them and Exeter. At 0725, Ajax was straddled by a salvo of Graf Spee's 11-inch shells that knocked out both after turrets; a little later another salvo destroyed the radio aerials. With Exeter also heavily damaged, at 0740 Harwood decided to pull back and shadow Graf Spee into Montevideo. Four days later, Graf Spee's Captain Hans Langsdorff scuttled his ship in the estuary, and the Battle of the River Plate was over. Ajax subsequently was deployed to the eastern Mediterranean and took part in the D-day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944. Following the war, Ajax was stationed in the Mediterranean, and in 1947 she was part of the flotilla that dogged the refugee ship
Exodus 1947. She was broken up at Cashmore, Newport, in 1949.
Pope, Battle of the River Plate.
