Submitted by
Terry Hanstock
Captain Ralph Medley
(October 2 1906 - July 23 1999)
Naval officer who duelled with Graf Spee at the
Battle of the River Plate and later helped to save an
Arctic convoy from German raiders
Captain Ralph Medley, who has died aged 92, was Operations
and Intelligence Officer on the staff of Commodore Henry Harwood,
who flew his broad pennant in the cruiser Ajax in the Battle of the River
Plate in December 1939.
The German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee sailed from
Wilhelmshaven on August 21 1939 and sank the British merchant ship
Clement off Brazil on September 30. The Admiralty organised eight
hunting groups to search world-wide for the raider. Harwood's Force G,
of the cruisers Exeter and Cumberland, later joined by Ajax and Achilles,
operated off the south-east coast of America.
By December 7 1939, when Graf Spee had sunk eight ships in the
Atlantic and one in the Indian Ocean, Harwood and his staff concluded
that the raider would most likely head for the busy shipping routes off
the River Plate. By December 12, Harwood had concentrated his three
cruisers, Exeter, Ajax and Achilles (Cumberland was in the Falklands)
some 150 miles off the Plate estuary.
Early on the morning of December 13, smoke was sighted on the
north-west horizon. Exeter signalled: "I think it is a pocket battleship."
Graf Spee's shooting with her 11-inch guns was excellent, hitting and
damaging Exeter so badly she had later to retire to the Falklands for
repairs, and putting five of Ajax's eight guns out of action.
But Graf Spee also made fatal mistakes. "Her best tactic," as Medley
himself summed it up, "would have been to turn away from us, when the
greater range of her guns would have enabled her to engage only Exeter
(with 8-inch guns) before Ajax and Achilles could get within range of
her, and then attack our smaller ships with relative impunity.
"Instead, she apparently mistook these two for destroyers and allowed us
all to engage her from different directions and thereby confuse her
gunnery. In fact she took the only action which allowed us to defeat
her."
Graf Spee took refuge in Montevideo, while Churchill and the BBC
conjured up vast but entirely imaginary forces waiting outside to destroy
her. Her captain scuttled his ship and then committed suicide.
It was a great victory which, as Churchill said, "in a cold and dark winter
warmed the cockles of our hearts". Commodore Harwood was promoted
to Rear Admiral, and Medley was mentioned in despatches.
Medley remained on the South American Station for another two years,
serving in eight different cruisers, before coming home in December
1941 and taking command of the destroyer Beagle in the Greenock
Escort Force early in 1942.
In April, Beagle was part of the escort of the Arctic convoy QP11,
homeward bound from Murmansk. On April 29, the cruiser Edinburgh
was hit by two torpedoes from U.456. Her stern was blown off and she
started back towards Murmansk at slow speed, escorted by two of the
convoy's destroyers. She later had to be sunk by Allied forces.
Meanwhile, on the afternoon of May 1, QP11 was attacked by three large
German destroyers. The convoy's four remaining destroyers, Amazon,
Beverley, Bulldog and Beagle, had had their after guns removed to make
more room for depth-charges.
They mounted six 4.7-inch and three 4-inch guns between them, with
antiquated fire control systems, against the Germans' modern six
5.9-inch and five 5-inch guns.
In theory, it should have been a clear victory for the enemy, followed by
the destruction of the convoy, but the four elderly destroyers,
audaciously led by Commander Richmond in Bulldog, defended with
such vigour that they convinced their opponents that they were much
stronger than they actually were.
Over a period of several hours the destroyers drove off five enemy
lunges at the convoy. Amazon was hit and damaged and one convoy
straggler was sunk, but QP11 was otherwise unscathed. Medley and the
other three destroyer captains were all awarded the DSO.
Ralph Cyril Medley was born on October 2 1906 and joined the Navy as
a cadet in 1920, going to Osborne and Dartmouth.
His first ship as a midshipman in 1924 was the old coal-burning
battleship Benbow and he went on to serve as a sub-lieutenant in the
cruiser Cornwall on the China Station.
Between 1928 and 1936, he served as a lieutenant in the sloop Sandwich
and the cruiser Devonshire on the China Station, and in the destroyer
Crusader in the Home Fleet.
His first commands, in 1938 and 1939, were the destroyers Stronghold
and Beagle (for the first time). In 1943, Medley was loaned to the Royal
Canadian Navy as Senior Officer of C3 Escort Group, commanding the
destroyers Burnham and Saskatchewan, and later the frigate Prince
Rupert.
The largest Atlantic convoy C3 escorted was colossal: 150 ships, in 15
columns spread across a front of 10 miles, with 10 ships in each column,
carrying a million tons of cargo.
C3 at that time consisted of Prince Rupert and five corvettes, but the
convoy crossed without loss. Prince Rupert assisted in the sinking of
U.575, west of Cape Finisterre, on March 13 1944.
In 1944, Medley was appointed Staff Officer (Operations) to the C-in-C
Mediterranean, Admiral Sir John Cunningham in Italy, and then to
Admiral Sir Algernon Willis in Malta. He was appointed OBE in 1946.
He was disappointed to be sent to Portsmouth as Drafting Commander
in 1946, which he thought was a dead-end job, but he was promoted
captain in 1947.
A year later, he took command of the frigate Cardigan Bay in the
Mediterranean and then went out to China as Captain (F) 4th Frigate
Flotilla.
Medley was appointed Deputy Director of the Operations Division in
1950, and Senior Naval Directing Staff Officer at the Joint Services Staff
College, Latimer, in 1952. His last appointment, from 1955 until he
retired in 1957, was as Chief of Staff to the French Admiral Jaujard at
Nato headquarters, Fontainebleau, with the rank of Commodore.
From 1960 to 1971, Medley was Clerk to the Worshipful Company of
Saddlers, and he was a Freeman of the City of London.
He was one of the participants who advised on Powell and Pressburger's
1956 film The Battle of the River Plate, and he also assisted with
Michael Powell's book on the battle.
He himself published several books on the history of the Medley family.
He married, in 1934, Letty Boyce. As a First Officer WRNS, she was
appointed MBE in 1944 for her work as Senior Cypher Officer,
Plymouth Command, during Operation Neptune. They had two
daughters.
Saturday 4 September 1999 (Issue 1562)
© The Daily Telegraph
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