this meticulous film re enact the first major sea battle of world war ii and the dramatic engagement between the german pocket battleship graf spee and three small british cruiser off the coast of south america and and it equally dramatic aftermath . when the battle damage graf spee steam into the neutral uruguayan port of montevideo it become front page news all over the world and and everybody wonder how the story would end . would the graf spee allow herself to be intern in uraguay and would she attempt to escape out to sea and or would she fight the british again . and if she do choose to fight and just how powerful a force do the british have leave to face her . at the time the film be produce there be no longer any warship resemble the graf spee and so the producer make do with the u. s. navy heavy cruiser uss salem . the real graf spee be actually a great deal more powerful than the uss salem . the graf spee could out run any warship she do not out gun and and she out gun any warship she couldn not out run . for those reason the graf spee be more than a match for the three british warship that face her . it be a though three terrier be take on an angry bear . one noteworthy aspect of this film be that the producer list the ship in the credit a though they be member of the cast . it be entirely appropriate that they should have do so and since this be essentially a story of ship and the seaman who man them . it be also noteworthy that two of the ship in the cast and hm cumberland and hmis delhi ( formerly hmnzs achilles ) be actually present during the original event . a for the original hm exeter and it be a tribute to the professionalism of her crew that she actually survive the tremendous battering depict in the film ( she be hit by seven of graf spee 11 inch shell ) . unfortunately she be sink by the japanese in 1942 and and the survivor of her gallant crew spend the remainder of the war live under condition similar to those depict in the bridge over the river kwai .