The armoured warship Admiral Graf Spee went into service on 6th January 1936, as the new flagship of the German navy. On 13th December 1939, at the mouth of the River Plate, the Graf Spee ran into a British cruiser squadron. Graf Spee's 6 x 11" guns were far superior to the British force's and she was able to break out of the battle that followed to her own advantage, but had to make a run for the neutral harbour of Montevideo in order to repair the damage. On 17th December, after makeshift repairs, Captain Langsdorff had to leave the harbour. He subsequently scuttled his own ship. Public attention was recently focussed on the wreck of the Admiral Graf Spee again, when it became known that Uruguayan contractors wished to raise parts of the ship to form the nucleus of a museum.