The German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee had been sighted lurking about 400km from the busy shipping lane of Rio de la Plata, off Uruguay in December 1939.
The first sea battle of World War II -- the first time a New Zealand warship took part in a naval battle -- was just moments away. In the middle of it all, alongside more than 300 Kiwis, was a 17-year old Mr Batt. Stuck in the bowels of the HMS Achilles, he was studiously intent on his critical task. It was scary -- but there was no time to be scared.
The Achilles was part of a Royal Navy wolf pack hunting down the heavily-armed Graf Spee, which had already sunk nine British merchant ships. Now it was charging straight at them.
Mr Batt is just one of a handful of survivors from the Battle of the River Plate in the early days of the Second World War. Born in Napier in 1922, he'd always had an affinity with the sea.
"I lived on the water. As a boy, I had my own canoe, was always on the water, just lived for it." There were no naval ties in his family. But there was never any question he was going to join the Navy. At 15, he left school and signed up as a boy seaman. For the first two years, he was based on HMNZS Philomel at Devonport Naval Base. Training was relentless so, when war broke out, the teenager and his fellow boy sailors embraced the adventure.
The night before the Battle of the River Plate, the Achilles' crew were unaware of what lay ahead. In the early morning murk, the Graf Spee spotted the Achilles alongside British cruisers, HMS Ajax and HMS Exeter.
German captain Hans Langsdorff had previously stuck to a self-imposed tactical rule of not engaging enemy warships.
"But for some reason, that day he would break his own rule and seek an engagement with the three cruisers," said naval historian Michael Wynd. At 6.18am on December 13, 1939, the Graf Spee opened fire, signalling the start of the engagement which would go down in the annals of military history.
Splitting off from the other two Allied ships, the Achilles returned fire. Its smaller four-inch guns and two main gun turrets boomed across the South Atlantic Ocean.
Down below in the transmission station, the "blimmin' racket" of each salvo filled Mr Batt's ears.
His task now became ever more important. When the ship rolled on the swell, he operated two levers that controlled a dot in the middle of a square. It represented the aim of the guns.
As the ship rolled, he needed to keep the guns pointing directly at the enemy ship. Mistakes could be fatal -- for him and hundreds of his mates on board.
"My thoughts were, at last we were doing something worthwhile," Mr Batt says from his Napier home, looking back on the historical action which celebrates its 75th anniversary on December 13.
"We were finally in action. We treated it as a play-time or something like that. We weren't worried or upset. It wasn't frightening, I don't know what you'd call it. Because we were all seaman boys, I suppose, no fear." Mr Batt stayed at his job. All the while he kept half an ear open for progress reports from on deck: "The only people that really know what is really going on are those on the bridge and the signallers. The guys in the turrets, in the engine room and elsewhere, have no idea what's going on. It can be a very lonely, and very anxious time," said Michael Wynd, researcher at the National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy.
Batt's mate, fellow boy seaman Arthur Hunt, 16 years at the time of the battle, would later recall: "My action station was in the forward magazine and, as I changed my boots for the felt slippers that reduced the danger of sparking the cordite, my foot clattered on the deck like a Morse key. Yet real fear, like delayed concussion, did not hit many of us until after the action.
"As the doors closed behind us, we realised that if a hit did necessitate sectional flooding of the ship we would drown behind the doors of the magazine … Down in the magazine it was impossible to know whether each great shudder and muffled crash was an enemy hit or the snarl of our own guns. We went on loading and firing, loading and firing." Cheers went up every time the Achilles scored a direct hit. After 82 minutes of intense combat, the out-powered, sweating gun crews of the Achilles had fired more than 200 broadsides at the Nazis.
Wounded, with 36 dead crew, the Graf Spee limped away, heading for the port of Montevideo in Uruguay. It would be scuttled four days later by a defeated and shamed Captain Langsdorff. He then took his own life.
The Achilles had acquitted itself well. It was later praised for "beautiful shooting". But during the shootout, it was winged by shell fragments that would claim four lives, including two New Zealanders. The young crew again took it in their stride with typically Kiwi realistic attitude.
"You pretty well knew everybody," Mr Batt says. "But we took it as having to be expected. We accepted it. When we could, we had a burial at sea for them." Afterwards, victory buoyed not just their spirits, but the morale of the entire Allied war effort: "I suppose you could call it jubilation, that at last, we had done something worthwhile." They enjoyed their daily tot of rum and would set sail for their long journey home, blissfully unaware what lay ahead for them.
When news filtered back of the famous sea battle, it was "the big news story of the day," Mr Wynd says. "For both Britain and New Zealand, it meant a lot in the psychological warfare stakes." For the crew of the Achilles, the elation of the Battle of River Plate victory was well and truly a distant memory by the time they sailed into Waitemata Harbour in February 1940. Aucklanders, however, hadn't forgotten.
Flag-waving patriots lined the wharfs at Devonport to give the bewildered sailors a heroes' homecoming. Thousands lined Queen Street up to eight deep, while others hung out of shop windows, as the sailors marched to the Town Hall. Banners hung across the main street exclaimed, 'Rule! Rule! Britannia!' and 'Auckland honours you'.
Batt and his mates couldn't comprehend the fuss: "At first we thought, 'What a load of bloody nonsense' ... but the people of Auckland really put on a show and did everything they could for us," recalls Mr Batt.
That included free drinks everywhere they went: "We were issued with a card to prove who we were and we could go into any bar and have a drink on the Government. It was all right." Batt travelled home to Napier. Everyone wanted to know "what it was like", being involved in such a historic naval battle.
"I tried to explain things ... but it was difficult. We just looked at it as being that was what we were in for." The rest of the war was relatively quiet for Batt and the Achilles. The ship never engaged in ship-to-ship action after the Battle of River Plate. It was used for escorts, convoys, and coastal patrols across the Pacific. That suited Bob Batt.
"It was an everyday life, an everyday job. When you were in the Navy, you were in the navy, and you did as you were told." He served 15 years, rising through the ranks, finally as a chief petty officer.
Returning to Napier, he married Joan, had six children, and got a job on the waterfront. The water has stayed with him ever since.
"I've always lived by the water. Anything with the water will always do me. I've got nine boats sitting out in the yard here. I do get out occasionally, when I can get someone to crew for me. I go out if I can." In September, he gave a reading at the Royal New Zealand Navy's 73rd birthday church service at Old St Paul's in Wellington. It was a proud moment for him, especially since he shared the lectern with his great-nephew, serving Lieutenant Jonathan Bentin.
"Jono is a very nice chap, and doing very well in the Navy. I felt very proud up there with him." Batt intends to attend the 75th anniversary commemorations of the Battle of River Plate in Auckland on December 13.
"There's not many of us left. Four? Maybe three." But he says he will make the effort.
"It's important to do these things, to remember those who aren't with us any more. Looking back, I guess it was all quite a big deal."
By Kurt Bayer of NZME. News Service
