Salvage crew raise key piece of sunken German battleship 

(26 Feb 2004)
1. View of wake from boat and shore in distance
2. Man driving boat
3. Various of crane in ocean
4. Net on end of crane carrying part of command tower
5. Crane with command tower in net
6. Various command tower being hoisted from water
7. Closeup of command tower
8. Salvage crew on ship and in smaller boat
9. Various boats around command tower
10. Command tower on ship
11. Various boats and crane
STORYLINE:
A salvage team off Uruguay used a floating crane on Wednesday to raise a key piece of the sunken German battleship Graf Spee, lifting a 27-ton part of the command tower after weeks of failed attempts.
Retired Navy Captain Alberto Braida, a logistics planner for the salvage operation, told The Associated Press that the team recovered its first significant part of the ship, once a symbol of German naval might in the early days of World War Two.
Salvage crews recovered part of the communications tower that once held sophisticated range-finding equipment for the warship''''''''s 11-inch (280-millimetre) guns.
The vessel - considered one of the most sophisticated of its time - prowled the south Atlantic, sinking as many as nine allied merchant ships before warships from Britain and New Zealand crippled it in a December 1939 naval engagement.
Scuttled by its captain in the River Plate shortly after the battle, the Graf Spee has remained for decades in waters less than 25 feet (7.5 metres) deep only miles (kilometres) outside the port of Montevideo.
Braida said that the team salvaged the the range-finding equipment known as the telemeter during a second attempt on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, the recovery team managed to raise the telemeter but the supporting cables snapped and the 27-ton piece crashed back into the water.
An optical instrument, the telemeter was a sophisticated instrument for its era that helped gunners improve their aim and hone in on targets up to 35 kilometres (20 miles) away.
Tricky river currents and fickle winds on the River Plate estuary had stymied the salvage team ever since it made a first attempt on 9 February to pull the top of the command tower from the muddy waters.
The recovery effort is being financed by private investors in Europe and the United Sates.
The team said it hopes to recover as much of the ship as possible in the next three years to place it on display.
Feared by many navy forces at the outset of the war, the Graf Spee - a "pocket battleship" that carried less powerful guns and was smaller than a conventional ship of that class - was tracked down by British forces off the South American coast.
The Battle of the River Plate began on December 13, 1939, near the mouth of the river as the German warship was pursued by a battle group consisting of two British warships, HMS Exeter and HMS Ajax, and the HMNZS Achilles of New Zealand.
The Graf Spee was crippled in the fight after receiving several direct hits, and Captain Hans Langsdorff decided to take refuge in the Montevideo harbour.
Unable to make the necessary repairs, Langsdorff sank it on December 17, 1939. The crew was taken by ship to Buenos Aires, Argentina and the captain committed suicide there days later.
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