Review: Non-fiction: Admiral Brown by Marcos Aguinis
Mayo-born Admiral William Brown has certainly left his mark in Argentina. One of the longest streets in Buenos Aires is not only called after him -- it is dominated by a replica of his home lovingly recreated on a hill overlooking the city he once saved from destruction.
The house -- La Casa Amarilla, or the Yellow House -- is painted its original bright colour and houses the Instituto Nacional Browniano, the National Institute of Brown -- devoted to the study of all things "Brownian".
Another major city, a couple of towns, a football club, over 1,000 streets and hundreds of schools and statues also bear the name of this Irishman.
Yet in Ireland , if he is known at all, Brown is usually tagged the "Founder of the Argentine Navy " as if he were a particularly efficient bureaucrat.
To the Argentines this is akin to describing Admiral Nelson as "a half-decent civil servant."
There, he is The Hero of Two Oceans or The Liberator of the South Atlantic.
Born in Foxford, Co Mayo in 1777 on June 22, Brown emigrated at the age of nine to Philadelphia, where his father died shortly after. Over the next 10 years, he went from cabin boy to captain in US merchant ships before being press-ganged into the British navy .
He was captured by the French and imprisoned for six years before breaking out through the roof of a high security jail and climbing down to freedom.
Back in Britain , a hero for his escape, he married the daughter of a wealthy merchant and sailed to Argentina to earn his fortune -- just as the region exploded into rebellion.
And Brown was ripe to join the republican cause.
On March 16, 1814, he led a ragtag rebel fleet against the Spanish royal navy at their island stronghold of Martin Garcia on the River Plate -- an estuary up to 220km wide.
The Spanish had already annihilated a rebel squadron and looked set to do the same again when Brown's flagship ,the Hercules, ran aground.
By nightfall, a quarter of her men were dead, another quarter badly wounded and his ship was a sieve holed 82 times by cannon.
But Brown had a trick up his sleeve -- what would become known in Argentina as a maniobre Browniano, a Brownian manoeuvre, meaning a bold and innovative strategem.
Just before dawn, the Hercules crept up to the island and Brown sent his men ashore in small boats.
But the attackers were pinned down on the beach. To inspire his men, up to a quarter of whom were Irish, Brown got his pipers to play St Patrick's Day in the Morning as he led one final desperate assault.
The Battle of the River Plate (The Complete War ... - DVD Times
Early in the Second World War, several ships in the Atlantic are being raided by German battleships, one of which is the MS Africa Shell. Held by the German Navy, Captain Dove (Bernard Lee) watches as his ship is sunk but is shown his crew rowing to safety on a nearby island and is assured that no party will pursue them. Asking what will become of him, Dove is informed that he will be a guest of Captain Langsdorff (Peter Finch) of the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and will enjoy what comforts he is permitted by the captain. What Dove is surprised to find is that Langsdorff has no interest in unnecessary loss of life and though he is unwilling to inform Dove of the course that he has set the Admiral Graf Spee, he does pour him a whisky and asks that he follow his officers to where he must remain. Dove, impressed by Langsdorff's respect for the British officers, discovers that the two men have much in common and in spite of the unbalanced nature of the relationship, develop something of a friendship. But the actions of the Admiral Graf Spee has attracted the attentions of the Royal Navy and soon, near the mouth of the River Plate between Uruguay and Argentina, it is spotted by three Royal Navy cruisers, the HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles. Although much more lightly armed than the pocket battleship Graf Spee, the three cruisers open fire following the command of their officers, Commodore Harwood (Anthony Quayle) and Captain Woodhouse (Ian Hunter) on the Ajax, Captain Bell (John Gregson) on the Exeter and Captain Parry (Jack Gwillim) on the Achilles. However, the Graf Spee makes a crucial error in its appraisal of the situation, believing that the Achilles and the Ajax were destroyers, smaller than the actual cruisers that they were. For an hour the battle continues with casualties on both sides and quickly turns into a pursuit. But as the sun sets, the Graf Spee heads for the neutral port of Montevideo. The British ships, badly damaged but still operational, follow, not planning on letting this prize escape them... Made eleven years after the end of the war and the last film produced by the partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the 1956 Battle Of The River Plate is an impressive film. Those eleven years allowed Powell and Pressburger to portray the Germans as being more than caricatures in uniform, sympathetically even, yet were still afforded space to portray the heroism of the Royal Navy officers.
Battle Of The River Plate Dvd - Bookshelf
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