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(Friday, February 23, 1940; during World War II) — The Lord Mayor of London gave a luncheon party today at the Guildhall to officers and ratings of the Exeter and Ajax to celebrate their Dec. 13, 1939, victory at the Battle of the River Plate.

Huge crowds turned out to cheer them more than two months after critically damaging the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee off the River Plate estuary in Argentina and Uruguay.

The featured speaker was Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, who said: “The brilliant sea fight which Admiral Harwood conceived, and which you executed, takes its place in our naval annals, and I might add that in a dark, cold winter it warmed the cockles of the British heart.”

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The Battle of the River Plate was the first naval battle in the Second World War and the first one of the Battle of the Atlantic in South American waters.