The light cruiser SMS Dresden was the only German ship of Vizeadmiral Maximilian Graf von Spee’s East Asia Squadron to escape the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914. The British force that hunted for her initially comprised two battlecruisers and 10 cruisers, but was reduced to four cruisers and an armed merchant cruiser after about a fortnight.
Dresden managed to evade the British ships for three months, hiding in the many inlets and bays of Tierra del Fuego. She kept in touch with Puntas Arenas by motor boat. Mr Milward, the British consul there, wrote an accurate report about Dresden’s whereabouts. However, Rear Admiral Archibald Stoddart, commanding the Royal Navy’s South Atlantic and Pacific Stations, thought that Milward had been misled by a German plan to trick British ships into a remote area in order to permit Dresden to escape.[1]
