WITH the arrival of 85th anniversary of the Battle of the River Plate (Friday, December 13), Wellington IT consultant Richard Loraine-Smith has been remembering an uncle who saw its aftermath on completing a Second World War secret mission.

Charles ‘Corky’ Robinson, who later lived with his wife Mary in Milverton, was hand-picked with more than 30 other volunteers from Argentinian and Uruguayan communities at the start of the war to secretly travel to the Falkland Islands and train a local force and prepare defences in case of a German raid.

‘Uncle Corky’, then aged 28, was travelling South America selling milling machinery for his family business and had reached Buenos Aires, where in early September, 1939, Britain’s Secret Service recruited him.

The only known photograph of the Tabaris Highlanders with their Lee Enfield rifles.
The only known photograph of the Tabaris Highlanders with their Lee-Enfield rifles. PHOTO: Richard Loraine-Smith. ( )

The informal group gave themselves the formal sounding name of the Tabaris Highlanders, taken from the notorious Buenos Aires Tabaris Nightclub, which was frequented by expatriates.

Mr Loraine-Smith said: “When they got there they installed four-inch guns and built observation posts and defences.

“In doing that, it made an invasion or a raid less likely because the German secret service the Abwehr realised the British had reinforced the islands so they were ready for what might have happened.”

The Tabaris Highlanders spent several weeks in the Falklands boosting the ability to resist a possible invasion before ‘Uncle Corky’ and the others returned to neutral Montevideo, Uruguay, escorted by HMS Exeter.

At the time, the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee had sunk 50,000 tons of merchant shipping, making an invasion more likely.

Five days later, on December 13, HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax, and New Zealand’s HMNZS Achilles engaged the Graf Spee off the mouth of the River Plate.

The battle resulted in the scuttling of the Graf Spee when Captain Hans Langsdorff realised there was no escape, and serious damage to HMS Exeter, which a few weeks later was sunk in an encounter with Japanese warships.

Mr Loraine-Smith said: “The naval action by HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles resulted in many lives lost and saved many ships from being sunk.

The German pocket battleship the Admiral Graf Spee. PHOTO: Richard Loraine-Smith.
The German pocket battleship the Admiral Graf Spee. PHOTO: Richard Loraine-Smith. ( )

“Many of the Tabaris Highlanders witnessed the scuttling of the pocket battleship and also met some of their crew in Montevideo.”

Some of the Tabaris Highlanders returned to civilian lives, while others joined the RAF, Navy, and Army, and seven of them were killed on active service during the war.

Mr Loraine-Smith wrote a book about his uncle’s exploits titled The Tabaris Highlanders 1939 and published by Aileron Publishing, a copy of which has been given to Wellington’s public library.

‘Uncle Corky’ went on to join the RAF Reserve where he trained pilots and flew bombing missions until the end of the war when he returned to his family company.

Charles and Mary Robinson moved to Wiveliscombe in 1980 and later to Milverton, where he died in 1996.

It was only several years later while Mr Loraine-Smith was helping to clear the couple’s Milverton home following the death of Mary that he discovered a shoebox filled with memorabilia giving clues about his uncle’s secret mission.