Sunken WWII treasure

[Phantomfixer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15061868

"The SS Gairsoppa, a UK cargo ship sunk by a German U-boat in 1941, was found by US exploration firm Odyssey Marine" from the website.
A neat read
John

 

[DoolittleRaider]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15061868

"The SS Gairsoppa, a UK cargo ship sunk by a German U-boat in 1941, was found by US exploration firm Odyssey Marine" from the website.
A neat read
John

ooooooh very cool,

LETS GO DIVING, i need the experience, plus the silver

:fish2:

 

[PaidInFull24]

Thanks for posting that John. What an interesting read. It's so great to know that some of those things won't be lost forever!

-Nick

 

[dhermann1]

We often forget the fate of the many thousands of merchant seamen who died during the war. Something like 50,000. There's a beautiful monument to them at Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan. Worth seeing.

 

[Chas]

IIRC, the Merch. Marine suffered the highest casualty rate in the Empire/Commonwealth forces. They're forgotten because there are no cemeteries, just the ocean wave. My dad was in the RCNVR during the war and watched a lot of them die and rescued quite a few as well. They had to fight to get pensions and recognition as veterans from the Cdn. Gov't, IIRC.

 

[Story]

Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (OMEX), a deep-sea salvage company, said it retrieved more than 61 tons of silver bullion this month from a World War II shipwreck nearly three miles (4.8 kilometers) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Odyssey recovered 1,574 silver ingots weighing a total of about 1.8 million ounces from the SS Gairsoppa, the Tampa, Florida-based company said in a statement today. The 412-foot (126-meter) British cargo ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat in February 1941, Odyssey said on its website.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-22/wwii-shipwreck-gives-up-61-tons-from-atlantic-seabed.html

 

[Shangas]

I wonder when they'll find the Amber Room...

 

[Story]

Odyssey Marine Exploration (NASDAQ CM:OMEX) announced on Tuesday that it had successfully retrieved 1,574 silver ingots weighing 80 pounds each for a total of almost 1.8 million troy ounces in total in July. The recoveries were made from a depth of 4.7 kilometres or some 3 miles below the ocean's surface, setting the record for the deepest and largest precious metals recovery from a shipwreck in history. The 412-foot steel-hulled British merchant steam ship is situated a full kilometer deeper than the Titanic shipwreck.

http://www.mining.com/salvage-company-hauls-60-tons-of-silver-from-ww2-shipwreck-97929/

 

[Otter]

Outstanding preservation on that lamp, looks like it went down last week. I have seen similar lamps on shallow wrecks up in the forepeak on the fleet oiler Fujisan Maru, and they were not in nearly as good condition.

 

[Story]

Running low on fuel and separated from the comparative safety of a convoy, the SS Gairsoppa was making a desperate bid for a neutral harbour when it was sent to the bottom of the North Atlantic by a German torpedo.

Under machine gunfire, dozens of the ship’s 85 crew scrambled onto a small lifeboat then spent two weeks adrift, gradually dying off one by one. Just one survivor, Second Officer Richard Ayres, made it to shore, 300 miles away. On board the doomed ship had been 2,800 bars of silver bullion, thought lost for ever.

Now, almost three quarters of a century on - following the recovery of the cargo by explorers and just as they are to be made into a collection of silver coins by the Royal Mint - the full story of the sinking of the SS Gairsoppa, and the tragic fate of its crew, can be told.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...d-the-Second-World-Wars-silver-shipwreck.html