132 million of silver on ww2 shipwreck

[brendan-ss]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/huge-silver-ha ... 52018.html

[SchnellMeyer]

Any idea what U Boat sunk this ship ?

[Tychsen]

U-101 was the culprit.

[West-Front]

Just a cut n paste

At 00.08 hours on 17 Feb, 1941, the unescorted Gairsoppa (Master Gerald Hyland) was hit on the starboard side just behind the bridge in #2 hold by one G7a torpedo from U-101 about 300 miles southwest of Galway Bay, Ireland. The ship had been in convoy SL-64 which was slowed down by bad weather and running low on coal, she was detached alone to Galway on 15 February. At 18.00 hours on 16 February, the U-boat spotted the ship but had troubles to hit the target due to heavy seas and missed with a spread of two torpedoes at 23.28 hours and one G7e torpedo at 23.32 hours. The Gairsoppa caught fire and settled slowly by the bow after being hit in the third attack, but Mengersen decided to give up further attacks when a coup de grâce missed at 00.20 hours, assuming correctly that the burning freighter will sink anyway in the heavy seas. The survivors managed to abandon ship in three lifeboats before she sank within 20 minutes. However, two of the boats were never seen again and its occupants presumably perished in the cold and bad weather. The boat in charge of the second officer set sail with eight Europeans and 23 Lascars aboard, but after seven days most had died of exposure and only four Europeans and two Lascars were still alive when the boat reached land on 1 March. Sadly, it capsized in the swell and surf of Caerthillian Cove on The Lizard, Cornwall and all occupants drowned except the second officer, who was rescued unconscious by a coastguard. The bodies of two Europeans and the two unidentified Lascars were recovered and buried in the Landewednack Churchyard. The master, 82 crew members and two gunners were lost.

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/c ... ip765.html

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/765.html

[SchnellMeyer]

Is this ship not a war grave ? I thought diving on such things were forbidden .But then I guess the Government get 20% of the find and that makes it ok .

[West-Front]

Dutch salvors go for British war wrecks - 28/9/11 -

Campaigners in the Netherlands have launched a petition in a bid to halt the commercial salvage of three WWI British warships.The three Cressy-class sister ships HMS Aboukir, HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy lie not far apart, about 20 miles off Scheveningen. They were sunk by a single German submarine in 1914. In all, 1459 men lost their lives in the action, while 837 were saved.
The ships have not been legally designated as protected sites under Britain’s Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, which can protect military vessels in British waters or, as long as they were British-flagged, in foreign or international waters.

http://www.divernet.com/home_diving_new ... recks.html

[Tychsen]

Justin , HMS Edinburgh to recover gold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Edinburgh_(16)

http://www.hmsedinburgh.co.uk/salvage.php

Even in early post war years salvage was big business.