UNDERSEA TELEVISION TO FIND WRECKS

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28020, 14 July 1956, Page 11

UNDERSEA TELEVISION TO FIND WRECKS

[By DAVID BURKE]

SYDNEY, July 10. Television may help to salvage a £500.000 cargo ship sunk in deep water off the New South Wales coast. A Sydney scrap dealer has planned this daring operation, which may begin a new industry for the recovery of wartime wrecks off Australian shores. Picture a group of engineers standing around a screen on the see-sawing deck of an 800-ton coaster moored 15 miles off Merrambula. Maybe they could be men watching a television programme in the club—but this is television with a difference. Ninety fathoms below them a supersensitive camera locked inside a steel cylinder is surveying the ocean floor like a dismembered cyclops’ eye. Arc Lights in the .Deep The camera is a Marconi orthincon image, remote controlled on the end of a long cable suspended from the ship’s side.

It is mounted in a stout frame, surrounded by a battery of eight powerful arc lamps that probe the murky waters and startle , silently flipping fish.

It is “sending” a strange picture to the viewers above . . . the rust-coated funnel of a ship . . . cabins with shattered glass still poking from the windows . . . lifeless derricks with hawsers trailing from them . . . the black outline of a hull, intact but for two gaping holes torn in the bow. Suddenly a charge of gelignite blows apart the hatches, darkening the vibrating screen with swirling mud and bubbles.

The engineer shouts an order to the winchman. A dynamo hums on the salvage vessel as the big steel grab plunges overboard. Minutes elapse until the grab shows on the screen, hovering over the shattered hatch. More orders are given . . . “down 50ft” . . . “hard left” . . . “slow.” The men watch every detail of the eerie under-sea drama as the grab bites through the jagged hole into a cargo covered with years of slime. The jaws are full. “Close,” the engineer shouts . . . the jaws close . . . “wind up” he shouts. Blast to Split Ship This is how Sydney Goodwin,. a machinery and metal merchant, of Darlinghurst, is planning to salvage £500,000 in cargo and scrap from the former U.S. Liberty ship, William Dawes, which a Japanese submarine sank on July 21, 1942. Mr Goodwin, aged 55 and Londonborn, bought the William Dawes and two other sunken vessels for the United States Government earlier this year.

“Two months ago divers and echo sounders located the William Dawes for me in 90 fathoms, 15 miles off

shore between Merrimbula and Tathra,” he said. She was sunk on her first Australian voyage with a cargo of 747 tons of ingot lead—today worth £135 a ton —and 3000 tons of tractors and tractor equipment. “The ship is too deep for normal diving (90 .fathoms is 540 ft) so I will do the whole operation, by television camera and grab. First, using the television screen, we will place gelignite charges on the hull to blow open the hatches and get to the cargo. "When we’ve done that we’ll blow the ship to pieces, too, and bring her to the surface bit by bit to be loaded into barges. “The camera will be of the very same type used to find the submarine Affray which was lost in the English Channel in April, 1951.” Mr Goodwin's other two ships, the Don Isidro and the Florence D, both lie off Bathurst Island in North Australia, where Japanese dive bombers caught them on February 19, 1942, as they were fleeing from Manila loaded with ammunition and rations. But that isn’t all . . .

“One was loaded with bullion,” said Mr Goodwin. “The Admiralty has confirmed that fact for me. How much and which ship? I don’t know, but I’ll soon find out with the television screen. Japanese Offer Aid “We’ve estimated the cost of salvage will be £lOO,OOO and the total value of the recovery—£6B6,ooo.” Japanese, who are now surveying the wrecks in Rabaul Harbour, want to buy into the venture. Mr Goodwin handed me a letter from the South Seas Trading Company of Tokyo asking for details of the wrecks and local facilities, and offering “all necessary finance.” “They want to salvage the ships for me so I’ll sell them the scrap,” Mr Goodwin said. “A Japanese agent called on me three weeks ago. I told him I wouldn’t do business —that’s on a matter of principle.” “How soon would operations start, and how would he finance it, I asked?

“I have the organisation blueprinted and ready to begin,” he replied. “At present I’m negotiating in Melbourne to purchase a ship from the Government which will carry the salvage gear. The television equipment has to be hired from England at £2OOO a month.

“I’m hoping to interest a group ol Australian businessmen into forming a syndicate with me for the job. Otherwise I’ll accept offers from firms either in England or Europe, who want a share of the scrap.

“But I’d like to start an Australian salvage industry. There are dozens of ships around the coast which we could tackle with the new method ol salvage-by-television.” Associated Newspapers Feature Services.