HOW £5,000,000 WAS SALVED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 1 April 1926, Page 6

HOW £5,000,000 WAS SALVED

TIIE LAURENTIC L\OLD " b'IKST FULL ACCOUNT Mr J. C. 0. Davidson, Financial &* CCJtiUiy to tin' Admiralty, announce*, in ffis>iK(h r forliamcnl recer, y hal Uc, cot W recovering the f14.95b.000 from the- White Star liner Laiireutie. which sank in 1917 (it the west coast o Inland, was unlv £138.000. which included „ bonus of £6739 to the officers and n concerned. , ' The work of the divers was begun in 1917. But the Laurent io, a vessel < I I'4,'COO tons, which had been acting as an auxiliary cruiser, was lost ma spot exposed to the full fury ol the Atlantic in 20 fathoms (120 ft.) of water- toi mouths at a time tho work of the divers was stopped by storms, and much ol the treasure had to he literally snatched a'vvav during a lull in the gales. ' The weak was done from the Admiralty salvage vessel Racer. 1000 Jons. Lt."-Commander E. L. B. Damant, K..V. himself a champion diver, was in Damant has since received the thanks of the Admiralty lor his work while several members oi his crew 'of about 50 have been decorated. Commander Damant, gave a Daily Mail reporter the following fust lull account ol the salvage work : When we first started In work, mime diaiely after it was sunk, the Laiiroiitie lay on its side at 'an angle ol 60 degrees Iron, the vertical. I sing i«xplt»iv.w. we blew in a door in I lie sale ol He sliip near the strong-vomit, . The foreman diver. Warrant Ship Wight Miller, went down a transverse 'passage, and eventually reached the , strong-room in the middle of the ship. ■He unscrewed some nuts from the hinges and had the strong-room open in ;l lew jiiinutes. -Most of the gold then lay before him in boxes. It was very difficult to remove these boxes of gold. The diver had to crawl lip a. steeply-sloping passage in pilch darkness, pushing a heavy bos before him, and occasionally lifting it over • obstacles, On the first day we removed one box and on the following day three more. Then a gale blew up from the north and lasted a week, during which pieces of decking and other debris were, wash ed on shore, showing that something had happened to the Laurentie. When the sea subsided and it was possible to send a diver down he found . that tho whole ship had collapsed'like a pack of cards, driving the decks out . sideways. This had been caused by the enormous pressure exercised by the action of the waves deep below the surface: . There was no hollow space in which men might crawl about, and we had to ciit a way right into the crumpled ship • with explosives. Altogether since the beginning of the ' operations we have removed 3000 tons of material. In the remaining part, ol ' 1917 we recovered about £1,000,000 • worth of gold. In 1919 the work was resumed, and some gold was-recovered. In 1920 and ~ 1921 we wore very unlucky. When the • ship collapsed the'geld was divided into ', two sections. The iirst lot was compare. • lively easy to recover. The second consignment/however, was buried beneath "about 10 feet of sand and debris, con- '-.'. sisting of broken-lip fragments of the ship and its fittings, including such things as berths, baths, wash-basins, .';. aiid tables. 12 HOSE PIPE UNDER SEA The divers worked in a jgaged crater ;■; in the middle of the ship, and to remove ■ the sand they had to scoop it into sacks ,'; with their hands. The sand was made ■<• quite hard by the action of the waves, .; and the divers loosened it with a fire- • hose pipe let down from the .Racer. r The diver squirted Hie jet ot water '; into the sand, thereby loosening it. and '■■■■ as he did this he pushed his hand into ;' the loosened sand to feel for the gold. y. The men crouched or lay down on the '""'•'sand, scooping it into sacks and feeling for the gold. Sometimes at the end of several days of work they would have their finger-nails worn down almost to the quick, and the tips of their fingers soft like sponges. They would not wear gloves. In 1922, 1923, and 1924 we made good progress, and at the end of that year there was less than one per cent, of tlie. gold in the wreck. The .sand was then gaining fast on the divers and the work had to be abandoned. Throughout there, was not one accident. Owing to the high compression a diver could only work at the bottom about one half-hour at a time. It took him about half an hour to come to the surface so that the pressure in Id's suit might be reduced by stages. During the operations we had a number of cases of high-compression sickness. These were treated by putting the affected man at once into the recompression chamber on board. He was there put under a high air pressure again, and very soon felt better. Some of the- bars of gold recovered were bent right round into a "U" shape while others had pebbles driven ban) into them—and also half-crowns.