SUNKEN CRUISER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21830, 19 June 1934, Page 9

SUNKEN CRUISER

SALVAGING THE HAMPSHIRE ALLEGED PROOFS SUBMITTED' LONDON, June 17 The Sunday Chronicle tells of a dramatic development regarding the salvaging of the cruiser Hampshire in which Lord Kitchener was drowned off the Orkneys when en, route to Russia in 1916. Mr. Charles Courtney visited the Admiralty and submitted to officials what are described as absolute proofs that he descended to Kitchener's death ship. " We were after £2,000,000 worth of gold in the Hampshire's strongroom," says Mr. Courtney. The Admiralty, however, says: " There is no gold in the Hampshire as far as we are aware and the difficulties of salvage are.insurmountable." The ship lies in 360 feet of water with a racing tide. Mr. Courtney says the authorities are powerless to prevent him salvaging the derelict, and he laughs at the Admiralty's scepticism in respect to the practicability of salvage. That a German vessel was secretly salvaging the armoured cruiser Hampshire was the startling assertion of the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung in an article last December. The newspaper published a carefully-documented account of the operations with detailed statements of divers, including an Australian named Costello, who was injured when one of three bombs exploded in the wreck. This caused the unexpected explosion of the Hampshire's ammunition, hurling divers into the mud. Salvage operations were unsuccessfully commenced in 1931 and were restarted in April, 1933. The salvage ship approached the Hampshire with the greatest secrecy, the captain taking a round-about route from Kiel to avert suspicion. Costello found the wreck within three hours of descending. Whitefield, a German deep-sea expert, was first to enter the Hampshire commander's room. As the steel door opened, the body of a man rose from a chair, drawn by suction, and floated past Whitefield, then vanished into the framework of the sunken ship. Using oxy-acetylene cutting apparatus, the crew raised £IO,OOO worth of gold bars and personal papers relating to Lord Kitchener's Russian mission. The British Admiralty denied the reported salvaging.