SUNKEN WARSHIPS

Southland Times, Issue 19170, 14 February 1924, Page 5

SUNKEN WARSHIPS

GERMAN FLEET AT SCAPA FLOW. VESSELS TO BE SALVAGED. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright). (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, February 12. (Received February 13, 9.0 p.m.) A contract for the salvage of the German warships scuttled at Scapa Flow has been signed. It will be the biggest salvage feat ever attempted. Operations begin at the end of March. Definite arrangements have now been made to begin salvage operations shortly at Scapa Flow, where the German Fleet was scuttled in June, 1919, wrote the Glasgow correspondent of a London journal some time ago. The vessels sunk, it will be recalled, comprised ten battleships, five battle cruisers, five light cruisers, and twenty-nine destroyers, their total tonnage being about 416,000. All the destrovers. it is contended, can be floated and broken up, but the raising of the capital ships, with the exception of the mighty Hindenburg and the Seydlitz, would not be a commercial success, as in practically all cases the capital ships went down in over twenty fathoms of water, an impossible depth for salving unless tremendous sums of money were expended. The warships were sunk by the crews opening all the sea cocks and flooding the ships. Strange to say, owing to the method to be adopted by the salvors, this will assist their efforts. The Hindenburg, 700 ft long and 27,000 tons displacement, which embodied all the lessons taught by the war, was completed but never commissioned, for after her trials she was interned at Scapa. She evidently did not sink according to plan. The Germans had apparently arranged for a larger inflow of water at one side, so that the vessel might capsize and make refloating very difficult. She, however, sank on an even keel, and now rests upright, with her main deck just awash at low water, her fighting tops, tripod mast, and funnels standing stark above the water. Sea birds perch themselves on her monster guns. With the Seydlitz, whose length is 656 ft and whose tonnage is 24,610 tons, the Germans must have been more successful, for she lies on her starboard side, about onethird of the ship being visible at low water. Her guns, clearly visible, hang dejectedly from the turrets.