SECRET SALVAGE

Southland Times, Issue 22201, 19 December 1933, Page 5

SECRET SALVAGE

THE LOST HAMPSHIRE

DEATH OF KITCHENER RECALLED

GERMAN OPERATIONS

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.)

London, December 17.

That a German vessel is secretly salvaging Lord Kitchener’s death ship, the Hampshire, is the startling assertion of the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, which publishes a carefully documented account of the operations and detailed statements of the divers, including an Australian, Costello, who was injured when one of three bombs exploded in the wreck and caused an unexpected explosion of the Hampshire’s ammunition, hurling the divers into the mud. Salvage operations were unsuccessfully commenced in 1931 and re-started 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 the first to enter the Hampshire commander’s quarters. As the steel door was opened the body of a man rose from a chair, drawn by the suction, floated and passed Whitefield and vanished into the framework of the sunken ship. Using oxy-aeetylene cutting apparatus the crew raised £lO,OOO worth of gold bars and personal papers relating to Lord Kitchener’s Russian mission.

The British Admiralty is not aware of the reported salvaging.

On June 5, 1916, oft the Orkneys, in extremely rough weather, the Hampshire, which was conveying Lord Kitchener on a mission to Russia, ran into a minefield and sank. There were only 12 survivors out of her complement of GOO officers and men. among those lost being Kitchener and his staff. Kitchener was last seen on deck, calm and courageous, as the vessel went down. His work was done; he had made his country one of the greatest military powers. His body was never found, though that of his aide-de-camp, Colonel O. Fitzgerald, was washed ashore on the coast of the Orkneys.