Secret Salvage

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 299, 19 December 1933, Page 7

Secret Salvage

KITCHENER’S DEATH SHIP GOLD BARS RECOVERED (By Telegraph.—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, Dec. 17. A German vessel is secretly salvaging the Kitchener death ship, the Hampshire, is the .startling assertion of the Berliner Illustraertc Zeitung, which publishes a carefully documented account of the operations and detailed statements of the divers, including thc Australian (Mr. Costello) who was injured when one of three bombs exploded in the wreck causing an unexpected explosion of the Hampshire’s ammunition, hurling the divers into thc mud. Salvage operations were unsuccessfully commenced in 1931 and restarted in April, 1933. Thc salvage ship approached with the greatest secrecy, the captain making a round-about route from Kiel to avert suspicion. Mr. Costello found the wreck within three hours of descending. Herr Whitefield, a German deep-sea expert, was the first to enter thc Hampshire commander’s room. As thc steel door opened the body of a man rose from a chair drawn by suction, and floated past Herr Whitefield and vanished into the framework of the sunken ship. Using oxyacetlyene cutting apparatus. the crow 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.