British salvage boat recovers treasure from wreck of SS City of Cairo

[garryson]

[h=2]British salvage boat breaks world undersea salvage record by recovering bulk of 100-ton treasure from wreck of British wartime steamboat SS City of Cairo at depth of 17,000 feet – some 4,500 feet deeper than the Titanic[/h]


Read more: British salvage boat recovers treasure from wreck of SS City of Cairo - Telegraph

 

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[ARC]

Friggin crazy recovery depth.
Tis cool.

 

[deepsecrets]

Amazing recovery - they kept that one close hold for a long time. There was speculation that the torpedo had impacted the hold where the silver was stowed and the coins had been scattered as the ship sank - cool they were able to recover so much!

 

[gordonquixote]

I heard they found it by dragging a CTX on a rope behind the salvage boat...

 

[UnderMiner]

More interesting than the treasure on board I think are the stories of how the survivors of the SS City of Cairo made it back to civilization. The only thing the 300 people in the lifeboats had was a few compasses, a watch, and a single sextant for navigation. St. Helena was the closest land - but it was a tiny target and if they overshot it they would be lost. Karl-Friedrich Merten of U-68 personally believed they had no chance of survival although he wished them luck in their attempts to reach land.

After a week or two the lifeboats had drifted apart from each other. After 2 weeks over 150 survivors in several lifeboats were rescued by the British cargo ship SS Clan Alpine but many more survivors were still uncounted for. One lifeboat had feared they had overshot St. Helena so they decided to turn around and head West toward South America - which was 1,500 miles away. Believe it or not but two of the survivors in this boat actually made it there. Unfortunately one of these survivors decided to board a ship that was headed back to England and it was subsequently sunk en route by another German U-boat attack - killing him. The other survivor who made it to South America cleverly decided to stay there until the war was over. As for the other City of Cairo survivors still at sea they were in for an even crazier adventure.

After more than 5 weeks at sea one of the City of Cairo's lifeboats was rescued by the German blockade runner Rhakotis. But the Rhakotis was subsequently torpedoed and sunk by HMS Scylla. The City of Cairo survivors managed to survive this sinking along with many of their German rescuers in one of the Rhakotis life boats. One of the Rhakotis lifeboats with a City of Cairo survivor aboard was subsequently rescued by U-410 after one day adrift. U-410 was then attacked by British bomber planes, but U-410 survived the assault and the German submarine made it back to Europe where the survivors of the Rhakotis and City of Cairo were finally dropped off. The other City of Cairo survivor aboard a Rhakotis life boat managed to row with his German rescuers all the way to Spain, where they too were all finally rescued.

In the end 207 of the original 311 City of Cairo occupants survived.