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.
