KITCHENER’S DEATH SHIP

Evening Star, Issue 21749, 18 June 1934, Page 11

KITCHENER’S DEATH SHIP

SALVAGING ASSERTIONS A CURIOUS COMPLICATION Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, June 17. , (Received June 18, at 11 a.m.) The ‘ Sunday Chronicle ’ tells of a dramatic development in salvaging the Hampshire, it says that Charles Courtney visited the Admiralty and submitted to the officials what he described as absolute proofs that he descended to Lord Kitchener’s death ship. “We were after £2,000,000 worth of gold m tho Hampshire’s strong room,” said Courtney. Tho Admiralty, however, says .that there was no gold on the Hampshire “ so far as wo are aware, and the difficulties of salvage would be insurmountable. The ship lies in 360 ft of water, with a racing tide?” Courtney says the authorities are powerless to prevent him salvaging.' Ho laughs at the Admiralty’s scepticism in respect to the practicability of salyage operations.

A cable message received on December 18 stated;—

That a German vessel is secretly salvaging Lord Kitchener’s death ship, the Hampshire, is the startling assertion of the ‘ Berliner lllustrite Zeitung,’ which publishes a carefully documented account of the operations and detailed statements of the divers, including an Australian named Costello, who was injured when one of the 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 were restarted in April, 1933. The salvage ship approached the Hampshire with the greatest secrecy, the captain taking a roundabout 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 room. As the steel door opened thq body of a man rose from a chair. It was drawn by suction and floated past Whitefield and vanished into the framework of the sunken ship. Using an oxy-acetyleno cutting apparatus, the crew raised £IO,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, H.M.S. Hampshire, which was conveying Lord Kitchener on a mission to Russia, struck a mine and was wrecked. Lord Kitchener was drowned.