TOYS IN SUNKEN MOLTRE.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 August 1927, Page 2

TOYS IN SUNKEN MOLTRE.

STROAfNESS, Orkney Islands, June S. A 'British air pump built by German engineers into the German engine room, and toys that German st’o-1; ers left half-made when they scuttled their battle cruiser Afoltke in S-capa How with the rest of their surrendered fleet, were among the things I saw to-day when I surveyed the engine rooms of the sunken Afoltke, in 70 feet of water, eight miles out from here.

The air pump had been made by Tn'd Weir’s company at Glasgow. Its installation here is surely a compliment to British engineering, for the Von Moltke, sister ship to the Goehen, famous for her Dardanelles exploits, was (built for speed. In the 80 feet of space from one bunker wall to another and for 160 feet- sternwards men work freely, smoking, talking, and using acetylene cutters. But they cannot whistle. He would have lungs as strong as an nilcompressor who could whistle in < impressed air. In these engine rooms hang upside-down the eight vast turbines which developed 70.000 horse power and drove the Yon Moltke in her pride at 27 knots. Now one sees them merely as great masses of steel covered with thick, muddy rust. A toy spring gun that a German mechanic had apparently Ik-cii making for some child in his homeland was shown to me and I was told of fancydaggers made of -fbeet brass and of a half-made kettledrum found earlier. A cat-o’-nine-tails, with leather thongs 14in long was found in the stokehold. Packed in a hamper in a German newspaper with the print still legible after eight years’ immersion, a complete dinner service was found and now serves the salvors.