LAURENTIC’S GOLD.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5061, 6 December 1926, Page 3

LAURENTIC’S GOLD.

DIVERS’ SEARCH IN WRECKAGE. A ’SEVEN YEARS’ STRUGGLE. Whew the Laurejitic was sunk by a German submarine in 1917 and went down off Lough Swilly with a loss o'f 300 lives, she took with her in gold bars, which was needed in the United States, to finance British purchases. The Admiralty at once ordered Commander G-. /C. C. Damant, commanding the mooring steamer Volunteer, to recover the gold. He had a<t his disposal five divers and some pumping and hoisting gear, but nothing equal to the elaborate salvage plants, that ware produced at.the end of the- war. The Laurentic was discovered in 120 ft pt water, in a sopt -fully exposed to the north and west, and not too. well sheltered from th'e south. The gold, in 3200 bars,’ neatly stajcked in wooden boxes, was stored in the second-class baggage-room. At first the task seemed to be a simple affair of five or six weeks)’ worki, says Mr Bonne Coppies tone in the September “Backwood’s,” The salvage crew had plans off the vessel. The .'ship was found to be lying on her port bilge, at an angle of 60deg. from, the vertical, the entry port on the starboard sidb leading to the second-class baggage-room could be got at, and prospects seemed to be bright. The plan was to blow in the entry port, clear a way to the baggage&oom, force the- door, and haul out fch-et cases of gold. . The first great trouble arose from the motion of the.sea in ,the depths. A short breaking, sea affects only the but the long, slow "Atlantic swell transmits • horizontal surges along the sea flood at .the. Laurentic

depth of 10ft, so that the divers, had

to clingy to the sloping •. side of the "wreck, but they were swept away. All

loose tackle lashed like whips about them with the scend of the. sea above. • Though the divers were swung about by the surge' they managed to blow in the steel doors and jamb them in the tunnel behind. A way was made through casks and cases to the strong-room, which was, "opened, and

the first box of five bars was hoisted. Then success was snatched from the workers’ grasp. After the first little box. a foot square, and six inches deep, had been hoisted a succession of gales

arose, and when the divers returned

to owrk they discovered that the violence of the o'cea,n movement h.ad away supports, decks had collapsed, and the whole ship had "shut up like a concertina.” The strongroom was found, 40<ft lowei* down than before, empty. The gold had escaped to port, been split, and become mixed up and overlaid with masses of stedl wreckage. Bar by bar it had to be recovered from aj deep chaos of •steel. At every gale the. Atlantic swell churned and broke the tangled mass df steel more and more, and redistributed the gold hidden within it and beneath it. The wreck had to be cut through from top to bottom, and the steel lifted out piece by piecet A charge placed on each side of a beam, but not opposite each other, cut the beam clean, and' it was then hoisted clear. The weight of the gold carried it ever deeper, and the 'last and mos,t

difficult stage proved to be the searching of the sand by means of strong ' hoses. The divers were forced to use their bare hands in order to feel soft, greasy sensation of the gold' bars.

Whole seasons were passed with little result. The fruit of 1920 was seven and of 1921 43 bars —50

bars, or £85,000; for two years of toil.

No lives were lost, but the divers sufx fered severely from joint pains and bubbles in the blood,, while the air pressure was gradually reduced. Com-

■ mander Damant reported that the men “behaved like angels” all the "4ime, a.result which Mr Coppiestone attributes to his intrepid leadership. He was ’always first down to reconnoitre an ugly piece of work. The gold, when recovered, was landed at Stranraer and delivered to a solitary representative of the Blank of England—"total stranger,. bowler hat, , plausible manner” —who wquld appear with lorries and take it off to the train. “Had this take been fiction,” Mr Coppestone, “he would, for once ait least, have been a superlative crook out of a. kihema film.”

(Of 3211 bars 3057 were recovered, at a cost of less than 2% per cent.

A sum Of £7OOO was distributed for reward among 70 officers and men, who professed themselves well content..