SALVAGE OF SHIPPING.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 March 1919, Page 6

SALVAGE OF SHIPPING.

A total of 500 ships, worth with their cargoes £40,000,000, were salved during the war by the Admiralty Salvage Department, under Commodore Young, R.N.E., of the Liverpool Salvage Association. A fleet of 14, salvage vessels, with 150 divers and 2000 officers and crew, has boon at work in various waters. Of llic ships: salved a large proportion have been -merchant vessels, some of which have been torpedoed twice and three times afterwards, and have again been refloated and repaired. Great quantities, of butter, flour, and grain, have been recovered in usable condition. From other cargo vessels copper steel, lead, ammunition, guns, rubber, and a'hundred other commodities have been salved at various other times, in nearly all cases by refloating the ships. Many torpedoed ships have still to be Sealt with, and a list is being compiled of those considered to be commercially profitable to rise. Most of the sunken ships are the property of, the Crown, which has paid a total loss to the

owners under the war risks scheme. The Linnet and Ranger, which, at the beginning of the w£vr, blocked the entrance to Portland Harbour by capsizing H.M.S. Hoofl there, looked after H.M.S. Lion when she- was hit, floated H.M.S. Britannia from a- perilous position by means of compressed air, and brought in the first Gorman submarine, UCS, after she had gun ashore. When the hospital ship Asturias was torpedoed off Bolt Head the Ranger was at work agsin. After drifting on the rocks the Asturias was raised, by means of submersible and other pumps, compressor air, and other 'appliances. One of the last works of the Salvage Department will be the raising of the ships with which, the harbours of Ostend and Zccbruggc were blocked.