From the September 22, 2011 Spec.com.
Someone is going to get rich off this.
The SS Gairsoppa had sailed from Calcutta, India with a cargo of tea and 12 million ounces of silver ingots. It was nearing its Liverpool destination when it encountered a storm and was running short of fuel so its captain decided to make for Galway, Ireland, which proved to be a mistake.
On Feb. 16, 1941, Ernst Mengersen, Captain of U-boat 101, torpedoed the starboard side of the British merchant ship, 412-feet long and constructed in 1919.
The ship's wreck was found 300 miles off the coast of Ireland at 13,400 feet by Odyssey Marine Exploration and is going to be the largest-ever haul by a marine salvage operation. The ship is intact and sitting upright with hatches wide open and that 240 tons of silver.
At the time, those 12 million ounces were worth 600,000 British pounds. Today, about 225 times more than that.
The Odyssey is to get 80% of the money. In 2003, the company found the SS Republic, a Civil War-era ship that sank carrying over 50,000 gold and silver coins. They've also recovered 500,000 silver and gold coins from a Colonial-era shipwreck code-named the Black Swan.
Finding Those Sunken Treasures. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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