Briny Bonanza

Divers salvage Soviet gold

On April 30, 1942, H.M.S. Edinburgh, a 10,000-ton British cruiser outward bound from the Soviet port of Murmansk, was attacked by a Nazi U-boat and destroyers in the icy Barents Sea. The ensuing naval engagement was brutish and long: after being torpedoed by a U-boat, the Edinburgh mauled one destroyer but was again torpedoed and finally, while drifting helplessly, was sunk by another British ship. Down with the cruiser went the 55 members of her 850-man crew who had died in the fighting--and entombed with them went five tons of gold ingots, contained in 93 wooden cases, that were a payment by the Soviets to the U.S. for military supplies. Covered by 800 ft. of frigid water, the doughty Edinburgh was quickly gone but not soon forgotten; the site of her foundering eventually was named an official British war grave.

Edinburgh's cargo was not forgotten either. After 1957, Britain lifted the ban on salvage operations that had been in effect because of the ship's war grave status. Several costly searches for the cruiser were made by British, Norwegian and Russian companies to no avail, since both British and German records had mistaken the wreck's actual location. But last week a team of civilian divers was laboriously bringing to the surface 23-lb. gold bars taken from the cruiser's ammunition room. It quickly became one of the most lucrative deep-sea salvage missions ever undertaken. By week's end, more than $50 million worth of bullion had been recovered. At current prices, the full trove of the Edinburgh will be worth about $85 million. Said Britain's Keith Jessop, 48, who organized the expedition: "That's one in the eye for all those people who've been calling me a blind fool."

A veteran diver, Jessop runs a salvage firm that has worked in the cold and turbulent North Sea. It took two years for Jessop to find the real position of the Edinburgh. The ensuing $4 million expedition used a vessel equipped with special computers to maintain its position over the wreckage. Divers, working in pairs, were conditioned to the extreme pressures of the Barents Sea bottom in special chambers aboard the ship, then were lowered to the hulk in a diving bell. To protect themselves from the killing cold of the water as they cut through the Edinburgh 's hull, the divers wore suits that circulated hot water around their bodies.

Both the British and Soviet governments cooperated with the treasure hunters. Under a tripartite agreement, Jessop and his fellow investors will get 45% of the value of the salvaged gold. The Soviets will receive two-thirds of the rest and the British the remaining third. As for the U.S. Treasury, it was paid long ago by insurance.

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