British shipwreck holds £2.6 billion treasure, explorers claim -- Ten tons of gold bullion, 70 tons of platinum

FROM:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/archeology/4330310/British-shipwreck-holds-2.6-billion-treasure.html

British shipwreck holds £2.6 billion treasure, explorers claim

Salvagers claim to have found the world's richest
wreck - a British ship sunk by a Nazi submarine
while laden with a £2.6 billion cargo that
included gold, platinum and diamonds.

By Jasper Copping
Last Updated: 9:16AM GMT 25 Jan 2009

In a project shrouded in secrecy, work is due to start
on recovering the cargo, which was being transported
to the United States to help pay for the Allied
effort in the Second World War.

(STORY IMAGE PHOTO)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01246/blue-baron_1246120f.jpg
A picture believed to be the Blue
Baron shows it is a tramp steamer.

The scale of the treasure trove is likely to unleash
a series of competing claims from interested parties.
Salvage laws are notoriously complex and experts
say there could be many years of legal wrangling ahead.

In order to protect its find until the cargo is
brought to the surface, the company that located
the wreck has not released the name of the vessel
or its exact location, but has given the ship the
code name "Blue Baron".

It says the merchant ship, which had a predominantly
British crew, had left a European port, laden with
goods for the US Treasury under the Lend-Lease
scheme, whereby the American government gave material
support to the Allied war effort in exchange for
payments.

The Blue Baron first sailed to a port in South
America, where it unloaded some general cargo,
before continuing north in a convoy, heading for
New York.

However, the company claim it was intercepted by
German U-boat U87 and sent to the bottom by two
torpedoes in June 1942, with the loss of three
crew members. Their nationalities are not known.

Sub Sea Research, a US-based marine research and
recovery firm, claims it has now located the wreck
under 800ft of water about 40 miles off Guyana.

Greg Brooks, the company's founder and co-manager,
said: "This British freighter had an extremely
valuable cargo and we decided there wasn't a lot
of point in leaving it at the bottom of the sea.
This will definitely be the richest wreck ever."

Until now, historians have not credited U87 with
sinking any vessels in that area in June 1942 and
it was thought to have been operating further
north in the Atlantic.

However, Sub Sea Research claims to have located
the submarine's log book which prove it did sink
the "Blue Baron", as well as documents from the
port of origin, the US Treasury and the Lend-Lease
programme giving clues as to what was on board.

A picture of the Blue Baron supplied to The Sunday
Telegraph by the company shows it is a tramp
steamer and her funnel appears to resemble those
of the shipping line Hogarth and Co, of Glasgow,
whose ships were known as Hungry Hogarths.

Tantalisingly, the names of its ships all began
with the word Baron - indicating that the Blue
Baron could be one of them. However, none of the
fleet's 17 ships lost in the war appear to have
been sunk in this area in June 1942.

The picture also resembles Port Nicholson, a
steamer sunk by U87 in June 1942 but 2,000 miles
north of Guyana off Cape Cod. Sub Sea Research
insists that the Port Nicholson is not the
Blue Baron.

It claims that the Blue Baron's cargo included
at least ten tons of gold bullion, 70 tons of
platinum, one a half tons of industrial diamonds
and 16 million carats of gem quality diamonds.

In addition, there were several thousands tons
of tin and a few thousand tons of copper ingots.
Although the tin and copper may have lost some
value after years on the sea bed, the precious
metals and diamonds would not have done so.

The haul's total worth is calculated at £2.6
billion at today's prices, according to the firm.

Captain Richard Woodman, author of The Real Cruel
Sea, a history of the merchant navy in the Second
World War, said: "A lot of merchant ships did have
to carry valuable cargoes like this.

Any heavy materials had to go by sea. It was the
only way to get from A to B. There would have been
an element of protection for them, but in the end
it is just the coincidence of war that a ship
happens to stop a torpedo."

A 220ft salvage vessel is currently being equipped
to recover the cargo. It is due to sail next week
from the US state of Louisiana to the wreck site,
which lies in international waters.

The company has refused to reveal which government
sent the valuables to the US or which was the Blue
Baron's final port of call in Europe.

It is thought much of the treasure could be Russian,
although part, including the diamonds, may have
been British.

Britain and Russia were the two main beneficiaries
of the Lend-Lease scheme, under which the US
provided $50 billion of supplies - equivalent to
$700 billion (£510 billion) in today's money.

Although explorers are permitted in law to stake
claims on items they recover from the seabed, the
original owners can make counter claims.

Sub Sea Research was forced to go public with its
discovery when it filed a claim on the treasure in
a US federal admiralty court, to which no counter
claims have been lodged so far.

Mr Brooks said: "No one has stepped forward to
make a claim yet, probably because the government
that lost it does not realise.

"We are trying to keep it as quiet as possible
until we have it in our possession. We think the
possessions on board may belong to more than
one country.

"I know for a fact that everyone possible will
try to take it from us, but we are doing everything
by the book. I think the worst case scenario,
under salvage law, is that we would get 90 per
cent of it. But we are trying to go for 100 per
cent."

Mike Williams, an expert in salvage law at
Wolverhampton University, said the Government
which had owned the cargo would retain a strong
claim on it.

He said: "Both Britain and Russia transhipped
large quantities of precious goods to the US to
pay for their war effort. It would be unlikely
the salvors would be able to keep it all.

"The real winners will be the lawyers. There is
a marine lawyers' saying that treasure is trouble."

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