2. Discovery of Millions of Silver Coins from Ship Wreckage
One of the childhood dreams of many a kid was to one day find the wreckage of an old pirate ship and to discover a chest full of gold or some other treasury. There are even many people who dedicate their lives to searching for these types of wreckages and subsequently uncovering a new fortune for themselves. One such case involved a group of men and women from the United Kingdom who managed to find a massive hoard of silver coins that has a value of $44 million. This discovery was made in the wreckage of a steamship that the German had sunk at what was a record depth of 17,000 feet.
The ship in question was called the SS City of Cairo and it was owned by Ellerman Lines and it had been commanded by captain William Rogerson. It was a ship that combined both passengers and cargo. It was towards the latter end of 1942 that the ship left Bombay in India without an escort and headed towards England while stopping in Cape Town, South Africa as well as Recife, Brazil along the way. There were a total of 296 passengers on the ship, of which 136 of them were passengers and the rest of the crew members. The mixed cargo on the ship included over 100 tons of silver bars and coins that were the property of the United Kingdom Treasury.
It was on the 6th of November 1942 that the ship was identified by a U-69 and was attacked with torpedoes. The crew on-board cut out the engines and began plans to abandon the ship when another torpedo shortly hit the ship and it was sunk. The salvage company called DOS tasked themselves with finding the wreckage of this ship and they began their efforts in November of 2011. This investigative process was very tough as the water depth was more than 17,000 feet, in addition to the issues with challenging swells, currents and weather. It was also believed that the wreckage was located some 1,000 miles from the nearest source of land and was near the mid-Atlantic ridge.
They successfully managed to find the wreckage however in September of 2009 but they were not allowed to reveal their findings until December 2014 as they were told to keep it a secret by the Ministry of transport. They had managed to recover a large percentage of the sunken silver and the money was shared by the salvage company DOS and the United Kingdom Treasury. This is one of the discoveries that have led a lot of other people and companies trying to search for other sunken wreckages that may have a lucrative bounty that is contained within the wreckage. While this could pay off handsomely, it is also a dangerous pursuit that has cost a lot of lives over the years.