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27th November 2019, 02:04 PM
#1
Admiralty salvage in peace and war, 1906-2006
Got this book on Amazon for Kindle for 4 quid. Just started reading it but already found some very interesting facts. The admiralty only set up its dedicated salvage unit in 1906 but obviously salvage of naval and merchant ships went on long before the start of the dedicated unit. For instance,
The first practical diving suit was invented by a German engineer who emigrated to london. His name was Siebe and in 1830 he revised his new diving suit. Wonder if siebe Goorman b.a. sets in use today are anyway related.
His suits were first used in the attempted salvage of the Royal George.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Siebe
During this attempted salvage the wreck of the Mary Rose was actually discovered but it's position was lost until discovered again in the 20th century.
During WW1 the crew of a naval vessels ransacked the bond and personal possessions of the merchant vessel the salvage of which they were assisting in.
Although it is the history of admiralty salvage it mainly consists of the salvage of merchant vessels under admiralty charter,
Rgds
J.A.
Last edited by John Arton; 27th November 2019 at 02:06 PM.
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29th November 2019, 01:59 PM
#2
Re: Admiralty salvage in peace and war, 1906-2006
Finished reading this book, very interesting. Lots on the legal side including changes to merchant shipping acts,along with many heroic acts of seamanship when salvaging torpedoed vessels in both world wars, including one in ww2 my father was engaged in, the s.s. coulmore.
Another very interesting fact was that the concrete caissons making up the mulberry harbours, nearly never made it across the channel on time, they had been brought around to Select bay and sunk in place there whilst the preparations and planning the date for the D day landings were made. Once the date had been decided upon, then a start was made on pumping them out to refloat them. Immediately problems arise as the inlet/outlets where clogged so a huge effort was made to build standpipes to bypass the original outlets and to bring in extra pumps. It was touch and go as to whether all caissons would be ready for towing across in time but the one day weather delay to D day enabled salvage workers to have them ready for towing across and put in place on D day+1.
Rgds
J.A.
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