British Government Reveals Details of $50M Deep Sea Recovery

The British government has made details public concerning the recovery of a huge fortune in silver that it recovered from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean two years ago. And we do mean the depths — in fact, England had just about given up hope of ever recovering the 100 tons of silver coins, said to be worth $50 million dollars, that were on board the SS City of Cairo when the ship was sunk by the Germans in November of 1942.

After the German U-boat hit the City of Cairo with one torpedo, 296 members of the 302 passengers and crew were able to escape to the lifeboats. The U-boat then fired a second torpedo at the ship, and the German U-boat captain, Karl-Friedrich Merten, reportedly approached the lifeboats to say “Goodnight, sorry for sinking you.” That is the title of a now out-of-print book about the incident. Some 104 of those who made it to the lifeboats perished before rescuers arrived.

According to the UK Telegraph, the UK Ministry of Transport contracted with an underwater company called Deep Ocean Search to locate and recover the coins. The vessel was located at a record depth of 17,000 feet in 2011 and the retrieval of the cargo took place in 2013.

See photos of the coins and the SS City of Cairo the Telegraph