Gold stars

First World War dive team who saved £1.3bn in bullion from a sunken wreck

WHEN a ship carrying 44 tonnes of gold from Liverpool to North America was sunk by German mines in the First World War, there was only one thing to be done.

The haul, worth £1.3billion today, was needed to fund Britain’s war effort – so a daring mission was set up to retrieve it from the wreck of HMS Laurentic off Ireland.

The operation to lift more than 3,000 heavy gold bars from 130ft under the waves had to be done without alerting the Germans.

Undeterred, a team of naval divers led by Lieutenant Commander Guybon Damant began the secretive effort to retrieve the haul

HMS Laurentic

in cumbersome diving gear weighing over 14st. In more than 5,000 dives over seven years Lt Cdr Damant and his men recovered 3,186 of the ship’s 3,211 ingots. Remarkably there were no deaths or serious injuries in the team. Lt Cdr Damant retired to the Isle of Wight and continued to consult on diving.

He died aged 82 in 1963. The story of his extraordinary mission is revealed in new book Sunken Gold by Joseph A Williams, out this month. The US historian, 44, said: “Damant’s exploits are not known to the general public, something I hope this book will address.”