A cache of 100 tons of silver, said to be worth approximately $50 million in present-day currency, has been recovered from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, . Deep Ocean Search, an underwater surveying company, says the 17,000-foot depth at which the cargo was retrieved is a new world record for an operation of its kind, .
Though the coins were brought to the surface in September 2013, Deep Ocean Search has waited until this week to announce its success, on orders from the British government. The company鈥檚 project brings to a conclusion, of sorts, a journey that began in 1942, when the SS City of Cairo sought to travel from India to England with 296 civilians and cargo considered valuable to the war effort. On November 6 of that year, a German U-boat聽spotted and torpedoed聽the ship twice, prompting calls to abandon ship.
Ultimately, 104 people perished before reaching land or being picked up by lifeboats bound for South Africa or Brazil, according to Deep Ocean Search鈥檚 website. In his book about the attack, author Ralph Barker quotes U-boat captain Karl-Freidrich Merten鈥檚 parting words for the passengers of the City of Cairo, most of whom made it to lifeboats before the ship sank: 鈥淕oodnight.聽Sorry for sinking you.鈥澛
During a 2011 search, divers working for Deep Ocean Search encountered a small, unreflective object near the coordinates of the ship that had been left by German submarine records and the ship鈥檚 own crew. It turned out to be the remains of the City of Cairo, though covered in parts by several feet of silt and mud. Besides the silver, Deep Ocean Search says it also retrieved the end section of the second torpedo to strike the ship, whose contra-rotating propellers were still visible.
Deep Ocean Search has taken a small percentage of the value of the coins, which the British treasury聽melted and sold for an undisclosed sum.