[BITList] SS Gairsoppa and the sunken silver treasure about to besalvaged | Mail Online

[Michael Feltham]

Hugh,

At present I am reading "The Real Cruel Sea" by Richard Woodman, a paperback published by John Murray, on page 249, it says that Ayres reported machine gun fire from the U-boat 101 but doesn't actually say where the fire was directed at.

The book comments on the fact that despite tremendous loss of life from MN personnel due to sinkings by the U-boats, the RN initially put aside this fact as it was only the MN !  They did come round eventually as they realised that the supply of men to man the ships was not  infinite.  The Americans when they came into the war were the same.  They wouldn't adopt the convoy system and wouldn't impose a blackout on the E. coast of the States.

It's an excellent book, I hope to buy another of the author's books when I return home, "Arctic Convoys"

Mike
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 2 Oct 2011, at 17:48, "HUGH" <chakdara at btinternet.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> 
> This was Clan Line, Cunard, Elder Dempster, Pacific Steam, BI, Brocklebank,
> Jebsens, Donaldson ????  Only in a letter Tom Kelso wrote to the Herald the
> other day is the shipping company (BI) identified - none of the other 
> accounts
> say, being too busy slavering over the silver and amazing us with the
> technicalities. I take it a ship with that amount of treasure aboard is not
> a war grave.
> 
> A point. One comment I read claimed 2O Richard Ayres had never mentioned
> machine gunning in his reports, and that this had been added on later by
> someone else.  Such incidents were pursued - a U Boat Captain and some of
> his crew were hanged after WW2 for it.
> 
> Hugh.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe from this email List, send an email to:
> BITList-unsubscribe at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com
> 
> BITList mailing list
> BITList at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com
> http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/mailman/listinfo/bitlist
>