From Times Online, May 29, 2010
Keith Jessop: salvage diver
On May 2, 1942, after three days of attacks by German submarines, destroyers
and aircraft in the Barents Sea, the mortally wounded cruiser HMS Edinburgh
was given her coup de grâce by a torpedo fired from one of her escorting
destroyers, and slid from sight beneath the waves. About 840 of her crew of
nearly 900 who had not been killed in the attacks on her had been safely
transferred to other British warships of the convoy escort.
The sailors had been saved, but a cargo of bullion, 4½ long tons (4,572kg)
of gold bars, carried in the cruiser’s bomb room, went to the bottom with
her. The 465 gold ingots were part of Stalin’s payment to Britain for the
supplies and military aid that the Allies were shipping to the Soviet Union
along the perilous Murmansk convoy route. In the years following the end of
the war they were to become the focus of an intensive effort to recover them
by successive British governments.
Finally, in the early 1980s, after several abortive efforts to retrieve the
gold, the self-made diver Keith Jessop achieved the remarkable feat that had
eluded a number of long-established, well-financed salvage companies. It was
the culmination of a government effort that had been a stop-start affair
since 1954 when a contract had been awarded to the UK-based company Risdon
Beazley, but work had been aborted by strained relations between the British
and Soviet governments. The designation of the Edinburgh site as a war grave
in 1957 only complicated matters, putting a further stop to intrusive
exploration of the wreck.
But in the late 1970s, with a Labour Government increasingly anxious to
recover the gold to swell the Exchequer’s coffers, efforts were renewed, and
a number of companies made bids for the contract. In 1981 Jessop Marine,
which under its founder had developed complex cutting machinery and the
saturation diving techniques that enabled divers to avoid the deadly effects
of the “bends”, permitting them to work at depth for long periods, won the
argument about sensitivity to a war grave site against other companies which
favoured explosives-led methods of entering the wreck.
In April 1981 Jessop’s survey ship Dammtor had located the cruiser’s final
resting place at a depth of 800ft (245m) in a position approximately 72.35N,
35.00E. Its detailed filming of the wreck enabled Jessop to plan his
operation with military precision. By August 30 that year the dive-support
vessel Stephaniturm was at the wreck site and salvage operations began in
earnest. In spite of injury to several of the Jessop marine divers, on
September 15 one of them penetrated the armoured room and recovered the
first bar of gold. Over the next three weeks, until bad weather forced the
suspension of diving on October 7, 431 of the 465 ingots were been
recovered, worth an estimated ÂŁ45 million.
It was a triumph for Jessop, an entirely self-made man who had been born
into poverty and had no background in either diving or marine salvage. He
had been born at Keighley, West Yorkshire, in 1933, the son of a textile
mill worker. Leaving school without any qualifications, he followed his
father into the mill, married a local girl, had three children and looked to
be set for the life of drudgery that that been the lot of his own parents.
Lent some scuba diving equipment by a friend for recreation at weekends, he
began to see the possibilities of making a modest living and began to
salvage scrap metal, brass and copper fittings from wrecks in shallow water
off the west coast of Scotland. As time went by he acquired an ex-Fleetwood
trawler and began to systematise his operation, working on larger wrecks and
retrieving more saleable items.
Having survived the risks he took in his early years, he took professional
training in deep sea diving. In 1969 he salvaged a cargo of copper from the
3,000-ton Finnish motor vessel Johanna Thorden, which had run aground near
the island of Swona in the Pentland Firth while on passage home from New
York in 1937. As a result he began to make a reputation as a diver who would
attempt salvage operations in places others preferred to avoid.
By the time the question of trying to find the Edinburgh and salvage her
precious cargo was reopened in the 1970s he was in unique position to gain
the contract, as a result of the techniques both in diving and in salvaging
that he had developed, although as a small salvage operator with no
financial backing he had to take out a second mortage on his home. Although
the British and Soviet governments were the principal beneficiaries of the
salvage, Jessop Marine earned about ÂŁ2 million. But for Jessop there was a
somewhat sour aftermath to the triumph of 1981. Other, much larger
companies, could not believe that this “underwater scrap merchant” could
have “stolen”, as they saw it, the contract from under their noses. In
February 1983 Jessop found himself charged with conspiracy to defraud two
rival firms for the contract, having allegedly bribed an official of the
Salvage Association. After a two-week trial both Jessop and the accused
official were cleared of all charges at the Old Bailey in April 1984.
Nevertheless the whole affair damaged the reputation of Jessop Marine and
its ability to function during the period between charges being laid and his
acquittal. Jessop was convinced that he had been the victim of a conspiracy,
and left Britain to work abroad. He carried out a number of adventurous
explorations on the old Spanish Main, including searches for the lost
treasure of Henry Morgan and the wreck of Columbus’s flagship Santa Maria.
Latterly he had lived in France.
In 2001 he published a memoir detailing his exploits entitled Goldfinder.
He married, in 1955, Mildred Woodhouse. The marriage was dissolved, and he
is survived by two sons, a daughter and his partner Deborah.
Keith Jessop, salvage diver, was born on May 10, 1933. He died on May 22,
2010, aged 77.
Keith Jessop: salvage diver
On May 2, 1942, after three days of attacks by German submarines, destroyers
and aircraft in the Barents Sea, the mortally wounded cruiser HMS Edinburgh
was given her coup de grâce by a torpedo fired from one of her escorting
destroyers, and slid from sight beneath the waves. About 840 of her crew of
nearly 900 who had not been killed in the attacks on her had been safely
transferred to other British warships of the convoy escort.
The sailors had been saved, but a cargo of bullion, 4½ long tons (4,572kg)
of gold bars, carried in the cruiser’s bomb room, went to the bottom with
her. The 465 gold ingots were part of Stalin’s payment to Britain for the
supplies and military aid that the Allies were shipping to the Soviet Union
along the perilous Murmansk convoy route. In the years following the end of
the war they were to become the focus of an intensive effort to recover them
by successive British governments.
Finally, in the early 1980s, after several abortive efforts to retrieve the
gold, the self-made diver Keith Jessop achieved the remarkable feat that had
eluded a number of long-established, well-financed salvage companies. It was
the culmination of a government effort that had been a stop-start affair
since 1954 when a contract had been awarded to the UK-based company Risdon
Beazley, but work had been aborted by strained relations between the British
and Soviet governments. The designation of the Edinburgh site as a war grave
in 1957 only complicated matters, putting a further stop to intrusive
exploration of the wreck.
But in the late 1970s, with a Labour Government increasingly anxious to
recover the gold to swell the Exchequer’s coffers, efforts were renewed, and
a number of companies made bids for the contract. In 1981 Jessop Marine,
which under its founder had developed complex cutting machinery and the
saturation diving techniques that enabled divers to avoid the deadly effects
of the “bends”, permitting them to work at depth for long periods, won the
argument about sensitivity to a war grave site against other companies which
favoured explosives-led methods of entering the wreck.
In April 1981 Jessop’s survey ship Dammtor had located the cruiser’s final
resting place at a depth of 800ft (245m) in a position approximately 72.35N,
35.00E. Its detailed filming of the wreck enabled Jessop to plan his
operation with military precision. By August 30 that year the dive-support
vessel Stephaniturm was at the wreck site and salvage operations began in
earnest. In spite of injury to several of the Jessop marine divers, on
September 15 one of them penetrated the armoured room and recovered the
first bar of gold. Over the next three weeks, until bad weather forced the
suspension of diving on October 7, 431 of the 465 ingots were been
recovered, worth an estimated ÂŁ45 million.
It was a triumph for Jessop, an entirely self-made man who had been born
into poverty and had no background in either diving or marine salvage. He
had been born at Keighley, West Yorkshire, in 1933, the son of a textile
mill worker. Leaving school without any qualifications, he followed his
father into the mill, married a local girl, had three children and looked to
be set for the life of drudgery that that been the lot of his own parents.
Lent some scuba diving equipment by a friend for recreation at weekends, he
began to see the possibilities of making a modest living and began to
salvage scrap metal, brass and copper fittings from wrecks in shallow water
off the west coast of Scotland. As time went by he acquired an ex-Fleetwood
trawler and began to systematise his operation, working on larger wrecks and
retrieving more saleable items.
Having survived the risks he took in his early years, he took professional
training in deep sea diving. In 1969 he salvaged a cargo of copper from the
3,000-ton Finnish motor vessel Johanna Thorden, which had run aground near
the island of Swona in the Pentland Firth while on passage home from New
York in 1937. As a result he began to make a reputation as a diver who would
attempt salvage operations in places others preferred to avoid.
By the time the question of trying to find the Edinburgh and salvage her
precious cargo was reopened in the 1970s he was in unique position to gain
the contract, as a result of the techniques both in diving and in salvaging
that he had developed, although as a small salvage operator with no
financial backing he had to take out a second mortage on his home. Although
the British and Soviet governments were the principal beneficiaries of the
salvage, Jessop Marine earned about ÂŁ2 million. But for Jessop there was a
somewhat sour aftermath to the triumph of 1981. Other, much larger
companies, could not believe that this “underwater scrap merchant” could
have “stolen”, as they saw it, the contract from under their noses. In
February 1983 Jessop found himself charged with conspiracy to defraud two
rival firms for the contract, having allegedly bribed an official of the
Salvage Association. After a two-week trial both Jessop and the accused
official were cleared of all charges at the Old Bailey in April 1984.
Nevertheless the whole affair damaged the reputation of Jessop Marine and
its ability to function during the period between charges being laid and his
acquittal. Jessop was convinced that he had been the victim of a conspiracy,
and left Britain to work abroad. He carried out a number of adventurous
explorations on the old Spanish Main, including searches for the lost
treasure of Henry Morgan and the wreck of Columbus’s flagship Santa Maria.
Latterly he had lived in France.
In 2001 he published a memoir detailing his exploits entitled Goldfinder.
He married, in 1955, Mildred Woodhouse. The marriage was dissolved, and he
is survived by two sons, a daughter and his partner Deborah.
Keith Jessop, salvage diver, was born on May 10, 1933. He died on May 22,
2010, aged 77.
