Laurentic (ship, 1909)
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The Laurentic (I) was a passenger ship put into service in 1909 by the British shipping company White Star Line , with whose commissioning the White Star Line opened up passenger and mail traffic between England and Canada . The Laurentic ran the route Liverpool - Quebec - Montreal in regular service and was the largest steamer on this sea route at the time. After the outbreak of the First World War , the ocean liner was withdrawn from regular services and converted into a troop transport for the Canadian Expeditionary Force and later an auxiliary cruiser . On January 25, 1917, the Laurentic ran into German mines off the coast of Northern Ireland and sank. 354 people were killed. Because of the large number of gold bars that were part of her cargo on her last voyage, the Laurentic is also known as the “gold bar ship”. It is one of the largest amounts of gold that has ever been recovered from a sunken ship.
Service time as a passenger ship
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In 1907 the British shipping company Dominion Line , which was part of JP Morgans International Mercantile Marine Company , commissioned the Northern Irish shipyard Harland & Wolff to build two new sister ships , the Albany and the Alberta . Even during the construction of two ships of the White Star Line, were also taken to Albany in Megantic (after Lac Mégantic in Quebec ) and Alberta in Laurentic (after Lawrence St. ) rechristened.
The 14,892 GRT Laurentic was 167.76 meters long and 20.63 meters wide and was launched on September 9, 1908. On April 29, 1909, she sailed across the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage . The three-screw steamer was designed for a speed of 16 knots. The Laurentic was equipped with the latest technical innovations from an ocean liner, including electric lights , cooling systems, wireless radio and an early submarine detection apparatus.
The two modern and luxurious sister ships were used by the White Star Line for passenger service between Liverpool and Canada in order to establish themselves on this route. The Laurentic was the largest ship on this route at the time (she was 14 GRT larger than her sister ship). After the first regular trips, it turned out that the Laurentic was faster and more economical than the Megantic , as its traditional piston engines had proven to be inferior to the more advanced combination of steam engine and steam turbine from John Brown & Company from Glasgow on the Laurentic . This comparison of the propulsion systems of the two otherwise identical ships served as the basis for the decision on the propulsion of the Olympic class .
The first class on the Laurentic was equipped with a spacious dining room, a writing room and a smoking room with a glass roof. In 1911, she broke the record for the fastest crossing on the Liverpool – Canada route when she made a round trip in 13 days and four hours. In the summer of 1910, Laurentic made headlines around the world as part of the “Crippen Affair”. The American doctor Hawley Crippen , who lived in London , had murdered his wife and fled to Canada with his lover on the steamer Montrose to start a new life. Walter Dew, a former employee of the Metropolitan Police Service , followed Crippen and wanted to intercept him in time to be able to arrest him on board the Montrose . He took the Laurentic and was able to arrest Crippen, the so-called "basement murderer of London" and his lover.
Troop transport
When the First World War broke out in 1914 , the Laurentic was anchored in Montreal. She was immediately drafted into military service by the British Admiralty and converted into a troop transport for the Canadian Expeditionary Force on September 13, 1914 . Her passenger quarters were completely rebuilt to make room for around 1,800 soldiers, whom she should now regularly transport. On September 26, she cast off for her first crossing as a troop ship.
On October 3, 1914, she became part of Convoy 32 in the Canadian port city of Gaspé , which transported around 35,000 Canadian soldiers. With four other ships of the "Blue Squadron" the Laurentic docked on October 14, 1914 in Plymouth . After completing these duties, she was converted into an auxiliary cruiser in 1915 .
Sinking
On Tuesday, January 23, 1917, the Laurentic left Liverpool under the command of Captain Reginald A. Norton for a crossing to Halifax to bring cargo to Canada and the United States. She had 475 crew members on board. The cargo included 35 tons of gold worth five million pounds sterling , which corresponds to a current monetary value of 250 million British pounds (as of 2007). The gold bars were sent to the United States government and were used to pay for war materials that had been supplied by the United States.
That same morning, the Laurentic made a stopover at the Royal Navy base in Lough Swilly , Northern Ireland , to allow four sailors to go ashore who had become ill. After she left there, Captain Norton had the ship darkened and the watertight bulkheads closed.
Before dawn broke, the steamer ran into a minefield laid by the German submarine U 80 off the Fanad peninsula and was hit by two mines in quick succession. The second explosion destroyed the engine room and killed almost all of the machine personnel. The lights went out, the ship lost speed and the pumps were useless because no one could operate them. Within a short time the Laurentic capsized and sank in about 38 meters deep water. 15 lifeboats were launched in the short time and in complete darkness, but 354 of the 475 crew members were killed. Most were killed in the explosions, others later died in the water from hypothermia or exhaustion. The lifeboats were not recovered until the following day.
The "gold bar ship"
Since the Laurentic lies in relatively shallow waters (position 55 ° 8 ′ 21.3 ″ N , 7 ° 30 ′ 0.8 ″ W ), the British government decided to salvage the lost gold. Lieutenant Commander Guybon CC Damant, an experienced Royal Navy diver who had also worked on decompression chambers and tables, was assigned the task. By 1924 about 5000 dives had been made to the wreck of the ocean liner. Because of these many missions, 3186 of the 3211 gold bars could be recovered. In 1932 a private recovery team discovered five more bars. 20 bars worth around 3.1 million pounds have remained undiscovered to this day.
For several decades the Laurentic , which is privately owned, has been a popular destination for amateur and professional divers and also for treasure hunters. The salvaged gold cargo of the Laurentic is considered to be one of the largest amounts of gold that has ever been salvaged from a shipwreck. Hence the ship's nickname Gold Bullion Ship (German: Goldbarrenschiff).
literature
- Jack Scoltock, Ray Cossum: We Own Laurentic. Impact Publishers, Coleraine et al. 2000, ISBN 0-948154-52-7 .
- Nigel Pickford: Lost Treasure Ships of the Twentieth Century. Pavilion Books, London 1999, ISBN 1-86205-079-1 .