Description
August 28, 1944, the Arabian Sea: German submariners fire three torpedos into an American merchant ship, the S.S. John Barry. The 7200-ton surface vessel caries Saudi silver riyals worth $80 million, and another $300 million in silver bullion. The exploding torpedos cut the John Barry into two pieces, delivering ship and treasure to the bottom, 8,500 feet below. For 45 years the wreck lay inaccessible on the ocean floor. Then, in 1989, a wealthy sheikh enlisted the French International Maritime Institute and Jean Roux to help him retrieve its treasure. Roux had led an expedition recovering artifacts from the Titanic; now he and his team would develop the technology and the technique to permit an operation of deep-sea recovery never before deemed possible. In Stalin's Silver, John Beasant recreates the S.S. John Barry's voyage and its death-defying salvage to discover where the ship had been taking $380 million in silver.
