In the 1950’s, merous shipwrecks with their precious cargoes from the two World Wars were still lying untouched in all parts of the world.
From South Africa to Canada and Europe to New Zealand thousands of tons of tin, copper, brass, zinc, lead ingots and other ferrous and non-ferrous metals, as well as precious ones such as gold or silver were to be salvaged from torpedoed, mined, bombed or simply lost vessels, by one of he most prosperous salvage company of all times: The Italian Genovese company SORIMA (Societa Ricuperi Marittimi)
Of course, underwater archaeology was not the aim, but commercial recovery of valuable metal cargoes by any means. For that purpose, the company developed special salvage tools such as crane and grab capable of lifting heavy loads at a time.
Ships were also designed especially for the work; and the Italians were very successful for many years in their effort. They could work more than 100 meters deep. That was an extraordinary exploit at the time. For example, SORIMA had a special contract with the French authorities.
As a matter of fact, most of the War wrecks cargoes were insured by Governments, and a typical agreement with the French administration would be 85 to 90% for the entrepreneur, according to the depth, risks and difficulties working in the open sea.
SORIMA had its first salvage contract in 1930, but soon another company from Southampton, England, RISDON-BEAZLEY, entered the competition and became, as well, very successful until the 1970’s.
In 1952, the Rostro, one of the SORIMA’s salvage vessel recovered 900 tons of copper and 200 tons of chrome ore in the French territorial waters, from a ship torpedoed in 1917, but a dispute arose with the English company as the cargo belonged to the British Government… In French waters !
The convention of 14th of June, 1952, between SORIMA and the French authorities listed 60 wrecks containing ferrous and non-ferrous metal cargoes belonging to the French Government and lost during WWI, representing 20.000 tons of non-ferrous metals (copper, brass and lead) and 60.000 tons of steel...
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