Download 1st 45 pages (364kb pdf file)Book
The Man who bought a Navy
Download 1st 45 pages (364kb pdf file)
[Main menu] [Books & videos page] [Order form]
Pieced together after much research and told for the first time in this autobiography is the astounding story of what is regarded as the greatest achievement in the history of marine salvage - the raising of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow.
When the Germans sank their surrendered navy at Scapa Flow after the First World War, top salvage experts were agreed that the work of recovering the ships was near-impossibility.
Engineer Ernest Cox was the one man who defied their prediction. In 1924 he decided to buy the scuttled fleet from the Admiralty, gambling his entire personal fortune on the colossal task of raising the German ships. Cox was a natural-born engineering genius, and though he had never before salvaged even a rowing-boat, the fanatical energy and tireless concentration with which he worked during the next eight years achieved staggering results.
His methods were unorthodox. He lifted ships that were lying upside down, turned them the right way up, and pumped them dry. When this was impossible, he had patches clamped over every opening in the capsized hulls and pumped compressed air into them until they rose to the surface.
Inevitably there were disasters. Oil-vapour explosions occured in which men were working over 60 feet below the surface; chains and heavy gear broke; re-floated ships sank suddenly when coroded bulkheads collapsed. Yet Cox not only weathered these hazards but also succeeded in raising six vessels in fourteen days, a record, and recovered the battleship Hindenberg, the biggest ship ever raised in history.
The Man who bought a Navy is 249 pages and has over 100 photographs.
Copies cost £19.95 + postage
