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Salvage in the 70's
I spent some time at the end of the 1971 season up there when Arthur Nundy was still working on the wrecks. It was in November of that year that I along with a David Nicol - a demolition contractor from Dysart in Fife - purchased Nundy Marine Metals. The deal included 20 odd acres of ground on Flotta the old cinema and the west pier. On Hoy at Rinnigil just to the south of Lyness, there was another 25 or so acres with several sheds and buildings and there was also the old pier where the ex boom defence vessel "Barneath" was kept. She was a coal fired steamer and had two 15 ton winches - one forward and the other at the stern. One of the two drums from the after winch was used for the stern anchor which was the most common method of anchoring and the wire from the other drum was led through snatchblocks up forward and over the port horn. There was another anchor over the apron at the bow and the second wire went over the starboard horn, so with both winches in tandem we could pull a good 30 tons. The other vessel we had was a 52.5ft Harbour Launch or Pinnace on which we had a compressor and air receiver and two 300ft airlines. This was our dive boat which we used for all the blasting and preparatory work. There was a small recompression chamber which could be run off an L.P. compressor or H.P. diving cylinders. In the early days we also had a small 100 ton coaster in which we shipped scrap down to Inverkeithing in the Forth. We got a couple of seasons out of the Barneath before it was found that the goosenecks in the boiler furnaces were thin and that there was evidence of hairline cracks, so she was the next scrap that had to be sent south, towed by a tug also down to the shipbreakers yard at Inverkeithing. The cost of boiler repairs would have been prohibitive. The following season, we were short of any major lifting capability but we concentrated on using airbags and a large fibreglass open bottomed tank with strongpoints built in which could lift 25tons. Our next heavy lift vessel, was the GWR 30, a coal fired steam, stiff leg crane, with a safe working load of 50tons at a 62ft outreach, an ideal tool for lifting armour plate which also had the great advantage of being able to load any coaster which we chartered to ship the armour to Germany or elsewhere. One drawback was that it was not self propelled so we had to hire a fishing boat or the Kirkwall owned coaster the Elwick Bay to tow us out to the wrecks. It was at the end of the 1977 season that the decision was made to stop salvaging. Scrap metal prices had fallen and of course the law of diminishing returns prevailed. The more we recovered the less there was to be recovered. Almost all the accessible heavy armour had been salvaged. A few plates were lying attached to each other on the south side of the Konig and quite a few on the low side of the KP again the south side still remain. They are of course under the vessel and well in the mud. All main condensers with the exception of the low side engine room of the Dresden have been recovered. The Dresden as you will be aware was not completed until 1917, by which time Germany was getting very short of raw materials and whereas the other ships had all the best of copper and gunmetal, the valves and pipework tended to be of steel. The condenser which was recovered was only brass tubed with steel separator plates. When we removed the stern prop shaft tubes and bearings from her they came all gleaming like brass but after only a few hours on deck they tended to go rusty. Just another indicator that the materials used were of inferior quality. Now to give a brief description of the wrecks as we left them.
DresdenThe vessel with least amount of damage is the Dresden for the reason previously stated. She lies on her port side and has been opened up into the starboard side engine room and the starboard main condenser, circulating pump, air pump to increase the exhaust steam flow through the condenser, circulating pump and several evaporators have been recovered. Both sets of turbines are still thought to be there along with the low side condenser which is situated almost against the starboard side of the vessel. Her propellers like all other propellers were removed by Metal Industries. It was interesting that in many cases we found the brass propeller boss nuts lying on the sea bed which had been blasted off prior to springing the prop off the shaft with a small explosive charge.The other items removed were the stern tubes, main shaft seals and bearings.
KolnOn the Koln, both engine rooms were opened and all condensers, pumps, valves etc. removed. The low side turbines are still there. The deck torpedo tube on the port side was recovered the starboard side tube is still there under the mud. The vessel is of course lying on her starboard side. It is interesting to note that the main sea valves which were of the large mushroom type,were both found to be open and on one of the main condensers of which there were two in each engine room inspection doors had been removed to allow a rapid ingress of water when the ships had been scuttled.
BrummerThe Brummer which was in fact a minelayer had been made of even better materials than Dresden or Koln. Her two engine rooms - unlike the other light cruisers which were side by side - appeared to be staggered fore and aft. She had both engine rooms cleared out along with stern tubes etc. All of which were high quality gunmetal.
KarlsruheThe Karlsruhe in terms of scrap metal, was the most productive of the light cruisers. Being completed in 1916 as was the Brummer she had a lot of good quality gunmetal valves and heavy duty copper steam pipes. As well as having deck torpedo tubes we kept on noticing references to the fact that she had four tubes yet there were only two deck tubes. It was not until we did a detailed survey of the hull that we found the faintest outline of what could have been the door of a port side submerged tube. But the area was filled with mud and we could not be certain. I managed to get underneath the hull on the starboard side just below the conning tower and worked my way towards the keel when about halfway through came across the same kind of aperture on the starboard side which was clearly the heavy cast bronze doors of the broadside submerged torpedo tube. These are shown in the photographs which are enclosed. These two tubes individually weighed 18 tons and as can be seen were of top quality gunmetal. They were located athwartship just below the bridge area. The bridge itself was made of 1/2 inch brass plate and weighed 4.5 tons.The sides of the light cruisers were of 2 inch armour plate and were an integral part of the ships side. The plates were about 12 by 25 ft., there is only one plate left on the port side of the Karlsruhe all the plates are of course still on the starboard side. Both the engine rooms which were side by side have been gutted. Arthur Nundy, took the high side condenser and pumps, but left the low side intact. We got the low side one together with the usual pumps, valves etc. The condenser weighed 25 tons was about 25 ft long and gorthed 24 ft. The end plates and doors were gunmetal, the separator plates brass and the tubes were tinned copper. We also recovered boiler feed pumps, manifolds, valves, evaporators and of course tons of brass turbine blades and the usual heavy copper pipes. The turbine blades were of varying lengths, the high pressure blades at the steam inlet end of the turbine being approx. 4 ins long increasing in length to the low pressure end to approx. 20 ins. The blades of airefoil cross-section were individually keyed into the steel rotor with brass keys. To get the blades off the rotor took many hours of work with hammer and cold chisel knocking out the keys. A good pastime for those days when it was too rough to dive. The Karlsruhe was the most extensively worked wreck and consequently is in quite a mess. Originally when she sank her masts were visible, it is thought that she slowly rolled over onto her side over the years. Her masts were also removed at an early stage as she was a hazard to shipping.
BattleshipsOne area where we seriously considered working was the gun turrets of the Bayern, which as you will probably know fell out unexpectedly when they were doing preparatory work to float her. Luckily it happened when all the workers had finished for the day and gone home leaving only a small crew to keep the compressors running onboard a workboat. When the turrets which had not yet been secured properly fell out, the vessel lurched to the surface and on doing so ruptured some of the airlines going to the top of the airlocks from the workboat and she slowly sank back down onto the seabed away from her original position. There are four turrets all with twin 12 inch guns each weighing 650 tons. We had intended to pass leader wires under the turret and guns and with one of the Smith 1000 ton A frame crane barges could have broken them out of the mud and put them onto the quay at Lyness or onto a flat top barge. We took all the accessible armour off the Markgraf and cleared up what was left on the other two battleships. Major recoveries included broadside torpedo tubes, 18 tons of bronze condensers and up to 25 tons each of copper tubes and centrifugal pumps. The armour plate was in 25 ton slabs up to 14 inches thick. Most of the salvage was done using explosives - hence the jagged heaps of scrap.
Salvage divingAll our diving was done using surface supply and bailout. We tried 8mm wetsuits on the belief that it would not matter if the suit got cut, but we found that they just were not warm enough so we very soon went back to Avon dry suits and learned to tread carefully and be aware that it was easy to get cuts in the suit. At the end of a season the suits were covered in Tiptop puncture repair patches. The simple rule was that each diver had his own suit and was responsible for its upkeep and repairs, so if he got wet and cold it was his own fault. They very soon got wise. As far as tables went we basically used R.N. Tables doing wet stops on a shot line. A lot of the dives we did were of a short duration i.e. without stops. When doing blasting we could be working on two different wrecks. Setting the charges did not take all that long, so we could set and fire a charge on two wrecks in the morning then go back out in the afternoon a survey dive then more charges in the afternoon. When preparing for lifts it would be a matter of getting a downline onto the item to be stropped, slide the strop down the line then either shackle it or choke it around the object ready to hook onto with the lifting vessel. I do tend to get more than a bit riled when I read some of the publications which make reference to "skin divers" being employed.
There are two myths about the wrecks which have to be dispelled.
Picture Gallery
Dougall Campbell - April 1998
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