The Silver of the SS Gairsoppa

Discovery News:

It was a stormy Second World War night when, on February 17, 1941, three lifeboats abandoned the SS Gairsoppa, a 412 foot-long British cargo ship en route from India to Liverpool, England.

In service of the Ministry of War Transport, the Gairsoppa was laden with tea, iron and tons of silver. Because of bad weather and insufficient coal, she was forced to break away from the military convoy off the coast of Ireland.

As the captain re-routed in emergency for Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, the merchant steamship and its crew of 86 men were hit by a torpedo from a Nazi U-boat. She sank in icy seas within 20 minutes.

Left at the mercy of the winds and waves, two lifeboats soon disappeared. A third boat managed to sail for 13 days, with only one person, second officer Richard Ayres, surviving the long journey to shore.

Odyssey Marine Exploration has found the wreck lying 3 miles down at the bottom of the Atlantic, using a robot sub, and they plan to bring up the silver next spring.

I have been trying to learn whose silver this was and why it was all on this one ship. So far all I have found out is that 4 million ounces belonged to the British government and 3 million was private property insured by the British government; they eventually paid out £ 325,000 to the private owners for their loss. Putting so much bullion on one ship at a time of such heavy losses to U-boats seems like folly to me.