Stalin's Silver: The Sinking of the USS John Barry
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. First U.S. Edition. First Printing. 216, color illus., map, appendices, index. More
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. First U.S. Edition. First Printing. 216, color illus., map, appendices, index. More
New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1999. First U.S. Edition [Stated]. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. [8], 216 pages. Map Illustrations (mostly in color). Includes Acknowledgments, Preface. Also contains Appendix I: The Significance of U859's Secret Cargo, as well as Appendix 2: The Key Documents, and an Index. The author was a well-connected journalist who spent a large portion of his life as a British expatriate. He was a member of Britain's Voluntary Service Overseas. He was later Press Secretary to the Prime Minister of Fiji and them Press and Private Secretary to the Prime Minister of Vanuatu. He later served as Press Secretary to the President of the Maldives before journeying into Arabia. On August 28, 1944, off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea, three torpedoes fired by German submariners aboard U-859 rammed an American merchant ship, the USS John Barry, which was caring Saudi silver riyals worth $80 million, and another $300 million in silver bullion. For 45 years the wreck lay inaccessible on the ocean floor, but in 1989, Sheikh Ahmed Farid al Aulaqi acquired salvage rights, and enlisted the help of the French International Maritime Institute and Jean Roux. Roux had led an expedition recovering artifacts from the Titanic, and now he and his team would develop the technology and the technique to permit an operation of deep-sea recovery never before deemed possible. More