Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #297640 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Synopsis
The importance of marine salvage during armed conflict has been vastly underestimated since becoming a vital Naval arm during the First World War. Between 1915 and 1918, the Admiralty Salvage Section saved nearly 400 merchant vessels, desperately needed to bring food and war materials into Britain. During the Second World War, some two million tons of shipping was successfully recovered. From D-Day onwards Admiralty salvage men cleared many stricken craft from the Normandy beaches alone, often under heavy shellfire. Then, as the Germans retreated back across Europe, salvage teams undertook vital port clearance duties. During the Suez Crisis, Falklands Conflict and even the Gulf War, the same story can be told. And their peacetime operations have also been important. Drawing on a wealth of official documents, "Admiralty Salvage" is the first book to explore in depth the courage, personal sacrifice and invaluable contribution these forgotten heroes have made during both peace and war.

Customer Reviews

The complete story of Admiralty Salvage over it's first 80 years.
As a shipwreck historian, I encounter many tales of lost vessels and attempts to recover all or part after they have either run aground or been sunk. Not least amongst these stories are tales of war and the recovery of ships (and aircraft) with which the Admiralty has an interest.

In this book, author Tony Booth gives the most complete account of salvage as directed by the Admiralty since it's very inception in 1906 right up to the present day. It is a fine work and one which will be of great interest to any person engaged in diving shipwrecks and the history of British official naval salvage.

To cite just two examples; The full story of HMS Montagu (a 14,000 ton state-of-the-art Duncan class battleship which ran aground on Lundy Island in 1906) reveals how this ship was needlessly lost despite the best efforts of the man placed in charge of her recovery. Elsewhere, a complete account of the loss of RMS Laurentic and her cargo of gold is relived in vivid fashion. Like so many other stories in this excellent work, they are both quite incredible.

Although I would have preferred to find more than the thirty black and white photographs which are found together in the middle of the book, it did not spoil my enjoyment of this, altogether first class account of a specific area of salvage - through times of peace and war which included two world wars and two Gulf Wars to name but four.

NM

An excellent introduction to a cinderella subject
During the 1820s, John and Charles Deane developed a helmet to enable firemen to enter a smoke-filled building. Surprisingly, perhaps, their invention was spurned, but a decade later it was taken up by an Admiralty desperate to deal with the hazardous wreck of HMS Royal George which had capsized back in 1782 . This was the true beginning of the future Admiralty Salvage Service - and, indeed of commercial diving - though it would take the loss of HMS Montague in 1906 before the Admiralty decided to create a dedicated department to handle the salvage of warships. WW1, however, soon found it also salvaging damaged merchant vessels.
Booth deals very competently with the bureaucratic wrangling within the Admiralty and with the commercial salvage companies that bedevilled the organisation over the decades, as well as with the technical developments introduced by a succession of imaginative and practical salvage officers when faced with new challenges. He passionately champions the remarkable achievements of the Service, calculating that in WW1, it salvaged 90 Royal Navy vessels and 730 merchant ships ( 15% of the total attacked). Without that, he concludes, Britain might not have won the 1st Battle of the Atlantic. In WW2, the figures were no less striking, and in addition he records the work done to clear ports of scuttled ships, and how salvage personnel, some of them civilians, fought gallantly on the D-Day beaches.
Operations narrated in detail make riveting reading. The salvage of the Coulmore in 1943 rivals that celebrated post-war epic of the Flying Enterprise; and the recovery from the Mediterranean of wreckage from the BOAC Comet which crashed in January 1954 led to the discovery of the cause of the accident and a critical change to the design of aircraft windows. Perhaps the most fascinating story is that of John Pollard and the Phoenix Units in 1944. These units were part of the Mulberry Harbours, and one had broken its tow and run aground in April. While examining the Unit, Deputy Salvage Director Pollard discovered major construction problems that threatened the whole of the D-Day operation, and so began a race against time to make the required modifications.
The book comes right up to date with the moving of 3 decommissioned Russian nuclear-powered submarines, and is illustrated with 16 varied B/W photographs.

The extensive list of primary sources emphasises just how much original research has gone into this excellent book.It does not tell the whole story, but it provides an excellent and eminently readable introduction from which anyone needing to explore aspects of the subject in greater detail can branch out.

Admiralty Salvage in Peace and War
The early chapters really amount to a history of the Liverpool (later Liverpool and Glasgow) Salvage Association and it's part in the WW1 war effort - which is justified. Chapter Ten - More War, More Salvage, outlines the setting up of the WW2 Admiralty Salvage Department. After WW1 the Department had been disbanded and the equipment had been sold.

The author summarizes Metal Industries involvement correctly,though does not emphasise the crucial part that the McKenzies played in heading up the operational side of the Department during the war. He then says that the lump sum that the Admiralty paid Metal Industries (the McKenzie family company) was 'a great deal less than Risdon Beazley had negotiated for roughly the same service'. In fact Risdon Beazley became the principal Admiralty Salvage contractor in WW2, so the service that Risdon Beazley C.B.E. provided was of far great magnitude than the other managers.

In 1940 RB managed thirty requisitioned ships, as many as all of the other managers combined. The Admiralty's continuing satisfaction with the man and his firm was shown by the fact that RB took on the management of another thirty new builds as they war progressed and the vessels that it managed saw service as far afield as the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. The firm controlled all but a few wreck removal vessels at Normandy - including six in the U.S. sector; with the salvage officers and salvage operations being controlled by Commodore McKenzie R.N.V.R. Sadly none of this is covered in the book, which means that it is rather incomplete and not balanced.

Roy Martin

Co-author and publisher Risdon Beazley, Marine Salvor ISBN 978-0-9557441-0-5