Britain: Briny Bonanza

Divers salvage Soviet gold

On April 30, 1942, H.M.S. Edinburgh, a 10,000-ton British cruiser outward bound from the Soviet port of Murmansk, was attacked by a Nazi U-boat and destroyers in the icy Barents Sea. The ensuing naval engagement was brutish and long: after being torpedoed by a U-boat, the Edinburgh mauled one destroyer but was again torpedoed and finally, while drifting helplessly, was sunk by another British ship. Down with the cruiser went the 55 members of her 850-man crew who had died in the fighting—and entombed with them went five tons of gold ingots, contained in 93 wooden...