"A ceremony has taken place in Orkney to commemorate what is regarded as one of the most remarkable feats of marine salvage ever achieved. Ernest Cox masterminded the recovery of 34 ships of the German fleet sunk by their crews in the waters of Scapa Flow at the end of WWI." BBC News - Scapa Flow WWI salvage efforts remembered
Thanks for posting! 34 ships is quite a bit of scrap metal. Hopefully it paid off. There are still a few German wrecks there, correct? Were they not salvaged because they were not in the way? Or were they too damaged?
I think they were left because they were too expensive to salvage. I seem to remember reading somewhere that a lot of metal was later recovered after World War Two, since the dawn of the atomic age meant the ships were the only remaining source of uncontaminated metal. I believe the usual way to remove obstructions is to use explosives to reduce them to a safe depth, but maybe some of our naval experts will know better.
IIRC, the remaining Hochseeflotte ships are: Battleships Kronprinz Wilhelm, König, Markgraf, Cruisers Karlsruhe, Köln, Dresden, Brummer, Bremse Destroyer/Torpedo Recovery vessel F2 Torpedo Boat V 83 Also dive-able are the 15-inch turrets of the Bayern. They fell out of the ship during her raising.
Spooky. I just finished Castles of Steel yesterday. I do think the "only remaining source of uncontaminated metal" may be overstating the case, however. Do you know what they base that on?
OP- I think it was something to do with the fact the sunken wrecks had been protected from radioactive fallout by the sea, so all the postwar nuclear testing hadn't affected them. Would need to check though.
ScapaMap Project However, the high quality armour plate of the scuttled vessels has proven extremely valuable and attractive (especially due to the fact that it was made prior to Hiroshima and is thus radiation-free) and salvage perations during the 20th century have resulted in all but seven of the wrecks being recovered for scrap.
My issue with the "radiation-free" metal is that the amounts had to be minuscule at best in "post-Hiroshima" metal. I mean your watch dial used to have more radiation than you'd get from fallout.
It's a fact OpanaPointer. While nothing is "radiation-free," pre-1945 metal has lower radiation levels than post-1945 metal. This also applies to lead too, however lead must be at least 100 years old before it is considered "radioactively inert." You got more radiation from you watch because certain parts were coated in radium to allow you to see them in the dark. The pre-1945 metals and lead are used in areas where the lowest levels of background radiation are necessary, i.e. the afore mentioned geiger counters, in hospitals, and in construction of satellites. It is not just the Scapa flow wrecks that have been salvaged for this purpose, but old roman wrecks too.
Cheers Ray/Takao. While not an expert on the matter by any stretch of the imagination, it seems to make sense. OP- The stretch of the Firth of Forth off Inverkeithing/Dalgety Bay is still considered radioactive because of the paint on instrument dials of wartime aircraft dumped there after 1945. They say it's "relatively harmless", but...
I may or may not have stood guard on bunkers that may or may have existed and may or may not have had "special weapons" in them if they did exist. I may mor may not have gotten a "black badge" dosimeter which may or may not have put an end to my duty at that location that may or may not have existed at all.
I think that for calibration instruments and similar purposes you need to get as close to zero radiation as possible, AFAIK the levels involved are much lower than the "harmful" ones.
