water and he started to shout. We’ve got it Tom we’ve got it! We’ve got a fortune. I said, yeah, we’ve got a hell of a lot. We got a pile of work. That’s what we got”.

One of the early discoveries by the salvage team were two anchors. The larger anchor was the first one discovered, the smaller one came later. As Tommy advised, “We would love to raise

them”.

“I’ll have to tell you the truth, we never got them floated. I went up to Douglas Cole, who was delivering oil at that time, and I asked him if we could get a bunch of oil drums. He said Yes! You can have any amount. We took eight. The diver, Frank Lewis, had a big air tank, I said it’d be no problem, I had all kinds of equipment, cable, and rope to no end. We made a cradle for each of the drums and you sink them and you take your tank down to the bottom and after you get them (the drums) tied on (to the anchor) you put out the water, then you got all air, and each drum will lift (about) 500 lbs. He dismantled it (the big anchor) on the bottom. He took the stock out of the shank with a big sledge and there was a big key in there, and he walloped it out. The stock was a big long piece of steel eighteen feet long, about six inches in diameter all steel. So all we had was the shank; it was all steel; about six inches wide and about ten inches

deep and about 22 feet in length”.

“Mind you it was heavy, so he was rigging onto that, and this is where he was putting the drums, four drums; when he got the last one on, he came up. Now he said, there’s three on (full of air) Tommy, and I think if I put on another one, I think she’ll come. Well I warned him, “Whatever you do Frank, when you get that last one well fastened and you start to put out the water, the big part (the shank) is gonna let go just like that, and for God’s sake don’t have your face over that steel.” So he went, and he got all the water out of the last one, when she let go. She came up and caught him here, and took the mask off him. But thank God it didn’t hurt him. Hardy mask. He came up white as a sheet of paper of course. And he said oh my God I’m lucky! I could’ve had my head taken off, but of course he didn’t. He got a clout on the chin and that’s all. We had them up, we had that shank up and oh boy was I excited. No trouble now, we can tow it right to town. But it didn’t work that way. We had no experience. I put a huge rope under my boat to the front end of the oil drum, I started to haul and every one of them (drums) went this way. Upside down and filled with water. She went right to the bottom, Everything, drums the whole thing. I was only lucky one way; I had tied a big piece of rope to my boat and that big piece (the shank). I said to Frank this 01’ boat isn’t very powerful, but I

think we’ll tow the whole damn thing to Stanley Bridge.

So he went down out off all the drums and we loaded them all into my boat and we started the tow to Stanley Bridge. What would it weigh? It would weigh about 1800 I suppose. I don’t know really. Soon we decided this would be a long haul. I said to Frank Lewis, we’ll not get home till tomorrow. We’ll come out tomorrow morning. So the cross piece, the stock we call it, wasn’t as heavy as the rest. Frank said I’ll go down and fasten it for you. Do you think we can make it with that. Yes I said. By Gosh I had a big (trap) hauler then. By George, I got one end up to it and I got Frank to put some heavy rope on the other end and I backed up, and of course when I backed up a little I let some go. The other end came up from the bottom and we got it tied solid to the side of the boat. It took us 11 hours to come from Cavendish Beach. So we went down the next day, and it took us about 12 hours for the big part. We had to go three trips and I’m sure that I dug a channel up New London Bay. I parted my boat about 1A of an

inch at the stern. Pulling the plank, there was too much pressure.”

“I had it all at Stanley Bridge. And I said to Frank Lewis, my God if it were what you said to

me, we had our fortune, we got to have it right now. So I got Sud Montgomery, a friend of mine, to came down with his big back hoe and he landed the whole thing up on Stanley wharf.

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