On the 15th July 1917 the Federal Steam Navigation Company Ltd ship SS Cumberland was heading down the east coast of Australia bound for the United Kingdom carrying a cargo of frozen meat, wool and ore. A few miles off Gabo Island a huge explosion shuck the ship and water began flooding into the forward section. The captain made the immediate decision to run aground on Gabo Island for urgent repairs. The initial cause of the explosion was believed to have been a torpedo attack or a bomb placed aboard; however it is now generally considered that the ship had struck a mine laid by the German raider Wolfe that had been active in the area.

The SS Cumberland was a steel twin-screw steamship of 8993 gross tons and 144.4m (474 feet) in length. Built by Hamilton & Co. at Glasgow, Scotland, in 1915, the vessel was registered in London with Official No. 139102. With four masts and owned by the, she was powered by four steam turbines.

After five weeks of strenuous repair work by divers and a dedicated salvage team, the tugs James Patterson and Champion were in attendance when the steamer was towed back to Eden for further repairs. However a storm caused the temporary patches to break and the tugs had to run for safety. Two larger steamers, Merimbula and Bermagui, stood by to offer any help. The crew of the Merimbula urgently evacuated SS Cumberland’s crew when the steamer began to sink bow first -described by onlookers as “an awe-inspiring sight”. The SS Cumberland was Australia’s first casualty of war at sea.
At the time she sank she had on board copper, lead and zinc ingots valued at over £300,000. The British Salvage Company Risdon-Beazley sent one of her salvage ships, the Foremost 17, to Australia in 1951 to recover this valuable cargo (with the exception of the zinc, which would have quickly deteriorated). In an amazing operation that went on for a year and a half until March 1953, the salvage group successfully recovered 1825 tons of ingots representing 95% of the original cargo.

The Foremost 17 used a technique of deep-water salvage that had been used on the wreck of the Liners Egypt in 1922 and the Niagara in 1941. It was a technique essentially pioneered by British engineer and author of “Deep Diving and Submarine Operations”, Sir Robert Davis D.Sc., in 1912. Because of the limitations of breathing air in flexible dress at working depths beyond 60 metres, it was considered safer to lower divers to the bottom in a one-atmosphere sealed chamber with observation windows. The diver would breathe air supplied by pipes from the surface or via pressurised cylinders attached to the outside of the chamber. A suitable CO2 scrubber was included. The diver had a telephone communication to the surface and could also have strong floodlights attached to the top of the chamber.

Risdon-Beazley divers Frank Higgins and Dick Young took it in turns to descend to the Cumberland and directed the placement of explosives over the hold region. The diver was brought to the surface, explosives detonated, then the diver was lowered again to direct the positioning of a three-jawed grab, which cleared the path into the hold region containing the ingots.

The Foremost 17 then traveled to New Zealand to successfully recover another 30 gold bars from the Niagara in 1953. This followed the work of the Australian-New Zealand team aboard the Claymore in 1941, where 555 gold bars (valued at the time at £2,388,953) were recovered in what is still today considered one of the most remarkable deep water salvage operations in the world’s history. The ability of the Foremost 17 to recover another 30 bars was almost certainly due to the use of a more pointed three-jawed grab as opposed to the broad flat edge of the two-jawed grab used by the Claymore. “Johnno” Johnstone, chief diver with the Claymore salvage, assisted the Risdon-Beazley group by guiding them to the right location on the wreck twelve years later.

A large wreck that matched SS Cumberland's size and approximate position was imaged in 2000 by CSIRO who contacted Tim Smith from the NSW Heritage office with the discovery. All the records available to him pointed that this may indeed be the final resting place for the SS Cumberland.

Tim had known a member of the Sydney Project, Mark Spencer, through a previous expedition to the Australian Submarine AE2 in Turkey, and proposed Sydney project divers carry out a reconnaissance expedition to identify if this was indeed the final resting place of the SS Cumberland.

Phones ran hot that night as we exchanged ideas and excitement for having the opportunity to see this ship since it went down, a meeting was followed a week later. The only people to have seen the wreck were the salvage team recovering the cargo in 1951.

We discussed our objectives for this expedition and what needed to be done to achieve them in the time frame we were facing. A mention of media showing interest in the dive postponed the expedition to early November, but since we could not delay this any further it was not possible to arrange the media coverage in time for the expedition.

A final meeting was arranged, Dave Apperley had put together a power point presentation of the setup that we were going to use including the extra backup deco gas staged on extra shot lines. We decided to take a chase boat to assist with diver recovery and any quick support deployment. Further discussions were on buddy teams and what everyone’s roles were. We plotted the position of the wreck on the map based on the CSIRO GPS location. This meeting produced a well thought out expedition, and it was time to put these plans to practice.

The home base for the expedition was the small coastal town Eden located near the NSW - Victoria border, eight hours driving from Sydney. The closest dive shop is located north of Eden in Merimbula, approximately 45 minutes on the highway. The shop had no gas mixing facilities available, so all the gas, compressor and the rest of the equipment would be taken with us. Another important piece of equipment that needed to be organized was a stable diving platform with ample space for eight divers with all their equipment. The vessels chosen was a 12 metre Cougar Catamaran from Spirit of Eden and Dave brought along a 5m RIB chase boat.

On 25th October 2003, David Apperley arranged to travel to Eden and venture out with Greg Hodge and Mark Ryan from Melbourne to the site of the wreck and verify the GPS marks. Greg then compiled the information into a graphical representation of how the wreck lay on the bottom and it was showing that the wreck could be lying on its side. The best indication for us that this was the SS Cumberland was to see if this wreck had two propellers, this would confirm the identification.

A second meeting followed to announce the team selected for this expedition. As we had limited space on the boats and time was of the essence. The team was split into two diving groups with buddy’s shooting video and others shooting stills. All deco back up equipment was re-checked, and extra shot lines were built.

The boat was loaded on Friday 7th November 2003, and after a final briefing meeting we all retired for some much needed rest. The next morning at 600am we loaded the rest of the gear and departed the wharf. Once we arrived at the site, we sounded for the most obvious part of the wreck, and prepared the shot line to be deployed including our “Depth Accelerant” a 1m long section of railway track with fins welded to help it fall vertically. With sea conditions being calm and absolutely no current it was a real bonus for this part of the coast, where such conditions may occur just once a year.

The team consisted of five divers on mixed closed circuit rebreathers (3 Inspirations, 1 MK15, and 1MK15.5), the other three divers on open circuit. All backup gas was staged on the shot lines and as most run times were in excess of three hours we decided to increase the amount of back up gas available which was EAN 40 and 100% O2. The maximum depth found on the site was 97m.

Once the deco station was deployed and support crew (David Apperley and Peter Szyszka) gave the all OK, the first divers prepared to enter the water. The bottom divers were in two teams of three divers. The first team consisted of Simon Mitchell (MK15.5), Paul Garske (Inspiration) and Samir Alhafith (Inspiration). The second team consisted of Jason Mc Hattan (MK15), Mark Spencer (Open circuit) and Kevin Okeby (Open circuit).

Using an Inspiration CCR, I planned a 30min bottom time to maximize the video footage. I was using a Sony Camera in an Amphibico housing with twin Green Force HID Impact-100 lights. The system worked well and the lightning was really good in very dark conditions.

My gas choice is what I like to call a “generic menu” I use these gases on all my dives below 80m. They consist of Trimix 08/60 for bottom gas, 21/25 for travel gas and my backup O/C bailout EAN40 and 100% O2.

It took between four and five minutes to reach the bottom, where the water was a refreshing 11C degrees and visibility in the 10 - 15m range with very little ambient light. Our Depth Accelerant was found to be sitting vertically with the fins pointing upwards, a most amusing sight showing how well it worked. The wreck was broken up significantly from the salvage operations and covered in a healthy marine growth with blankets of fish. We agreed that Simon would run a line from the shot, and Paul would be looking for any parts of interest, allowing me to concentrate on shooting video.

Since there was no clear shape to tell us what direction the bow or the stern lay, we guessed a direction and ended swimming into the bridge. The area was every wreck divers dream, portholes, gauges, crockery and all types of brass fittings everywhere. Simon tied off the line to an open porthole, and we began to swim back to the shot line. Simon and Paul started their accent after twenty-five minutes bottom time, while I had an extra five minutes to look around. I stayed close to the shot and filmed anything that I thought would give a clue what this wreck was. I was found some bones, possibly part of the frozen meat cargo that she was carrying when she sank. Later Mark, Jason and Kevin found a copper ingot, further indicated that this is was the SS Cumberland. Mark used a housed camera system, 16mm F/E lens, high-speed film and twin Ikelite SS200 strobes and photographed what appears to be explosion damage with bent plates. A long two and a half hours followed on deco with whale songs filling the boredom, and huge jellyfish swimming around keeping everyone on their toes. I was the last person to exit the water since I had the longest deco.

It was Dave and Peter’s turn to dive, Dave using an Inspiration and Peter diving open circuit. Dave was shooting video as they followed the line Simon had laid, and continued on a little further. They also confirmed seeing a copper ingot.

Once all the day’s diving was complete, we packed the deco station and released extra slack on the shot line in case the current picked up during the night. We steamed back to town and prepared the gear for next days diving, before hitting the local pub for some great meals and to watch the Rugby World Cup games. Ironically the waitress led us to a table at the restaurant that had the picture of the SS Cumberland on the wall above it. It showed the ship sinking and of course we studied it well for features that might help us identify the wreck.

Next day departure was late due to the extra filling we had to do for the open circuit divers so we decided that we’d cut the bottom times to twenty minutes. Simon had an idea in which direction the bow might be so we decided to put this theory to the test. Once again Simon laid new line and we followed swimming non stop, until we reached the winches and then the bow that had collapsed on its port side.

Three brass letters had fallen into a pile; U, M and E! We shook hands, filmed it on video and with big smiles on our faces proceeded back to the shot line, and up to do our deco. Unfortunately Mark had a strobe implode and only one picture was developed from this dive.

Time was running out so Dave decided not to dive and we proceeded to remove the deco station as well as the shot line; all of us having achieved our goals for this expedition. Not only did we dive a deep-water wreck and carry out extended bottom times, we’d also positively identified the wreck as that of the Cumberland. There were no problems of any kinds with equipment and the entire operation went smoothly having had only four weeks to plan, prepare and carry out the dive after receiving the initial information about the wreck.

Local police gave us a visit they were excited by our achievement, and said they will be informing all the trawlers in the area to insure that no artifacts removed from this wreck by divers in the future. The New South Wales government’s Heritage office was informed of the results, and the Heritage Minister announced the news with a press release.

I would like to thank everyone involved for such a successful expedition, in particularly David Apperley, Paul Garske and Kevin Okeby for the extra efforts in organisation. Also huge thanks to Brett O’Donnell and Peter Cooke from Spirit of Eden Charters for their absolutely fantastic hospitality and seamanship. Last, but not least, Mark Spencer, Tim Smith and the rest of the team for making this happen.

The Sydney Project will continue to search and bring new wrecks to public attention, with Australian maritime history yet to be discovered. The search continues…

www.sydneyproject.com

Credits to:
Historical information: Tim Smith, Heritage Office, , John Riley for loan of book “The Cruise of the Raider Wolf” by Roy Alexander, and Keith Grodon for information on the Risdon-Beazley Salvage Group and Niagara salvage.

Photos: Mark Spencer

Still from Video: Samir Alhafith, David Apperley, Kevin Okeby