Stalin's Silver: The Sinking of the U.S.S. John Barry - Softcover

Beasant, John

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23 ratings by Goodreads

9780312267810: Stalin's Silver: The Sinking of the U.S.S. John Barry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312267819 ISBN 13: 9780312267810

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2000

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August 28, 1944, off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea: three torpedoes fired by German submariners aboard U-859 ram an American merchant ship, the USS John Barry. The 7200-ton surface vessel caries Saudi silver riyals worth $80 million, and another $300 million in silver bullion. When the torpedoes strike, they tear the John Barry into two pieces, delivering the ship and her treasure to a watery grave 8500 feet below sea level.

For forty-five years the wreck lay inaccessible on the ocean floor. But in 1989, Skeikh Ahmed Farid al Aulaqi acquired salvage rights and enlisted the help of the French International Maritime Institute and Jean Roux. Roux had led an expedition recovering artifacts from the Titanic; now he and his team would develop the technology and the technique to permit an operation of deep-sea recovery never before deemed possible.

In Stalin's Silver, John Beasant recreates the USS John Barry's fateful voyage and death-defying salvage. With help from the mission's survivors, Deasant resolves a fifty-year-old mystery: Where was the merchant ship taking its precious cargo? Stalin's Silver is an exceptional account of politics and intrigue during the Second World War. It is also the story of the world's most valuable and mysterious sunken treasure, and the men who recovered it.

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Review:

On August 28, 1944, the German submarine U859 sank the U.S. merchant vessel John Barry off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Although the Germans did not know it, the John Barry carried a rich cargo not only of war material but also of silver bullion, whose present value, journalist John Beasant estimates, is about $300 million. The silver was, according to the ship's manifest, bound for British India. It had, however, a destination beyond that. The silver bullion was meant for the Soviet Union as part of Franklin Roosevelt's lend-lease program, through which some $1.5 billion worth of American supplies were delivered to Josef Stalin's government. Roosevelt, Beasant writes, was not shy about publicizing the delivery of steel and weaponry to his Communist ally, but he reckoned the delivery of precious metals and gems to be politically sensitive, and the John Barry's mission was thus shrouded in secrecy. Beasant's recounting of this complicated story involves many strands of narrative; among these are the tangled history of the lend-lease program, the role of the merchant marine in World War II, the dangerous work of U-boat crews, and the techniques of deep-sea salvage. Beasant unravels the mystery not only of the secret transfer of funds from Washington to Moscow, but also of the search for the John Barry's treasure, much of it recovered in the early 1990s. --Gregory McNamee

From the Publisher:

"One of the most enduring and compelling mysteries of the Second World War." --Mail on Sunday (London)

"With the help of survivors, John Beasant has produced a detailed study of the politics behind the most valuable salvage operation ever." --History Today (London)

"It sounds like the plot of a thriller: an Arab prince and a French marine archaeologist mount a high-tech salvage of $380 million in silver. . . the facts behind this $30,000-a-day salvage operation make fascinating reading." --Focus (London)

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