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

by John Beasant

August 28, 1944, off the coast of Oman in the Arabian 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 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 16, 1995

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not your usual Salvage story. The Liberty ship John Barry was sunk in 150 miles off Oman in September 1944 by U 859 in deep water. The U 859 was on a journey from France with a cargo from Germany to Japan including Mercury and various munitions. The U 859 was itself sunk off Penang by HMS Trenchant. The actual salvage operation is only a small part of the book and the majority is dry detective work on finding out what the John Barry cargo actually was, this is obscured in so many documents , eventually 1.4 million Silver Riyals were recovered, a fantastic achievement. The actual cargo was alleged to also include Silver Bullion as well as coins, but none was recovered. The intrigue between the USA, Saudi Arabia and Stalins Russia is not resolved and I doubt every will be. It may be obscured by a secret arrangement between Roosevelt and Stalin to split the world after WW2. Interesting if a bit dry reading.

[Dennis P Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

5.

[Stephen Boiko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing confirmed silver was for Stalin. Informative about reverse lend lease. Speculation about more silver on SS John Berry. Also some great historical tid bits of information.

[Kristy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about the salvaging of the silver that was on the the American liberty ship, the SS John Barry, that MY GRANDFATER (Clarence G. Robbins) was on in WWII when it was torpedoed by a German submarine Uboat. (My grandfather and all but two of the crew survived by floating in the Arabian Sea for 14 hours until their rescue.) The ship sunk 8500 feet in the ocean with a top secret cargo of $3 million worth of silver coins bound for Saudi Arabia and possibly another $26 million worth of silver bullion which was (later) believed to be bound for delivery to the Soviet Union. The politics of the intended delivery and the disappearance of most documentation regarding the contents of the ship even after declassification heightened the interest and intrigue in this potential fortune. It took 45 years for the salvage rights to be granted and modern technology (originally used to reach the Titanic) to be developed to reach the depths to recover in 1994 $1.3 million silver coins weighing 17 tons from the wreckage of the John Barry. The bullion was not found, but all of the ship's cargo holds could not be reached at the time. This is still believed to be the largest sunken treasure in the oceans today!
The book is dryly written and would probably not appeal to the general public unless they are WWII history buffs. It also goes in to the story of the German Uboat and explains its own sinking soon after it torpedoed the John Barry.

[Joe White · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for : WWII German sub operations in Indian ocean and on their use as cargo delivery boats to Japan. Also the disposition of the subs at war's end by port selection and termination of duties.

4 stars for : US lend lease details, financially summarized where Roosevelt sought to end British Empire and to set a new order of competition favoring the US after the war.

2 stars: Repetitious details and names with each sequence. reading all the people's names for each step of the salvage project became tiring. The final profit/loss of the salvage wasn't analyzed. Details of how the grab arm of the salvage ship worked were not given. Obviously whether to continue a later stage of salvage wasn't known at the time of publication, but it appears that the book ends with a mystery as to what was in the hold of the John Barry, and whether it can ever be financially recovered.

[Tom Buske · Rating 3 out of 5]

An account of the attempt to salvage the wreckage of a WWII ship, the USS John Barry, which may or may not have contained a large amount of silver bullion destined for Russia to aid in their war effort. The style is British and technical and not at all prosey, so it may be only for devoted fans of naval history.

[Velvetink]

50cents.! today.