An American businessman has finally been given a licence to begin a research and salvage operation on a famous wreck. He talks to Rosita Boland
This week, F Gregg Bemis, an American businessman based in New Mexico, was finally given something he first started looking for in 1968 - a licence to carry out a research and salvage expedition on the Lusitania.
RMS Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915 off the Old Head of Kinsale by a German submarine, and 1,198 people died. The ship sank in less than 20 minutes. Ever since the ship went down, rumours have persisted as to whether or not she was carrying wartime munitions, and on the nature of certain elements of her cargo. The most enduring of these rumour-cum- urban-myths is whether Hugh Lane, who was among those who died, was carrying art treasures with him. The alleged paintings, one by Monet and two by Rubens, were supposedly protected by lead containers.
Whether or not there are art treasures lying at the bottom of the Atlantic off the Cork coast has, in a way, become less relevant as the decades have passed. It could be argued that everything about the Lusitania's wreck and its site is potentially interesting, whether from the viewpoint of social history or from that of the entrepreneur.
It is also, of course, where many unrecovered bodies have lain for almost a century. The Lusitania has become a famous wreck, and the astonishing public appetite in recent years for all things Titanic suggests that Bemis's research and salvage expedition will be closely watched.
Speaking by phone this week from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bemis expressed his relief at finally being granted the licence to dive on the ship by the Minister for Arts and Heritage, John O'Donoghue. He had twice previously been refused a licence, in 2001 and 2003. This week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Minister's refusal in 2001 to grant Bemis a licence was based on a misinterpretation of relevant sections of the national monuments legislation.
Bemis, who attended Harvard Business School, first became interested in the Lusitania in the late 1960s when he was involved in a venture capital operation which included the ownership of the Lusitania among its assets. The wreck had been bought in 1967 by John F Light of Massachusetts, a former US
navy diver. When the company collapsed, the assets transferred to Bemis and his then business partner. Bemis subsequently bought out his partner's share in the wreck for $1.
BEMIS HAS SEVERAL business interests, and is clearly wealthy, although when pressed on this will only admit, "I am not starving". He twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Republican candidate, and is himself a diver. In the 1950s, he spent two years on active duty with the US Marines, and despite his age - he is 78 - he continues to dive for pleasure.
He has twice dived the Lusitania, once in 1993 and again in 2005.
"The wreck is 780ft long, so you don't see too much of it at any one time," he explains. "What happens with wrecks is that they are very stable initially, but then when they start deteriorating, they do so faster and faster. That's why the work I'm trying to do is so important, because of the time factor."
There was a salvage operation in 1982, in which Bemis had no involvement. (The underwater heritage order to protect the site was only made in 1995 under the National Monuments Act). That operation recovered many items, which reportedly included the ships's bell and horn, as well as three propellers and silverware. In 1990, the American magazine, Sports Illustrated, reported that one of the propellers had been melted down and made into 3,500 sets of golf clubs, which supposedly sold for $9,000 each. Was this true?
"I don't know anything about that," Bemis says. "But yes, I have heard that story."
He laughs at the oft-repeated speculation that there are treasures and gold bullion still secreted within the wreck.
"Doesn't every sunken wreck allegedly have a cargo of gold bullion?" he observes drily. "And who would put bullion on a ship in wartime?"
He now plans to raise the $3-4 million (€2.25-3 million) he needs to fund the expedition.
"It will probably be 2008 before we can go down," he says. "A lot of the equipment we will need is already in use by oil rigs, and we will have to book it and then wait in line for it to become free." The expedition will most likely take place in the summer, normally a relatively storm-free season.
WHEN ASKED IF he has knowledge of people diving the wreck illegally over the years, he says it is possible that there have been such dives, but that he has no way of knowing. "Otherwise I would have stopped them. But diving the Lusitania is a big operation. You don't just put on your bathing suit and go off for a swim."
One expedition which took place with his knowledge and approval was last summer, when a licensed diving team led by Patrick Glavin of Cork Sub-Aqua Club went down. The team discovered cases in the bow section of the ship, which contained some 15,000 rounds of .303 bullets. It didn't clear up the long-standing mystery about the second blast on the ship, some 20 minutes after it was torpedoed: the Lusitania's manifest listed 2.4 million rounds of ammunition, and the bullets would have formed part of this cargo.
So what will his expedition be looking for when he goes down?
"Well, the bottom of the ocean in the south-west of Ireland is covered with coal, because there were so many ships wrecked there. Coal is not very romantic. We'll be looking for things like the ship's control room, the first-class suites, the purser's office. And things like rivets and nuts: the idea will be to test the metal to see what the quality is like."
The idea is that some of the salvaged items will go on display in an Irish museum, and that some will be included in a travelling exhibition that will tour the US. Has any Irish museum approached him yet, with a view to exhibiting any possible salvaged items?
"No, not yet."
Tragic ship: life and afterlife
June 6th 1906:Lusitania launched.
September 7th 1907:The ship embarks on maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York. At the time, she is the biggest ship in the world, with a tonnage of 32,550.
August 4th 1914:Britain declares war on Germany.
August 1914:Lusitania considered for requisition as an auxiliary cruiser. Due to her size and fuel consumption, she remains on the Liverpool-New York route.
November 1914:As a wartime economy measure, Lusitania's transatlantic crossings are reduced to one a month.
February 4th 1915:Germany declares all waters around Britain and Ireland "a war zone". All enemy shipping found there after February 18th will be sunk. The US flag is flown on the Lusitania in the hope of protection against German submarines.
April 22nd 1915:Germany issues warning to its embassy in the United States, telling Americans not to sail on British ships.
May 6th 1915:Lusitania sails into the war zone.
May 7th 1915:U-20 torpedoes and sinks Lusitania off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. Lusitania founders in 18 minutes. Survivors are taken to Kinsale and Cobh.
May 10th 1915:Mass funeral held for Lusitania victims near Cobh.
1935:A Glasgow-based consortium locates the wreck of the Lusitania with early echo-sounding equipment. Jim Jarratt, in a heavy diving suit, becomes the first man to dive to the wreck.
1960s:US diver John Light makes 42 dives to the Lusitania.
July-August 1993:Robert Ballard, who dived the Titanic, mounts an expedition to the Lusitania. His team discovers that the magazine is undamaged and rules out ammunition as a source of the second explosion. Ballard hypothesises that the second blast was caused by a coal dust explosion.