ITALY: Artiglio

2 minute read
TIME

The little Italian steamer Artiglio, 148 ft. long, of 284 tons burden, at anchor last week near Belle He, 25 miles off the southern coast of Brittany, had an importance out of all proportion to its size as the most modern, most completely equipped salvage ship in the world. Last September the little Artiglio bobbed on front pages of the U. S. press when her grappling hooks struck the submerged wreck of the P. & O. liner Egypt, a steamer that sank off Finistere in 1922 with a loss of 92 lives, with $5,000,000 in gold and silver bullion in her strong room (TIME, Sept. 8). For eight years salvage crews had searched for the Egypt. Because of the unusual depth at which she lay—426 ft.—none could reach her. The Artiglio did so. At the greatest depth at which divers have ever worked, one of the Artiglio’s divers in a special steel pipe suit hauled up the captain’s safe.

Winter weather caused the Artiglio to suspend operations on the Egypt until next summer. The salvage ship went south to Belle He, was working last week in an attempt to destroy the week of the Florence H., a Wartime U. S. freighter named for the wife of U. S. Shipping Board Chairman Edward Nash Hurley. The Florence H. sank in 1918 with a cargo of 5,000 tons of guncotton and steel, remained till last week a menace to French coastal navigation. So spectacular have been the Artiglio’s successes that a French warship hovered unobtrusively in the offing, taking notes. Overboard went the Artiglio’s two chief divers, Alberto Gianni and S. Francesci. After them were lowered special mines which were intended to blow up the hulk of the Florence H. Suddenly the sea rose like a bubble, burst with a deafening roar into towers of spray. The little Artiglio was tossed in the air like a child’s toy, broke in two, sank instantly. Only seven of her crew of 21 were picked up alive. Rescuers found the lifeless bodies of Divers Gianni and

Francesci floating head down in air-filled diving suits on the surface, their bronze head chambers smashed flat.

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