John's History of British Warships

The Following was posted to our warship forum on our Titanic chat Forums,

HMS Edinburgh was an enlarged and modified Southampton class cruiser, built by Swan Hunter on the Tyne. Keel laid down December 1936, She displaced 10635 tons , with a design speed of 32.5 knots. She was 613 feet long and had a crew of 850 men.Her armament consisted of 12, 6 inch guns in triple turrets,6 twin 4 inch mounts, 16 2pdr pompoms, 16 Vickers AA guns ,and six torpedoes,three per side. She was also equipped with the latest radar and fire controll systems.She spent some time patrolling out of Scapa Flow between Iceland and the Faroes.from there she was escorting convoys to Narvik
from March till October 1940 she was in refit in the Tyne,
During the winter of 1940 she took part in several operations with the home fleet,and escorted convoys to the Middle East.

She escorted two convoys to Russia Qp4and PQ13,and returned to Scapa Flow. on April 6 she left Skapa Flow to easort convoy PQ14 to Russiaarriving in Murmansk on April 19. she left on April 29 to escort convoy QP11. On April 30 enroute from the Kola Peninsula she was torpedoed and struck on the starboard side by U456 (Captain Max Martin Teichert)and took on a heavy list. She was hit in the stern by a second torpedo whish wrecked her steering and her two inner propellor shafts, which crippled her.An attempt were made to tow her back to Murmansk On May second she again came under attack by three german destroyers and was again torpedoed, At this time she was abandoned and the crew were taken off by accompanying destroyers. HMS Foresight was then ordered to torpedo her and send her to the bottom.

HMS Edinburgh (Capt. H.W. Faulkner, R.N.) was scuttled in position 71.51N, 35.10E by a torpedo from the British destroyer HMS Foresight after being damaged by two torpedoes from the German submarine U-456 and one torpedo from the German destroyer Z24. HMS Edinburgh was known to have been carrying Gold on her last voyage. The gold was part of Russia's war payments to the U.S and the U.K. most of that gold was recovered in 1981 By Salvager Keith Jessop.

HMS Edinburgh was an enlarged and modified Southampton class cruiser, built by Swan Hunter on the Tyne. Keel laid down December 1936, She displaced 10635 tons , with a design speed of 32.5 knots. She was 613 feet long and had a crew of 850 men.Her armament consisted of 12, 6 inch guns in triple turrets,6 twin 4 inch mounts, 16 2pdr pompoms, 16 Vickers AA guns ,and six torpedoes,three per side. She was also equipped with the latest radar and fire controll systems.She spent some time patrolling out of Scapa Flow between Iceland and the Faroes.from there she was escorting convoys to Narvik
from March till October 1940 she was in refit in the Tyne,
During the winter of 1940 she took part in several operations with the home fleet,and escorted convoys to the Middle East.

She escorted two convoys to Russia Qp4and PQ13,and returned to Scapa Flow. on April 6 she left Skapa Flow to easort convoy PQ14 to Russiaarriving in Murmansk on April 19. she left on April 29 to escort convoy QP11. On April 30 enroute from the Kola Peninsula she was torpedoed and struck on the starboard side by U456 (Captain Max Martin Teichert)and took on a heavy list. She was hit in the stern by a second torpedo whish wrecked her steering and her two inner propellor shafts, which crippled her.An attempt were made to tow her back to Murmansk On May second she again came under attack by three german destroyers and was again torpedoed, At this time she was abandoned and the crew were taken off by accompanying destroyers. HMS Foresight was then ordered to torpedo her and send her to the bottom.

On April 29 1942 Edinburgh left Murmansk carrying 4.5 tons of gold bullion, which was payment from Russia for war materials she had recieved. It was stowed in the armoured bomb rooms on the starbourd side of the vessel near where the first torpedo struck. the shipment consisted of 465 ingots loaded in 93 wooden boxes. Nothing was done till in 1954 the salvage rights were offered to Risdon Beazley Ltd. the project was put on hold due to the political situation with the USSR at the time. In 1957 the wreck was designated a War Grave, which further complicated salvage attempts.In the late 1970's attention was again focused on the wreck, The lure of the gold, plus the fear that she would be pirated by salvagers or the Russians as she was in Russian waters.In the early 1980's Jessop Marine got the rights to the wreck.The had developed a method of getting into the ship without the use of explosives, with minimal disturbance to the ship.In 1981 the wreck was found and detailed film was taken which was a help in the planning of the salvage attempt.Later that year in August the salvage was begun.On Sep 15 the first ingot was recovered . On Oct 7 Bad weather stopped the operation,but by that time 431 ingots had been recovered . It was decided to abandon the Quest at that point.

Supplied by Colin Montgomery, Surry BC Canada