The casualties of war are often unintended and indiscriminate. As is seen almost daily in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Ukraine, the destruction and loss are wildly capricious. That applies not only to human life but to pets, property and historic sites lost forever after thousands of years.
Naturally, these aren’t the first instances of carnage. Wars over the centuries have had more than their share.
One that recently came to light was the sinking of the S.S. Tilawa in 1942. The Tilawa was a merchant ship sailing off the coast of Africa from Bombay, India, to Mombasa. It was classified as a “passenger cargo liner” – the only one known to be plying the waters of the Indian Ocean....
Even through a submarine periscope it was easy to discern the difference between military and merchant ships. That didn’t matter. The Japanese figured any ships not theirs could be carrying supplies for the enemy and were acceptable targets. The Japanese sub slammed two torpedoes into the Tilawa sending it 1.6 miles to the bottom.
Of the 958 passengers on board, 678 were rescued by nearby ships. The rest went down with its tonnage of cargo. The loss earned the Tilawa the name The Indian Titanic.
What the Japanese (and most all the passengers) didn’t know was that among the 5,900 tons of cargo were 2,364 bars of solid silver. That silver was being shipped to Africa to be used in minting coinage. Its 1942 value was over $2 million.
The mass of silver treasure sat at the bottom of the Indian Ocean for decades – unreachable for any salvage company – until 2017, 75 years later. That’s when hedge fund manager Paul Marshall funded a secret expedition with modern technology in a special submersible to recover the lost silver from the ship.
The recovery cost would be substantial. Marshall figured it would be worth it. At $28 an ounce and nearly 60 pounds per bar, that comes to about $25,000 each. In today’s dollars, roughly $50 million in all. Marshall’s team secretly began the salvage. Over six months, his team brought up the silver and sailed the treasure to Southampton, England.
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished. Word got out. And, when it comes to maritime recovery, “finders-keepers” evidently doesn’t apply.
After Marshall’s find and recovery became known, the government of South Africa, off the coast of which the treasure was recovered, claimed ownership. That’s despite the fact that South Africa knew of the ship but never made an effort to recover the treasure.
The legal case over ownership has been in the courts for years. Some have adjudicated the treasure belonged to South Africa. Other courts said it should go to Marshall’s company that spent the money to retrieve it. The tug of war over ownership continues. Fortunes await the outcome.
Soon, an entirely different maritime treasure that makes the silver on the Tilawa look like peanuts will come to light and surely get even more contentious.
Just off the coast of Cartagena, Columbia, lies the remains of the Spanish galleon San Jose (another casualty of war). Sunk in 1708 by the British, the San Jose rests in 2,000 feet of water – far too deep for divers. The Columbian government plans to spend just over one million dollars to recover the wreck’s treasure. Will it be worth it?
The 150-foot, three-masted galleon carried 600 passengers and crew and an impressive 64 cannons. Such armaments might seem excessive. Nope. They were justified. Onboard the San Jose was an inconceivable amount of treasure. Forget the silver bars of the Tilawa. Manifests of the San Jose reveal it includes 200 tons of silver; countless emeralds; and Chinese porcelain pottery. Oh, and there are also (I’m not making this up) 11 million gold coins. Not 11 million-dollars. 11 million gold coins!
So much for the $50 million in treasure brought up from the Tilawa. The estimated value of the 318-year-old San Jose treasure is a staggering $17 billion, with a “B.” Exciting, right? Not so fast.
An American salvage concern which discovered the wreck’s location in 1981 laid claim to it. Doesn’t matter. In 2011, a court declared the ship, resting in Columbian waters, to be rightfully owned by Columbia. But, wait. Now, in 2024, the country of Spain, several of 36 Bolivian Indigenous tribes and the original American salvage company are all attempting to prove legal ownership.
It seems that, in the modern era, historic casualties of war are also found in the courtroom.
I’ll keep you posted.
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