The Salvage Drama of the 'City of Lincoln' (1947)

'Snapshots' Album by Shipfotos, specialists in Marine Photography, photographs mounted on card with paste down captions, also newspaper extract, card boards with draw-string, 28 pages, 280 x 205mm, card boards have edgeware, internally very good.

The merchantman ‘City of Lincoln ‘ ran aground on the rocks off Quoin Point on the Southern Cape coast on the 9th November 1946.

Jan Fourie, Gansbaaier, describes how as a child he witnessed the salvaging of the City of Lincoln,

"A fishing boat was used by the custom officials to transport the valuable cargo from the wreck to the settlement of Buffeljag. Apart from a cargo worth two million pounds, there were 13 new Dodge and Plymouth cars on board. These cars had been purchased for the visit of the British Royal family that was to take place in 1947. Several of these cars had been thrown overboard."

The authorities clearly did not have all under control. He writes how custom officials became suspicious when domestic staff showed up at the local bioscope in expensive fur-coats. A Caterpillar earth-moving machine was salvaged from the ship and has ploughed the local fields for many years.

The ‘City of Lincoln ‘ was later refloated, but not without incident. The ‘Swona’, a salvage vessel owned by the salvage expert Captain Van Delden , lost her propeller and anchored to await assistance. A north-west gale caused her cables to part and she ran aground. The ’ Fynd ‘ also owned by the Captain got tangled with the cables and both vessels shared the fate of the’ City of Lincoln’ and ended up on the beach. Their remains can still be seen there today.

While Captain Van Delden was supervising operations on board the ‘City of Lincoln’, he stood on a hatch-cover, welded shut, to a hold being pumped full of compressed air prior to refloating. He was killed when the hatch-cover blew off at velocity.

The City of Lincoln was finally towed off on March 10, 1947, after one of the greatest efforts in South African salvage history. She was also the largest salvage up to that time. For another three years she then lay in Cape Town docks until finally she was stripped and sunk on May 6, 1950. On that day, the stripped bulk of the’ City of Lincoln’ was towed to the ships' graveyard off Robben Island where she was bombed and sunk by South African Air Force Spitfires and Venturas.. Bombs finished the job that they failed to do during the war years when the City of Lincoln ran the gauntlet to Malta. ( "Duskant die Duine")

And the reason for the disaster? Simple: three of the officers on duty were drunk.

The book, ‘I have a plan’, by the widow of Captain Van Delden , is also part of the lot.

The wedding album of Vittorio Mussolini was salvaged from the ‘City of Lincoln’, but that’s another story!