The Last New Guinea Salvage Pirate: The exploits of Fritz Herscheid during twenty years of post-war salvage in New Guinea and the Philippines

The Last New Guinea Salvage Pirate tells the remarkable true story of the legal, and sometimes illegal, post-war salvage of shipwrecks and treasure in New Guinea and the Philippines during the late 1960s and 1970s. The advent of modern scuba equipment in the 1960s gave rise to a new breed of commercial diver, a diver who had the immense benefit of mobility, especially inside shipwrecks, that old hard-hat and surface-supplied divers could only dream about. Using this new self-contained equipment, adventurous salvage divers worked to incredible depths (which often exceeded 300 ft) and did so using only compressed air, a feat frowned upon by recreational and salvage divers in today’s work-safe environment. Furthermore all demolition work was carried out using highly volatile and dangerous nitroglycerine-based explosives which have not been available in Australia since the early 1980s. This book gives a personal account of the constant danger, ongoing problems, delays, and equipment failure during expeditions which frequently included encounters with sharks, in the water and on land! It chronicles the determination and fierce rivalry between salvagers, the risks and gains, the close calls with death in precarious and often very remote locations. It tells of courage and stupidity, of risk and reward. No book has ever been written about these remarkable years where the riches of successful salvage were up for grabs by the most determined salver and his team. The book also offers divers and shipwreck researchers a comprehensive shipwreck reference of all known and dive-able wrecks in New Guinea. Even if you have never seen the dark shadow of a shipwreck beneath the sea, this book will astound you. Read more