465 Soviet gold bars sank with a British warship in 1942. Nearly 40 years later, divers found the wreck 800 feet below the ocean’s surface in a daring salvage mission

In 1942, British light cruiser HMS Edinburgh sank in the Barents Sea after being badly damaged by German torpedoes, taking 58 crew members and 465 Soviet gold bars with it. The bullion, weighing about 4.6 tonnes, was being carried as part of wartime payment for supplies and equipment. The wreck settled about 800 feet below the surface, where the gold remained for almost four decades. In 1981, British salvage diver Keith Jessop led an ambitious expedition to locate the ship and recover its cargo. After weeks of dangerous saturation diving in freezing Arctic waters, divers finally reached the bomb room and recovered hundreds of gold bars from the wreck.

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