Divers Set Sights on Silver-Laden WWII Ship

In 1941, a Nazi torpedo tore a hole in a British merchant ship carrying a fortune in silver to England from India. The ship was part of a convoy headed for Liverpool, but it went down about 300 miles southwest of Ireland, disappearing in icy waters nearly three miles deep, deeper than the resting place of the Titanic.

Now, divers say they have found the wreck intact and they estimate its cargo at up to 240 tons of silver — a trove worth more than $200 million. They plan to recover it this spring.

The recovery, if successful, would be history’s deepest and largest retrieval of a precious cargo lost at sea and highlight the growing power of ocean technology, according to Odyssey Marine Exploration, the company that found the ship. It is working under contract to the British government and says it verified the ship’s identity this month.

“We were fortunate to find the shipwreck sitting upright, with the holds open and easily accessible,” said Greg Stemm, chief executive of Odyssey, which is based in Tampa, Fla. “This should enable to us to unload cargo through the hatches, as would happen with a ship alongside a cargo terminal.”

Mr. Stemm added that a growing number of seafaring nations view cargo recovery as a creative way to increase revenues. In such arrangements, private contractors put their own money at risk in costly expeditions and split any profits. Odyssey, for instance, is to get 80 percent of the silver’s value, and the British government 20 percent....