THE MAN WHO BOUGHT A NAVY ~ Gerald Bowman

Pieced together after much research and told for the first time in this biography is the astonishing story of what is regarded as the greates achievement in the history of marine salvage - the raising of the German fleet at Scapa Flow.

When the Germans sank their surrendered navy at Scapa Flow after the First World War, top salvage experts were agreed that the work of recovering the ships was a near-impossibility.

Engineer Ernest Cox was the one man who defied their prediction. In 1924 he decided to buy the scuttled fleet from the Admiralty, gambling his entire personal fortune on the colossal task of raising the German ships. Cox was a natural-born engineering genius, and though he has never before salvaged even a rowing boat, the fanatical energy and tireless concentration with which he worked during the next eight years achieved staggering results.