Dear friends, I would like to inform you of a new publication.
The book is named "Salvaging History: The epic salvage of shipwrecks in postwar Greece" and it was written by Kostas Thoctarides and myself.
Our aim was to present the arduous work of the Organisation of Shipwreck Salvage (O.A.N.) as well of the independent salvors that flourished in the first post-war decades.
Through the narration of the salvage operations, the reader is given detailed information about the condition of wrecks before their salvage and of their final disposition. This is something that was not previously covered in the existing Greek literature and most Greek wrecks were noted by a generic "salvaged by O.A.N.". However we were able to discover files from O.A.N.'s original archive and combined with many years of research in the Shipregisters we found out that several WWII wrecks were not simply scrapped but enjoyed second lives!
In the book's 286 pages, there are 190 b/w photographs that in their vast majority were never published before, many unearthed from O.A.N.'s "lost" archive.
Aside from the historic data, the book includes narrations from the last living divers that worked in those salvage operations. They personally described to the authors how they performed their work in the deep under the austere conditions of that period.
The book is currently available only in Greek and one can acquire it at the publisher's website at: [
kyriakidiseditions.gr]