SS Gairsoppa was a British cargo steamship that was built in 1919 and sunk in the Battle of the Atlantic in 1941.

[2] Gairsoppa was the first of four "B" type ships that BI acquired from Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, who had shipyards on the River Tyne at Hebburn and Jarrow.

[6] Gairsoppa had a single screw, driven by a three-cylinder triple-expansion engine built by Palmers.

[3] On 29 April 1930 Gairsoppa grounded at Fulta Point in the Hooghly River in West Bengal.

[14] Gairsoppa's crew comprised 11 UK officers, crewmen, and DEMS gunners; 84 lascars; and one Chinese carpenter.

[15] On 30 January 1941 Gairsoppa left Freetown with SL 64: a convoy of 30 merchant ships bound for Liverpool.

[17] On 15 February her Master, Captain Gerald Hyland, detached her from SL64, reduced her speed to 5 knots (9 km/h) to conserve coal,[citation needed] and changed course for the nearest sheltered anchorage, which was Galway Bay in neutral Ireland[17] for bunkering.

At 0008 hrs on 17 February U-101 fired a fourth torpedo, which hit the starboard side of Gairsoppa's number 2 hold.

Her reported position was in the Western Approaches at 50°00′N 14°0′W / 50.000°N 14.000°W / 50.000; -14.000, about 300 nautical miles (560 km) southwest of Galway Bay.

[19] As they neared the shore, in Caerthillian Cove, in the parish of Landewednack, a wave overturned the boat, drowning four of the men.

One of the girls ran down to the beach, while another alerted a local farmworker, Brian Richards, who was also a member of HM Coastguard.

[18] The bodies of the radio officer, deck hand, and two of the lascars were recovered, and are buried in the yard of St Wynwallow's Church, Landewednack.

[18][12][22][23] The 11 European officers and men who were killed are commemorated on panel 51 of the Second World War monument at Tower Hill Memorial in London.

The Chinese carpenter and 69 of the lascars who were killed are commemorated on a roll of honour, one copy of which is held at Chittagong War Cemetery in Bangladesh, and the other at the Indian Seamen's Home at Mumbai in India.

He later was promoted to Captain, joined the Royal Naval Reserve, and then became a BI cargo superintendent, first in India and later in Malaya.

[citation needed] In 2011 the Government awarded a contract to a US company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, to find and salvage the 7,000,000 ounces (200 tonnes) of silver from Gairsoppa, and also 600,000 ounces (17 tonnes) of silver from the wreck of another BI ship, Mantola, that a U-boat had sunk in 1917,[28] and whose wreck is only about 60 nautical miles (110 km) from Gairsoppa's.

[31] In July 2012 it was reported that Odyssey had recovered 1,400,000 ounces (40 tonnes) of silver in 1,203 ingots, and landed them at Bristol in England.

Lloyd's record of war losses suggests that other Government-owned silver, uninsured, may have been aboard the ship.

[33] In April 2014 the Royal Mint announced that it would strike 20,000 commemorative 1/4 ounce coins from the silver, each with a face value of 50 pence, but priced at £30.

The great depth of the wreck preserved the mail from the decaying effects of oxygen, light, and heat.