THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 24, 1994 TAG: 9409240220
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
A German torpedo sank the British luxury liner Lusitania early in World War I. Now, a group of American divers claims it owns the ship's underwater remains and has launched a legal torpedo of its own.
The group has fired a surprise salvo at a New Mexico businessman, who claimed earlier this year that he owned the Lusitania wreckage.
Meanwhile, a third claimant to the Lusitania, a Massachusetts widow who filed her claim in August, waits in the wings.
The divers' group, based in Delaware, explored the shipwreck in June. The group filed its claim to the Lusitania this month in Norfolk's federal court. They say their expedition was sabotaged at a time when the New Mexican was trying to stop them from reaching the wreck.
The new claim and accompanying charges prompted angry denials from the New Mexico businessman, F. Gregg Bemis Jr., who called the divers a bunch of ``vandals and pirates.''
``Anybody can make those accusations in court, whether they're true or false,'' said Bemis, who is also a Republican candidate for Congress in Santa Fe.
The divers' new claim comes from a group calling itself Fifty Fathom Ventures. It is led by a Philadelphia man who has written several books on East Coast shipwrecks.
The group's name comes from the Lusitania's location - 300 feet down, or 50 fathoms deep in international waters near Ireland - and the group's plan to salvage and photograph the relic.
``These are some of the finest scuba divers in the world,'' said the group's attorney, Peter E. Hess of Wilmington, Del. ``We have demonstrated we have the methodology and experience to conduct a dive to these depths.''
But in court papers filed Friday, Bemis' attorneys said the divers can't claim ownership of the wreck just because they dove to it. They must show that the wreck was long-lost, then found, then successfully salvaged, the attorneys wrote.
``Merely undertaking an expedition is not even sufficient to constitute an act of salvage,'' Bemis' legal reply states.
The divers' group explored the Lusitania in June with more than 100 dives in two weeks. The divers did not raise artifacts, but merely took pictures, said the group's local attorney, Philip N. Davey of Norfolk.
The former luxury liner lies 11 1/2 miles off the Irish coast. It was sunk by a German torpedo in 1915, killing 1,198 passengers and crewmen, including 124 Americans. Cries of ``Remember the Lusitania'' helped prompt America's entry into the war two years later.
As world interest again focuses on the ship, three groups are vying to own the wreck.
Bemis, 65, was first on the scene. He claims he became part-owner of the Lusitania in 1968, when he bankrolled the first private dive, then became full owner when his partner withdrew in later years.
Bemis claims he was a partner in last year's dive to the Lusitania by National Geographic and renowned undersea explorer Robert Ballard. That expedition led to a TV special and magazine story this spring.
In February, Bemis and his attorney said they did not expect a challenge to their claim. A British court had recognized his claim in 1985.
Bemis says he plans expeditions over the next five years and will share his findings with scientists worldwide. In court papers, he said he will salvage from the ship ``porcelain, glass and other inorganic materials'' to support his project.
``Until Bemis succeeded to ownership, the shipwreck was treated as little more than a heap of scrap by all concerned,'' wrote his attorney, Richard T. Robol of Virginia Beach.
Then Muriel C. Light showed up. The 54-year-old widow from a Boston suburb says she owns the Lusitania and wants to save it from scavengers.
``I'd rather leave the wreck alone,'' she said last month. ``Let's not start bringing bits of it to Virginia Beach.''
Light's husband, diver John F. Light, bought the undersea relic from a British insurance company that paid off the original owners after the torpedo attack.
Then, on Sept. 7, Fifty Fathom Ventures filed its claim.
The group's president, Gary Gentile of Philadelphia, is an author and diver of some renown among scuba fans. He is best known for fighting the federal government in the 1980s to explore the USS Monitor, the Civil War ironclad lying off Cape Hatteras.
Gentile's group attacked Bemis on several grounds, claiming he did not organize the National Geographic dive and cannot explore the wreck as safely or successfully as they can.
The divers also claimed that Bemis has abandoned the wreck by not conducting salvage operations.
Finally, they accused Bemis of trying to stop them from reaching the Lusitania in June. They said Bemis tried to force them to sign ``a highly restrictive and objectionable'' contract ``in order to gain access to `his' shipwreck,'' then threatened a court injunction and criminal charges.
Also, according to the group's court claim, ``Agents believed to be in the employ of Bemis shadowed the divers over the course of their Lusitania expedition, and several suspicious acts of vandalism and sabotage to the diving support vessels were perpetrated, causing the loss of several days of diving operations.''
Someone poured sugar into the boat's gas tank, cut lines and committed other acts of vandalism, Hess said.
``I don't have any proof it was done by Bemis or under his direction,'' Hess said, ``but it happened too often to be pure coincidence.''
The accusations infuriated Bemis. He angrily denied them Friday, saying he never even heard of the vandalism until he read about it in court papers.
Bemis said the divers approached him last year for permission to explore the Lusitania, but he refused. The group proceeded anyway, Bemis said.
``They acted in a very, very brazen, piratical manner,'' Bemis said. ``They went ahead and trespassed on my property.'' He said Gentile ``has a history of imposing himself on other people's property.''
Bemis said he did not sabotage Gentile's dive and had no employees in Ireland. ``I have never indulged in anything like that,'' he said angrily.
So far, there is no court date to hear the competing claims. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by ERIC MENCHER/ The Philadelphia Inquirer
In his home in Philadelphia, Gary Gentile displays artifacts he's
collected over the years from abandoned shipwrecks.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT CLAIM SHIPWRECK LUSITANIA by CNB