THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 9, 1994 TAG: 9412090605
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
Three hundred feet underwater, diver Barbara Lander found an ordinary item of extraordinary interest: a ceramic soap dish from the World War I shipwreck Lusitania.
Upon surfacing, she jumped up and down and held the prize aloft for friends to see. ``Look, look, look!'' she announced. ``I got a soap dish with the Cunard crest on it. It's a perfect souvenir.''
But her timing was lousy.
On that very day - June 8 - her lawyer was writing a letter to the man who claims to own the Lusitania, assuring him that Lander and her diving pals were not interested in shipwreck artifacts.
Now, that soap dish and a dozen other ``souvenirs'' from the world-famous wreck have drawn the ire of a federal judge in Norfolk.
For two days this week, Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. heard testimony about the Lusitania. He heard how competing groups have tried to salvage the wreck and how they claim to own it.
But as witness after witness took the stand, a side issue emerged: Who took ``souvenirs'' from the sunken ship? How many trinkets are floating around out there? And why haven't they been turned over to the Norfolk court?
A German torpedo sank the British luxury liner in 1915, killing 1,198 passengers and crew, including 128 Americans. The wreckage lies about 12 miles off the Irish coast.
Clarke had ordered in May that all artifacts from the Lusitania be brought to his court for safe-keeping, until he decides who owns the wreck. Some are being held in a Virginia Beach law office, but others are still unaccounted for.
As testimony revealed who took what, Clarke became angry - at the divers for taking the stuff, and for not watching the wreck more closely, a New Mexico businessman whom Clarke had appointed temporary custodian.
The businessman, F. Gregg Bemis Jr. of Santa Fe, claims he owns the Lusitania. He claims he and two partners bought it from the ship's insurers in 1968.
This week, Clarke took out most of his anger on Bemis. He scolded Bemis for trying to control the wreck from his home in Santa Fe, even as divers explored it thousands of miles away.
``That's not being a custodian, as far as this court is concerned. . . .,'' Clarke declared Wednesday. ``If Mr. Bemis expects me to treat his case with any sympathy, he's going to have to be on the scene.''
On Thursday, he scolded Bemis again, for failing to file timely reports. ``I have not been very satisfied with Mr. Bemis' performance on the orders I have already entered,'' Clarke declared.
The judge also had harsh words when he learned that Bemis had failed to turn over all his artifacts. Bemis did bring a spoon and a dish to court in February, but many other trinkets remain in his Santa Fe home.
Bemis testified that he thought he could keep those artifacts because they came from a dive in 1982, long before the case had reached Norfolk. The judge was stunned.
``I don't deal in tokenism,'' Clarke told Bemis' attorneys. ``If you're relying on the artifacts he brought up (to establish a claim), I expect all the artifacts to be here, not just some token.''
But Clarke also showed anger at the competing divers, who explored the wreck without Bemis' permission for two weeks in June.
Three of the four divers admitted in court that they had brought up artifacts - the soap dish, a port hole, a deck prism, for example - and tried to hide them from the court and their own attorney.
``You did not act with good faith or with clean hands,'' Clarke told the divers Wednesday.
The existence of the divers' artifacts became public only after Lander's conscience got the better of her and she confessed. ``I detested being put in a position where I could not be upfront,'' she testified.
That, Bemis testified, is exactly why he seeks a court order declaring him owner of the wreck: ``To keep scavengers from going out there and ripping off the ship and doing damage.''
Both sides say they want to preserve the wreck, but both sides also say they want to salvage it further, for historical purposes.
``We would like to take more items from the wreck,'' Lander said, ``but we would like to do it without resorting to breaking the law.''
Clarke will rule later this month on whether any U.S. court has jurisdiction over the wreck. Bemis says yes; the competing dive group says no. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Clarke
Bemis
by CNB