Herbert Samuel Latham

Edinburgh was the flagship of Rear-Admiral Stuart Bonham Carter, commanding the escort of returning Convoy QP 11: 17 ships which left Murmansk on 28 April 1942. On 30 April, the German submarine U-456 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Max-Martin Teichert fired a torpedo into her starboard side, hitting her. The mess deck split in two and about 50 men fell into the storage tank below that then began to fill with oil from burst pipes and sea water. The U-boat, on her fifth patrol, had been alerted to the convoy by German aerial reconnaissance. The ship began to list heavily, but the crew reacted quickly and competently by closing watertight bulkheads, which prevented the ship from sinking immediately. Soon after, U-456 put a second torpedo into Edinburgh's stern, wrecking her steering equipment and crippling her. Edinburgh was taken in tow, and tried to return to Murmansk with destroyers Foresight and Forester, and four Halcyon-class minesweepers; Gossamer, Harrier, Niger and Hussar. Along the way she was hounded constantly by German torpedo bombers. On 2 May, as she progressed at a snail's pace under tow and her own power, she was attacked off Bear Island by three large German destroyers, Hermann Schoemann ,
Z24 and Z25. Edinburgh cast off the tow, so that she started to sail in circles. Although her guns were in disarray, she fired on the attacking German ships. Her second salvo straddled Hermann Schoemann, damaging her severely enough that her crew scuttled her. Edinburgh's escorts drove off Z24 and Z25, but she was struck by a torpedo that had missed another ship. The torpedo struck Edinburgh amidships, exactly opposite the first torpedo hit from U-456. She was now held together only by the deck plating and keel, which was likely to fail at any time, so the crew abandoned ship. Gossamer took off 440 men and Harrier about 400. Two officers and 56 other ranks were killed in the attacks.

Edinburgh was carrying 4.5-long-ton (4,570 kg) of gold bullion back to the UK from Russia. The consignment, which had a value of about £1.5 million sterling in 1942 (adjusted for inflation to 2017 pounds, £63,047,983), was a partial payment by the USSR for the supplies of war material and military equipment from the Western Allies. In total the ship had 465 gold ingots in 93 wooden boxes stored in the bomb-room just aft of where the first torpedo. On 15 September 1981, diver John Rossier found the first bar of gold. By 7 October, when bad weather finally forced the cessation of the diving operation, 431 of 465 ingots had been recovered. At the time the haul was worth in excess of £40,000,000 sterling. This bullion recovery project created a World Record in deep diving which stands to this day. A further 29 bars were brought up in 1986 by the Consortium, bringing the total to 460, leaving five unaccounted for.