The Forgotten Dead and the purchase of a sunken Sherman

The reading follows British wreck law, inquiries through the American embassy and military disposal offices, and the eventual fifty-dollar transfer of whatever title the United States possessed. Ken Small first had to establish that salvaging the tank would not automatically make him its owner, then trace a chain of American offices able to sell an uncertain title. The contract acknowledged that the United States could not verify the tank's identity, location, ownership, or even existence, yet still retained the payment if those assumptions proved wrong. Its clauses about possible human remains and salt-water demilitarization make the episode a striking example of persistence turning a submerged Sherman into a memorial despite international red tape.