Churchill's Rollers to rise from the Forth

THEY were among the most elegant mechanical workhorses of the British Army but have been lying at the bottom of the Firth of Forth for more than 90 years.

• The Campania before she was converted

But an audacious plan has now been hatched to lift two armoured Rolls-Royces from their watery grave in the hold of a warship that sank in 1918.

The armoured cars - first deployed as First World War fighting machines - were stored aboard the HMS Campania, one of the first aircraft carriers, when it broke anchor during a storm, collided with other naval vessels and sank in shallow water off Burntisland on the Fife coast.

Discussions are to be held next month on an initial survey by Navy divers of the remains of the wreck, which lies in around 80ft of water, to find out what condition the cars are in. If they are found to be relatively intact, a rescue operation will be mounted to retrieve at least one for display in a military museum.

They are believed to be two of only five of the Rolls-Royces - armoured in a Clydeside factory and originally commissioned by Sir Winston Churchill when he was First Lord of the Admiralty - still in existence.

The project is being masterminded by the Scottish Industrial Preservation Trust, after previous diving reports had indicated that at least one of the cars was still visible within the hull and recognisable.

Spokesman Stephen Raeside said: "I'm not expecting it to be in showroom condition but I have spoken to the Mary Rose Trust (which raised Henry VIII's sunken flagship], and they said to me that the wood and rubber would probably be in fairly good condition.

"It just depends on the temperature of the water - the further you go north, the better it should be. I'm hoping it will come out of the water fairly intact.

"One of the good things about this project is that with it being an armoured car, it won't require much restoration done as the electrics are very basic."

Despite becoming a stalwart of the army, the armoured Rolls-Royce was first developed by the Royal Navy. Initially they were adapted versions of civilian Rollers, usually with boiler plate bolted on as armour and a gun mounted on the back, but latterly came with custom-made armour, produced by Glasgow engineers William Beardmore and Co, and turrets.

Adopted by the army on the Western Front, the torrential rain and thick mud made them unusable and so they were transferred to dryer fields of conflict over the coming decades.Lawrence of Arabia used one of the cars in the Jordanian desert to pursue his campaigns during the Second World War.

Many of the original armoured versions were subsequently transported to America after being taken out of active service, where they were converted back into civilian vehicles.

Raeside said that he believed the pair in the Campania's hold were built in 1914 and among the first to receive the custom-made armour.

David Fletcher, the historian at Bovington Tank Museum, which owns one of the rare surviving examples, said that if either of the vehicles were recovered, they would be "worth a small fortune. There are only a few left in the UK, mainly 1920 ones, and one in India, which is in a poor condition."

According to Steve Liscoe, assistant archaeologist at Fife Council's archaeology unit, discussions will take place in September on organising a survey of the listed wreck, expected to be carried out by the Royal Navy.

"We're in liaison with Historic Scotland," he said. "The protected status of the wreck means that any activities have to be licensed and regulated to ensure that the archaeological integrity is preserved."

He added: "The story of the cars goes back a long way. There is always the possibility of the survival of items like that on the ship.

"We're very intent on supporting the proposed investigation and recovery and will give them (the Preservation Trust] every assistance we can.

"Work on these sorts of sites are not very often undertaken by professionals; basically amateur groups are coming along and proposing these projects. So we're very much reliant on them to do this sort of investigation because it's expensive to carry out.

"Any information they can make would be most welcome."

He added that if any vehicle remains were found, they would need very special handling as they would in all likelihood have changed their chemical structure, making them highly unstable and prone to rotting.

"You can't just rinse them down and stick them on display," he added.

A spokeswoman for Historic Scotland said that any proposal to locate the Rolls-Royce cars would need careful consideration and "we would need to be persuaded that their recovery was in the best interests of the site".

Raeside said he felt it was wrong not to attempt to rescue the cars: "My attitude is - as opposed to other organisations' which is 'leave it down there to rust' - well, that's cheating future generations out of their heritage.

"Some have said why not just leave it, it's just scrap. Well, if we can get it up, it would be the oldest armoured Rolls-Royce intact in the world. I have, over the decades, seen old vehicles and aircraft that people would have written off, restored and rebuilt.So no, it's not impossible.

"I have been in touch with people who have had experience in restoring Rolls-Royces from highly advanced states of decrepitude."

A spokesman for the Royal Navy said: "We have based at Faslane some of the most experienced divers in the world, and if it (the recovery] can be done and we can help, it would be a great experience for them as well."