"Niagara" - Also Salvage Scenes - Merchant Shipping. March 01, 1955. . On 19 June 1940 she was under the command of Captain William Martin and had just left Auckland when, off Bream Head, Whangarei at 3.40 am, she struck a mine laid by the German auxiliary cruiser Orion and sank in 121 metres (70 fathoms) of water at 5.32 am. The mines were part of an extensive field of moored contact-type mines laid by the Orion on the night of 13?14 June, and a further three mines were disposed of by minesweepers in the area. A secret and large consignment of gold from the Bank of England was in Niagara's strong room and went down with the ship. There were 295 boxes, each containing two ingots of gold (590 ingots total), valued at ?2,500,000.[4] The gold was payment from the United Kingdom to the United States, which had not yet entered the war, for munitions supplies.The Claymore recovered 555 gold bars