Draft:William Hammerton Smith

William Hammerton Smith known familiarly as Bill Smith (b 1967) is a British underwater sonar expert, diver and engineer whose 1996 initiative led to identifying anew the location on the Coniston Water lake-bed of Bluebird K7, the jet enginedhydroplane in which Donald Campbell lost his life whilst attempting to push the Water speed record beyond 300 mph in January 1967. As a result of commercial successes gained by introducing products into global automotive industry supply chains, Smith was free to pursue other interests. He was elected to join the Explorer's Club of New York and was a member for a few years.

Underwater exploration
As proprietor of Kiltech Underwater, a company specialising in sonar surveys, Bill Smith with his team undertook many high profile deep water searches. Most widely reported was the work surrounding the search for Bluebird K7.


 * An early expedition in 1995, Smith, with co-diver Paul Cairns, set out to explore the wreck of the German battleship Tirpitz which had been bombed and sunk off Tromsø in Norway on 12 November 1944, towards the end of World War II. It was located in a Norwegian fjord twenty miles north of the Arctic Circle. The wreck had previously been explored by Jaques Cousteau.


 * The search for Bluebird K7 had begun as no more than an exploration: "From 1996, for over four years, the team of specialist divers led by Bill Smith had kept the location of the wreck a secret as there was at the early stages no thought of raising K7. On 4 February 2001, The Sunday Telegraph revealed plans to salvage Bluebird. Such plans were being discussed by Smith's team, some members of of the Campbell family, and BBC TV, who were making a documentary about the dives. That evening, BBC TV News showed underwater pictures of K7's tail-fin. By Monday morning the story was across the UK National Media."


 * In August 2000 the wreck of HMS Unity, a Second world war U-class submarine built for the Royal Navy, which had entered service in 1938, was located and imaged by Bill Smith in Blyth on the Northumberland coast. It had been accidentally rammed by the Norwegian ship Atle Jari on 29 April 1940 causing it to sink. It was found in 46m of water upright but with a list to Starboard with damage to the port side where the steel hydroplane had been knocked off. Smith's sonar images were used extensively in the TV series Deep Wreck Mysteries.


 * Working closely with police divers, Smith brought his expertise to bear on a number of underwater searches. In 2002, a diver's body was retrieved from Ullswater in the English Lake District: "Bill Smith, the man responsible for finding Donald Campbell's remains and his speedboat Bluebird from Coniston Water, recovered the body of a missing diver from Ullswater on Saturday. Clifford Purdham went missing during a diving expedition nearly four years ago. Previous attempts to retrieve his body by the Lancashire and Cumbria diving team had faltered because he was in a particularly deep and silted part of the lake. But police said Mr Smith managed to find Mr Purdham using equipment from the Donald Campbell dives."


 * In 2006-2007, three young Sikh men drowned in Ullswater, as, in a group of 26, they took part in the recreation of a Sikh Dipping Ceremony. The three were paddling on a trip with a martial arts group in Cumbria when one of them slipped. Bill Smith recovered the three's bodies.


 * In 2004, Bill Smith helped police officers look for evidence in the re-opened Lady in the Lake trial inquiry into the disappearance of Carol Ann Park, using sonar equipment to search for clues with police divers. "The police asked me to get involved because I have become somewhat of an expert at finding small objects in deep water" Smith added: "We went down into the lake (Coniston Water) around January and February last year (2004) and spent a few months painstakingly searching the bottom." Bill Smith became an expert witness for the prosecution in the case. With Bill Smith, the police revisited the site where the body was discovered, and found a piece of Westmorland green slate, a stone matching the rocks that made up the wall of the family's bungalow. This crucial piece of evidence was nearly left behind in the search, but, by careful scheduling of the diving operations which had left a slot available at the end of the day, Smith was able to persuade the police team to make "one last dive" to recover the piece of slate.


 * Bill Smith was involved in the exploration of the wreck of HMHS Britannic, (a sister ship to Titanic) in order to ascertain the reasons for its sinking. In 1975, Jacques Cousteau found the location of the wreck, but because it is considered to be a war grave by the UK Government, diving is strictly controlled. "In September 2003, an expedition led by Carl Spencer dived into the wreck. This was the first expedition to dive Britannic where all the bottom divers were using closed circuit rebreathers (CCR). British Diver Leigh Bishop brought some of the first photographs from inside the wreck and his diver partner Richard Stevenson found that several watertight doors were open. It has been suggested that this was because the mine strike coincided with the change of watches. Alternatively, the explosion may have distorted the doorframes. A number of mine anchors were located off the wreck by sonar expert Bill Smith, confirming the German records of U-73 that Britannic was sunk by a single mine and the damage was compounded by open portholes and watertight doors. Spencer's expedition was broadcast extensively across the world for many years by National Geographic."

Recovery of Bluebird K7
Having successfully located the wreck of Campbell's Bluebird, Bill Smith became the lead in its recovery, which was thwart with difficulties not only technical, but also legal and ethical. He was able to broker an understanding between the parties with their disparate views which led to a go-ahead for the raising of the craft in its dozen or so separate pieces.

As the work to recover K7 and the body of Donald Campbell from the lakebed was underway, Paul Foulkes-Halbard, a former business associate of Campbell and owner of Filching Manor Motor Museum in Polegate, claimed he had acquired ownership of the boat in the course of business dealings with DMC. His claim was rejected by a consent order lodged at the High Court in London on 7 September 2001, which declared Tonia Bern-Campbell and the executors of Campbell's will as the rightful owners. Gina Campbell, the Campbell family’s representative, directed that the wreckage raised in March 2001 should be kept at Bill Smith's premises in Newcastle-upon-Tyne from the March date pending the court’s decision on K7's future ownership. The Argus also reported in September 2001: "It is the family's intention that the boat will be displayed at the Ruskin Museum in Coniston, which will now have to be extended to accommodate it".

Amongst the conflicting views over the recovery were those of the wider family, the Campbell Family Heritage Trust and the Ruskin Museum. Each had different opinions. Jean Wales, Donald Campbell's sister, was opposed in principal to the recovery of the K7 wreck, preferring the status quo of an undisturbed watery grave for her brother side by side with the wreck. She did not attend the funeral service, although she maintained daily contact with the recovery team as both the body, and then the wreckage were brought ashore. Mike Humphreys custodian of the Ruskin Museum was reported to have said at the time: "It would be wrong to make commercial gain." John Hurst, a local newspaper editor wrote: "Let the brave man and his spectacular boat rest in peace in Coniston."

Using adapted sonar technology, the diving team led by Bill Smith, located anew the wreckage of K7. The team worked towards K7's subsequent recovery. The wreckage was recovered between October 2000, when the first small sections were raised, May 2001, when Campbell's body was finally recovered, and March 2007. The largest section, representing approximately two-thirds of the main hull, was salvaged on 8 March 2001. The recovery was witnessed by a small select group of onlookers including Ken Norris (Lew Norris' flight was delayed by bad weather; he didn't make it in time) and Campbell's widow Tonia Bern-Campbell. In 1998, Mike Rossiter from BBC TV had approached the Bluebird Project team with a view to filming the wreck. He was also there at the time K7 was brought ashore.

Donald Campbell's body was retrieved from the lake by Bill Smith on 28 May 2001 in the presence of DMC's only daughter Gina Campbell, and a group of onlookers which included Mike Rossiter. Gina Campbell made arrangements on behalf of the Campbell family. DMC was interred in Coniston cemetery on 12 September that year after a funeral service at St Andrews Church in Coniston. Bill Smith was a pallbearer.

Bill Smith returned in 2007 to locate and recover more pieces of K7 from Coniston Water.