30,5 mm US Mint, Philadelphia Coin sold with its certificate of authenticity from the discoverers of the treasure attesting to the origin of the sinking of the ship S.S. John Barry. On a dark night in 1944, the WWII Liberty Ship, S. S. John Barry was torpedoed by a German U-Boat (U-859) and sank to the bottom of the Arabian Sea off the Strait of Oman. Her intended destination was a secret ARAMCO oil refinery being built at Ras Tanura in the Persian Gulf and in her hold were special silver Saudi Arabian Riyals struck at the Philadelphia Mint and secretly loaded onto the S. S. John Barry before she left Philadelphia. The refinery was to produce fuel to defeat the Nazis in WWII and had to be kept secret because of known German espionage agents in Saudi Arabia. When the Barry sank, construction of the refinery was halted. For 65 years the story was kept secret but when it was uncovered, a massive recovery operation was undertaken to salvage these precious American minted silver artifacts of WWII from a staggering depth of 8,500 feet. Many were melted down and only the highest quality were saved. This is one of those coins.