During WWII, France was literally sending battleships full of gold to the United States

[dseehafer]

Greetings all,

 

From:

 

 

 

Page 33

 

     "Other crossings requiring special care were the convoys carrying gold. Not only was the United States of America not in the war at that time, but it was so fearful of being dragged in that a special neutrality law - the "cash and carry" law - governed all dealings with belligerents. Under the law these latter were required to pay for all purchases in cash and then to transport the goods themselves, as American ships were forbidden to enter the war zone. The Allies had to transport the purchased goods either in their own ships or in neutral ships chartered by them. When the Allies ran out of U.S. dollars, the only currency the Americans would accept was gold.

     In November, 1939, the battleship Lorraine, escorted by two cruisers, carried the first shipment of gold to the United States; on its return it escorted a convoy of merchant ships loaded with airplanes. When in December the Dunkerque went to Halifax to escort the Canadian troop convoy mentioned above, it deposited there, as at a teller's window in a bank, 100 tons of gold. The aircraft carrier Bearn, going to pick up airplanes in the United States, took over 250 tons of gold, and the passenger liner Pasteur and additional 400 tons. The cruiser Emile Bertin started for America with 300 tons, but the armistice intervened and she was diverted to Fort-de-France, in the island of Martinique, instead."

 

[aethervox]

I knew about some of this. Thanks for providing the full story, dseehafer.

[Ace_04]

I thought this was well known, no?

[TheKrimzonDemon]

Heck, I've known about this since I was 7. That said, many aren't history nuts like me, so now they have this info as well.

[MajorRenegade]

maybe because they think the gold would be safer in the U.S.? They knew Hitler was gonna to try something stupid sooner or later

[Herr_Reitz]

You know this got me thinking about the Queen Mary - for some strange reason - and here's a downright interesting factoid:

 

July 25 - 30, 1943 Carried the greatest number of souls on a floating vessel: 15,740 troops, 943 crew. Total: 16,683.

[dseehafer]

1 hour ago, Ace_04 said:

I thought this was well known, no?

 

That America was getting gold, yeah, but that France was using her battleships/warships to do so was not known to me. Makes sense I guess. Putting hundreds of tons of gold on a defenseless cargo ship that can't even make 9kn (also in the book, France was responsible for her own convoys since the majority of her merchant fleet could not steam at the minimum 9kn required to join an English convoy... also France used submarines to escort said convoys, believe it or not.) isnt the best idea. But putting it on a full-blown battleship that, in the case of Dunkerque, can make 30kn is much safer.

[Ace_04]

5 minutes ago, dseehafer said:

 

That America was getting gold, yeah, but that France was using their battleships/warships to do so was not known to me. Makes sense I guess. Putting hundreds of tons of gold on a defenseless cargo ship that can't even make 9kn (also in the book, France was responsible for her own convoys since the majority of her merchant fleet could not steam at the minimum 9kn required to join an English convoy) isnt the best idea. But putting it on a full-blown battleship that, in the case of Dunkerque, can make 30kn is much safer.

Yet, the Tizard mission, which essentially carried some of the most important intelligence cargo of the war, was only brought over by a passenger liner.

 

Go figure.

[SnowDriftTurtle]

I did not know this!  Thanks for sharing!

[MaliceA4Thought]

and then there is this as well...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fish

2 million pounds shippd from UK to Canada in WW2  equivalent of 98 million today.

M

[Spooooooooooooooooooooon]

In a related story, HMS Edinburgh (yes the tier 8 cruiser) was sunk carrying a load of gold.  The salvage story is cool:

 

http://www.lbma.org.uk/assets/blog/alchemist_articles/Alch74Blagg.pdf

 

[1Sherman]

44 minutes ago, Spooooooooooooooooooooon said:

In a related story, HMS Edinburgh (yes the tier 8 cruiser) was sunk carrying a load of gold.  The salvage story is cool:

 

http://www.lbma.org.uk/assets/blog/alchemist_articles/Alch74Blagg.pdf

 

 

A somewhat overlooked WWII story that I quite enjoy.

[1Sherman]

On 9/5/2017 at 2:19 PM, Herr_Reitz said:

You know this got me thinking about the Queen Mary - for some strange reason - and here's a downright interesting factoid:

 

July 25 - 30, 1943 Carried the greatest number of souls on a floating vessel: 15,740 troops, 943 crew. Total: 16,683.

 

The Queen Mary was pretty much the ideal troopship; She could carry a lot of personnel in relative comfort (she was a luxury liner, after all) and she was a bloody speed demon. She was so fast that she once overtook one of her escorts while zigzagging and sliced it in half. You can read about the incident here.

[Jumarka]

On 5/9/2017 at 2:02 PM, dseehafer said:

Greetings all,

From:

 

Man that looks awesome, to bad is crazy expensive for me to order books.
I will need to visit the "Military Circle" to quell my lust now.

[Lord_Slayer]

quite a few countries sent items of value to the US.

I believe Fort Knox held some of the Hungarian Crown Jewels during the War, as well the reserves of several countries in the war zone.