| Operation Fish | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Second World War | |||||
 HMS Bonaventure was forced to remain stationary for a time to protect a treasure ship | |||||
| |||||
| Belligerents | |||||
 United Kingdom  Canada |  Germany | ||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||
| 0 ships sunk | |||||
Operation Fish was the relocation of British money and gold ingots from the United Kingdom to Canada for safekeeping during the Second World War. It was the largest known movement of physical wealth in history. [1]
In September 1939, the British government decreed that all people living in the UK had to declare their securities with the Treasury. [2] Even before Operation Fish, convoys had been sent with gold and money worth millions of pounds to purchase weapons from the United States. One such run involved Commodore Augustus Willington Shelton Agar and his ship HMS Emerald. At 23:18 on 3 October 1939, HMS Emerald dropped anchor in Plymouth, England. A short time later, Agar was being briefed by Rear-Admiral Lancelot Holland on his mission. The written instructions are below.
Two million pounds[ clarification needed ] in gold bars [GBP138,000,000 in 2023] is to be embarked in each ship to Halifax. A railway truck is expected to be placed alongside each ship about 01.00 October 7. Each truck is expected to contain 148 boxes each weighing 130 lbs. The total number of boxes is numbered Z 298 to Z 741 inclusive. Guards are to be put on each truck on arrival at the ship. Embarkation is to commence about 06.30 or as soon as daylight permits. Adequate steps are to be taken for supervision of each box from unloading from truck to stowage in ship. Finally a receipt is to be forwarded to C in C Western Approaches on the attached form. [3]
On 7 October 1939, Emerald sailed from Plymouth for Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the gold bullion from the Bank of England, bound for Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to be used to pay for American war materials. As this voyage was under the strictest secrecy, the crew were outfitted with "tropical white" uniforms, to confuse German agents. In the company of the two old battleships HMS Revenge and HMS Resolution and her sister ship HMS Enterprise, as well as the old cruiser HMS Caradoc, the Emerald ran into some of the heaviest seas that Agar encountered. By the time the convoy reached Halifax, the Emerald had lost her ship's boats, rafts, and various depth charges, wires, shackles, and other valuable equipment, not to mention her spotter plane, a Fairey Seafox. [3]
Winston Churchill formed his government as a guarantee that the Empire could continue the fight if the UK was overrun. With the Empire, he devised a plan to ship British wealth to the safety of Canada. [4] Using their wartime powers, the Churchill government confiscated the securities that the British people were forced to register at the beginning of the year, and under the cover of secrecy, moved them to the port of Greenock in Scotland. Then, men sworn to secrecy loaded the wealth onto the Emerald-class light cruiser HMS Emerald. The ship departed on 24 June 1940 and with an escort of some destroyers sailed to Canada. Again another fierce storm endangered the operation when high seas forced the ships to slow their speed, making them easy targets for any prowling U-boats. When they finally reached Halifax, on 1 July 1940, the British treasure was transferred to trains and the gold sent to Ottawa, while the securities were shipped to the Sun Life Building in Montreal. [4]
Another Operation Fish convoy sailed[ where? ] on 5 July 1940, comprising five ships loaded with $1.7 billion (US$36.97 billion in 2023),[ clarification needed ] which was the largest movement of wealth in history. [1] Offshore, they met their escort, which included the battleship HMS Revenge, a cruiser and several destroyers. Trouble arose when one of the convoy ships, a Polish ship, the Batory, loaded with treasure, had engine trouble and had to drop out of the convoy, escorted by only HMS Bonaventure; the two ships then encountered heavy fog and, because of the dangers of icebergs, came to a halt, making them easy targets for any U-boats that might find them; eventually, repairs were made and both ships were able to make it to Halifax days after the other treasure ships had landed. [1]
The British securities were locked in a specially constructed underground vault that was rushed into existence three storeys beneath the Sun Life Building in Montreal, and were guarded around the clock by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A persistent rumour that the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom were stored there was deliberately spread in Montreal to account for increased activity at the building. [5] The extremely secretive United Kingdom Security Deposit, operating in the vault, arranged for the sale of Britain's negotiable securities on the New York Stock Exchange over the next few years to pay for Britain's war expenses. The 5,000 employees of Sun Life never suspected what was stored in their basement,[ dubious – discuss ] and while unloading the treasure ships, not one crate of the cargo went missing. Even though thousands of people were involved, Axis intelligence agencies never found out about the operation. [6] Hundreds of government accountants and bankers worked tirelessly to catalogue the contents of thousands of crates taken off the ships. When they were finished it was determined that $2.5 billion (US$54.37 billion in 2023) had been shipped from the UK to Canada without one gold bar being lost. [1]
A stone plaque on the outer wall of Martins Bank on Water Street in Liverpool commemorates the gold stored there en route to Canada: "In May 1940 when this country was threatened with invasion part of the nation's gold reserve was brought from London and lowered through the hatch for safe keeping in the vaults of Martins Bank." [7]
The 1993 BBC drama The Bullion Boys depicts the 1940 transport of Bank of England gold to Canada via Liverpool, and a plot by a group of Liverpool dock workers to steal some of it. [8]
Operation Fish features significantly in the 2022 crime novel The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett. [9]
HMS Enterprise was one of two Emerald-class light cruisers built for the Royal Navy. She was built by John Brown & Company, with the keel being laid down on 28 June 1918. She was launched on 23 December 1919, and commissioned on 7 April 1926. She was the 14th ship to serve with the Royal Navy to carry the name Enterprise, a name which is still used in the Royal Navy today.
HMS Revenge was the lead ship of five Revenge-class super-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War in the mid-1910s. The ships were developments of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, with reductions in size and speed to offset increases in armour protection whilst retaining the same main battery of eight 15-inch (381 mm) guns. She was laid down in 1913, launched in 1915 and commissioned in February 1916, early enough to be worked up to see action with the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May that year. During the engagement, she engaged German battlecruisers, damaging two of them before being forced to turn away to avoid torpedoes that damaged her squadron flagship and caused the squadron to lose contact with the rest of the fleet. Revenge emerged from the battle unscathed, but she saw no further action during the war, as the British and German fleets turned to more cautious strategies owing to the risk of submarines and naval mines.
HX convoys were transatlantic convoys in the North Atlantic during the First World War and in the Battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War. HX convoys sailed eastwards from Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada, to Liverpool and other ports in Britain. They were joined the BHX convoys from Bermuda en route. After the United States entered the war, HX convoys began at New York.
Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, was a Royal Navy officer in both the First and the Second World Wars. He was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, for sinking a Soviet cruiser during the Russian Civil War.
The first USS Thomas (DD–182) was a Wickes-class destroyer of the United States Navy that entered service just after World War I.
The Sun Life Building is a historic 122-metre (400 ft), 24-storey office building at 1155 Metcalfe Street on Dorchester Square in the city's downtown core of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
HMS Emerald was an Emerald-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built by Armstrong at Newcastle-on-Tyne, with the keel being laid down on 23 September 1918. She was launched on 19 May 1920 and commissioned 14 January 1926.
HMS Bonaventure was the lead ship of the Dido-class light cruisers built for the Royal Navy (RN) during the 1930s and during the Second World War. Completed in 1940, Bonaventure was assigned to the Home Fleet and participated in Operation Fish, the evacuation of British wealth from the UK to Canada in July. The ship made one short patrol in August into the North Atlantic to search for German blockade runners and followed that up by escorting an aircraft carrier as it conducted air strikes in Southern Norway in September. The next month she was tasked to provide cover for anti-shipping raids off the Norwegian coast. Bonaventure participated in the unsuccessful search for the German commerce raider Admiral Scheer in November and sustained weather damage that caused her to spend time in a dockyard for repairs. She was part of the escort force for Convoy WS 5A in December and helped to drive off another German commerce raider. While searching for stragglers from the convoy, the cruiser sank a German blockade runner.
SS Laurentic was a British transatlantic ocean liner that was built in Belfast, Ireland, and launched in 1908. She is an early example of a ship whose propulsion combined reciprocating steam engines with a low-pressure steam turbine.
HMCS Moncton was a Flower-class corvette that served in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. She served on both coasts of Canada. She is named after Moncton, New Brunswick.
SS Letitia was an ocean liner built in Scotland for service with the Anchor-Donaldson Line. She continued to serve with its successor company Donaldson Atlantic Line. At the start of the Second World War in September 1939, the British Admiralty requisitioned the ship for service and had it converted to serve as an armed merchant cruiser. She was withdrawn from this service in 1941 to become a troop ship.
HMCS Weyburn was a Royal Canadian Navy Flower-class corvette which took part in convoy escort duties during the Second World War. She fought primarily in the Battle of the Atlantic. She was named for Weyburn, Saskatchewan. She was sunk by mine in 1943.
Émile Bertin was a French fast light cruiser named after Louis-Émile Bertin, a 19th-century naval architect. She was designed to operate both as a minelayer and as a destroyer flotilla leader. The design was the basis for later light and heavy French cruisers, particularly the slightly larger La Galissonnière class of cruisers. This was the first French warship to use triple mountings for guns.
Convoy HX 300 was the 300th of the numbered series of World War II HX convoys of merchant ships from Halifax to Liverpool. It started its journey on 17 July 1944 and was the largest convoy of the war, comprising 166 ships.
Talthybius was a 10,224 GRT Cargo liner that was built in 1911 by Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd, Greenock, Renfrewshire, United Kingdom for a British shipping line. She was sunk at Singapore in an air raid in 1942. Salvaged by the Japanese, she was renamed Taruyasu Maru, serving with the Imperial Japanese Navy until 1945 when she either struck a mine off Sado Island and sank or was sunk in an attack by aircraft of Task Force 38. She was salvaged by the British, passed to the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) and renamed Empire Evenlode. She served until 1949, when she was scrapped.
Snow Treasure is a children's novel by Marie McSwigan. Set in Nazi-occupied Norway during World War II, it recounts the story of several Norwegian children who use sleds to smuggle their country's gold bullion past German guards to a waiting ship, the Cleng Peerson. Published in 1942, it has been in print ever since. The book was made into a film of the same name in 1968, directed by Irving Jacoby.
Events from the year 1940 in Scotland.
Between 1939 and 1941 objects of fine and decorative art deemed to be of exceptional artistic or historical value, which became known collectively as Polish National Treasures, were evacuated out of Poland at the onset of World War II in September 1939 and transported via Romania, France, and Britain to Canada. The bulk of them came from the Wawel Castle in Kraków and included a rich collection of Jagiellonian tapestries, as well as Szczerbiec, the medieval coronation sword of Polish kings; these came to be known as Wawel Treasures, an appellation sometimes erroneously extended to all of the evacuated items. Most of the rest of the salvaged objects were manuscripts from the National Library in Warsaw, including the earliest documents in the Polish language and Frédéric Chopin's autograph sheet music. The treasures were complemented by works of art from the Royal Castle of Warsaw and a Gutenberg Bible from the library of the Catholic Higher Seminary of Pelplin. After the end of the war, the treasures remained in Canada for nearly two decades due to competing claims made by the new communist government of Poland and the London-based Polish government-in-exile. Negotiations spanned over fifteen years before they were eventually returned to Poland in 1961.
The gold reserve of the United Kingdom is the amount of gold kept by Bank of England as a store of value of part of the United Kingdom's wealth. Leftover from the Gold Standard which the country abandoned in 1931, it is the 17th largest central bank reserve in the world with 310.29 tonnes of gold bars.
HMS Sunflower was a Flower-class corvette of the Royal Navy. She served during the Second World War.
