Stripping us Bare - Part Two

Here’s a small, poignant addition to the item I wrote last week about the stripping bare of Britain’s Gold Reserves by the USA before the beginning of ‘Lend-Lease’.

 

The US Navy cruiser Louisville is recorded as having travelled to Simonstown in South Africa, then a British base, on Sunday 5th January 1941. There, she picked up British gold worth almost $150 million at 1941 rates ( at a guess, £1.2 billion by today’s rates) , and steamed to New York to unload it, arriving on 22nd January.

 

I am told (I won’t say by whom just now) that Churchill was more or less instructed to have the gold ready for collection on the stated date.

 

The cruiser is said to have trained a spotlight on her Stars and Stripes flag ,  while passing through U-boat-infested waters, to emphasise her neutral status.

 

On January 8th of that year, it is interesting to note, US Navy Admiral William Leahy presented his credentials (presumably to Marshal Petain)  as US Ambassador to Vichy France.