what happened during the Operation Fish in 1940?

On this day 30th May 1940.

The story of the Operation fish

British battleship HMS Revenge, troop transport HMS Antonia, and troop transport HMS Duchess of Richmond with £40 million, £10 million, and £10 million in gold, respectively, departed from Britain for Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

With storm clouds gathering in 1939 and the threat of a war in Europe, the Bank of England decided to increase its gold reserves held at the bank of Canada in Ottawa. During the summer of 1939 and early 1940 half a dozen ships (HMS Emerald, Southampton, Glasgow) moved over 100 Tons of gold to Canada for safe storage.

With these ships having successfully tested the waters, and the war situation in Europe turning grave, Winston Churchill gave the green light to “Operation Fish” which would massively accelerate the movement of gold and securities from Britain to Canada.

Using their wartime powers, the Churchill government confiscated the securities that the British people were forced to register at the beginning of the 1940 and included those in the shipments to Canada. By the end of Operation Fish over 1,500 Ton’s of Gold made it’s way to Ottawa, and Over 300 Billion in Securities to Montreal (in today’s $’s).

The Invasion of England was a very real possibility in Mid-June 1940. The German armed forces were on the French Channel coast and Netherlands and Belgium already fell to the Nazis. France was on the verge of capitulation with the Nazi’s parading into Paris in June / 1940. To make matters worse, Italy just entered the war on Germany’s side.

Moving Britain’s wealth to Canada was not an easy decision. The only way to transport the tons of gold and securities was by ship across the U-boat infested North Atlantic. In May of 1940 over 100 ships were sunk by the Nazis. This represented 41% of all ship tonnage and with only 1 u-boat loss..

History wasn’t on Britain’s side either as they tried to evacuate their wealth to Canada in World War I, with the SS Laurentic, carrying 43 tons of gold from Liverpool to Halifax, it was sunk in 1917 by a German submarine off of Ireland.

The goal of Operation Fish was if Britain fell to the Nazis Churchill would run the Commonwealth from Montreal. The gold and securities would be used to fund the war effort by buying planes, tanks, guns and ammunition from Canada and the USA.

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