Chasing Gold: The Incredible Story of How the Nazis Stole Europe's Bullion (41 page)

With the war going badly and the collapse of France imminent, the French National Bank’s René Gontier on Sunday morning June 9, arrived in Brest with instructions to take another gold shipment to the U.S.
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He and two other bank officials already in Brest went immediately to the office of Admiral Philip Brohan, the head of the French navy’s operation there. This facility, which juts out into the Atlantic from Brittany, was the country’s most important military base. It was also an ideal location for more gold shipments. Gontier said that the next convoy might carry as much as 900 tons.
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At the time, there were 16,201 cases of gold stored at Fort de Portzic, a facility built at the end of the seventeenth century to defend the city. The bullion had come from fifty-nine branch offices around France and included 4,329 boxes of coins, 9,797 large cases of bars, and 2,075 bags of coins. The navy had just spent two weeks moving it all to the fort.
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The bank staff and the French navy were systematically getting the cargo ready to be shipped, when on Friday June 14, 1940, the first alert warning of German air attacks sounded in Brest. Two days later, the French Admiralty sent out a message that all gold located in the ports of Brest and Lorient, another naval port sixty-five miles south, had to be loaded as soon as possible onto ships. The French navy, though, was able to find only six private vessels to carry it. They included three small passenger ships,
El Mansour
,
El Djezaïr
, and
El Kantara
; two larger ones, the
Ville d’Oran
, and the
Ville d’Alger
; and the
Victor Schoelcher
, a cargo ship that before the war carried bananas from Africa to Europe. It had already helped with one gold shipment to Halifax during the Phony War.
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The round trip for carrying the gold from the fort to dockside was about ten miles. Finally two days later at 5:00 P.M., the loadings began. The work started systematically with each container being inspected to verify the contents. There were eight trucks, and a driver and an armed navy guard manned each one. Gontier asked the sailors to work as late as possible, but because of the military blackout they had to stop at 9:00 P.M. During the night German planes dropped mines into the harbor, but the diligent crew started work again the next morning at 6:00.
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In mid-morning, an agitated Gontier went to the office of Admiral Brohan and bluntly told him that the loading was going too slowly. He demanded more trucks, but the officer replied that he didn’t have any. Gontier responded that at the rate they were going it would take a week to finish the job. By that time the Germans would be there. Instead of eight trucks, he wanted twenty bigger vehicles. He insisted that the navy should requisition all the trucks in the area. When he failed to get the answer he wanted, Gontier took his request to the admiral’s boss. The higher-ranking officer said he doubted he could locate more than a dozen, and he eventually found ten. That evening everyone at the port heard Marshal Pétain announce that he was asking the Germans for a peace settlement. Someone stuck a handwritten note on a wall saying that the loading had to continue. Gontier also told the navy that work had to continue day and night until the job was finished.
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A bank official phoned from Bordeaux and told him to get all the ships out of the harbor one by one as soon as they were loaded. The navy countermanded the order, saying that for safety reasons all the ships had to go out together. The
El Djezaïr
was ready to depart at 4:00 A.M. with 203 tons in its hold, but it had to wait.
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When Gontier returned to the fort the next day, more trucks had somehow miraculously appeared, and loading was faster. The French navy had discovered eleven six-ton trucks that the British had abandoned in their rush to get to Dunkirk. Enemy air attacks continuously halted the work, and some twenty bombs fell on the road between the fort and the docks.
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Three hours later, Admiral Traub, the head of the maritime region, received a phone call telling him that German armored vehicles had captured the city of Rennes, one hundred thirty miles away. There were no military units to stop the invaders before they reached Brest. A new order went out that every ship had to leave the port by 6:00 P.M. Gold was now being moved even during aerial attacks. Officers distributed spiked tea and wine to keep the men working. They explained that they certainly were not going to leave any wine for the conquering Germans. All the ships were now being loading simultaneously and frantically. At one point Gontier urgently yelled to one of the captains, “All gold must be shipped.” The captain shouted back, “We’re already doing the impossible.”
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At 1:00 in the afternoon, one of the port’s tugboats hit a magnetic mine only a few hundred yards from the
El Djezaïr
.

Realizing that they desperately needed more men to work at the fort, navy officers in the middle of the afternoon decided to enlist inmates from the nearby Pontaniou prison. The men were promised that they would be pardoned as soon as the job was finished. The navy men then quickly put in a new security check. Each prisoner was given a small piece of paper with a number on it that had to be returned after he delivered the gold.

At 5:00 P.M. on June 18, the last truck left the fort. An hour later, the
El Kantara
sent out an optical signal saying: “Loading finished. We’re setting off.” Several smaller and slower boats not carrying gold were trying to leave the port at the same time. Every ship’s captain and all those on board were living in fear that they would hit a mine and set off an explosion. Slowly, the five gold ships pulled away from the docks one by one. Once outside the harbor, they formed two columns, and their escort ships, the
Milan
and the
Epervier
, led them to open ocean. While the flotilla was leaving, the dispatch boat
Vauquois
hit a mine only a few hundred yards from the convoy. Back on shore, men torched the stocks of fuel, and fire lit up the sky. The two-day and two-night evacuation of the gold from Fort Portzic had been a success. The first five ships carried twenty-tree thousand cases that contained 1,120 tons of bullion.
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While the French gold was being rescued in Brest, the Polish and Belgian gold that had been turned over to the French was in equal danger. On June 7, the French navy had sent out an order: BELGIAN AND POLISH GOLD MUST ARRIVE IN LORIENT MONDAY JUNE TEN STOP.
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The Polish gold that had been in Nevers now had to go north by train.
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The Belgian gold that had been turned over to the French National Bank was stored near Bordeaux and would also be moved by rail. Admiral Hervé de Penfentanyo, the Navy’s harbormaster at Brest, ordered that the Polish and Belgian gold should be stored in a place where it could be “rapidly removed in a very short period of time.” The shipment went smoothly despite the war, and on 5:00 in the afternoon of June 13, Admiral Penfentanyo sent out a message: 1208 CASES OF POLAND AND 4944 CASES OF BELGIUM STOCKED AIR-RAID SHELTER STOP SUPPLY FLEET STOP COULD BE PICKED UP IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS STOP.
¹³

Two-and-a-half hours later, the French admiralty sent the cargo ship
Victor Schoelcher
a message that read HEAD TO LORIENT STOP. Captain Moevus was instructed to leave that night and proceed at a speed that would get it there early the next morning. The admiralty’s message: YOU HAVE TO PICK UP GOLD STOP MARITIME HARBORMASTER THERE WILL GIVE YOU THE NECESSARY ORDERS STOP ABSOLUTE SECRECY STOP.
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The ship arrived the next morning, at 6:35, and Moevus went on shore to get instructions from Admiral de Penfentanyo. He learned that his cargo was Belgian and Polish gold, which was packed and ready for shipment. The cargo consisted of 6,152 cases, with each weighing about 120 pounds. The admiral ordered him to pick up the cargo and leave port as soon as possible. The gold was currently stored in an air-raid shelter, but trucks and the police would get it to the dock. The captain said he had on board two men, a reserve lieutenant and a banana trader, who could handle security. Loading began immediately and continued without interruption, even through air-raid alarms. The torpedo boat
Epée
was assigned to be the escort out of the harbor.

Most of the Polish National Bank’s board members had by then left France for Britain, but they had assigned Stefan Michalski, also a board member, to remain with their gold. Michalski, his son, and the director of the French National Bank’s Lorient vault, monitored the operation with the care of a mother eagle fluttering around her nest.

Shortly before midnight, the navy harbormaster sent out a message saying that the Germans had dropped mines and until further notice no ships could depart. At 2:00 A.M. an explosions expert arrived to look at the situation. He said that dredgers would have to be brought in before it was safe to depart. Sailors came up with a jerry-rigged solution, but even that would not be ready until afternoon. In the meantime, the gold was to stay on board, but everyone had to get off the ships.

Before leaving the
Victor Schoelcher
, Michalski asked the captain, “Do you know our destination?”

Moevus replied, “No.”

“Neither do I, but I think that it should be either Canada or the Caribbean,” said the Pole.

Everyone in the harbor soon learned that the Germans expected to be there the next morning. There was no way that the de-mining could be completed by then. At an emergency meeting of top officials, Captain Moevus spelled out his pessimistic options, which were all bad. Even though the Germans would not be there until the following day, the Luftwaffe at any time could sink the
Victor Schoelcher
in shallow waters an easily retrieve the gold. He could also scuttle the ship, but the enemy would probably still pull it out of the water. Then he presented his plan. He proposed sailing out to open ocean following the mouth of the river. He would be passing parallel to the rocks on the coast. “That way, I would have the best chance of being far away from the mines,” he said. “Once I’m outside the harbor, I’ll sail with the
Epée
on a westerly route and wait to receive instructions for our destination.”
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Admiral de Penfentanyo was skeptical, but finally approved the captain’s risky plan. He didn’t have any better solution. The ship would leave at midnight. The staff offered to provide navigation equipment that the captain would need. The meeting was just breaking up, when a Lorient banker pulled up in a truck that was carrying some public and private papers. He asked the captain where he was going and if he could go on the ship as well. Moevus replied that he didn’t know his destination, but given how fast the enemy was coming it could only be Africa or America. The banker said that he did not have authority to take the papers outside France. The captain replied that the only assurance he could give was that he was going abroad. The man reluctantly left.

The
Victor Schoelcher
departed as planned on June 18. Orders to evacuate Lorient had been received two hours prior. All the people on board and in the harbor held their breath as Moevus sailed the route he had described. They expected that at any moment the ship would explode, but
Victor Schoelcher
kept bravely slipping through the water. The captain stayed in touch with officials on shore using marine flags. When it finally passed the ancient Port-Louis citadel, the last dangerous location, he signaled that he was going to proceed on a course west-by-southwest for the next twenty-four hours. The
Epée
replied, “I am on a 248 course.”
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The happiest man on board was Stefan Michalski, who told the captain, “I sincerely thank you for the perfect execution of this evacuation, and I ask you to please transmit my thanks to the staff whose disciplined ardor and courageous efforts permitted this success.”

Moevus received a message shortly before 6:00 P.M. instructing the
Victor Schoelcher
and the
Epée
to stay in the nearby Iroise Sea, where the water more than 100 meters deep. He should wait there for the flotilla from Brest to arrive. Those ships had left at almost the same time and were sailing at eighteen knots, without lights. A little before midnight, all the ships simultaneously saw each other in the dark. An escort ship sent out the message: FOLLOW US STOP COURSE 230 STOP SPEED EIGHTEEN KNOTS STOP. Moevus responded: THAT’S VERY PRETTY STOP. The
El Djezaïr
, though, answered: MY MAXIMUM SPEED 15.5 KNOTS.
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After aligning themselves and coordinating their speed, Moevus cabled: IN EVENT OF SEPARATION DON’T KNOW OUR DESTINATION.

The admiral replied: DESTINATION CASABLANCA.

A few hours later, the
Jean-Bart
left the port of Saint-Nazaire and took over escort duties. With everything finally a little calmer, Gontier of the French National Bank, who was aboard the
El Djezaïr
, asked the Admiralty to inquire how many cases he had on board. Moevus replied: LEFT WITH 4944 CASES BELGIAN GOLD AND 1208 CASES POLISH GOLD STOP HEAD OF THE CONVOY IS POLISH BANK DIRECTOR STOP. The five ships from Brest also sent the lists of their cargo. The six ships together were carrying 22,669 cases and bags containing 1,120 tons of bullion. The value of the cargo at the 1940 price of $35 an ounce was $1.3 billion.

At 10:00 in the morning on June 19, the
Victor Schoelcher
received a message from the French Admiralty instructing it to leave the convoy and head for Royan, a port at the mouth of the Gironde River estuary in southwestern France. Captain Moevus and Michalski were stunned, and the captain asked the
El Djezaïr
, the lead ship, to explain. The captain could only say that he had gotten a message two-and-a-half hours earlier telling him that the
Victor Schoelcher
should make the detour. The captain of the
El Djezaïr
, sent a message asking for a clarification, and the order was repeated that the
Victor Schoelcher
should go to Royan. By then, Michalski was furious and shouted: “I demand that you send the Admiralty an official protest from me in the name of the Polish government that I represent to the risks that this order causes the gold of the Polish State Bank.”
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