The "Nashvilles gold "

[Linda Brown]

Zorgon... please put this wherever it is most appropriate. Littleenki and I got involved in a discussion about something that happened in 1938 regarding a US destroyer... the USS Nashville. There is a bit of a mystery surrounding her first voyage and I would like to continue that discussion here if thats alright. We had begun in the " Hello, New Amigos" spot I think and quickly outgrew it.

I also wanted to correct an error I made when I wrote that she sailed from Portsmouth. According to other records it was Portland, England. I had Portsmouth on the brain, sorry.

I first learned about the ship when my Dad was encouraged by others to write a short autobiography... more for " the record" than anything else. It was just for his personal file. That paper I think can be found on the Qualight site which has served for years as our family archive. I will try to get a link to it for you.

In that paper Dad mentioned the secret gold shipment. Only he specified that it was 50 million. Now thats a major difference and my Dad was not prone to exageration with record keeping. He very carefully noted how the garbage trucks arrives and how the wooden crates were checked in at the bottom of the gangplank by one set of officers and checked in at the top by the officers of the ships company. I wondered at the time why a lowly seaman would know anything about the technicalities of that much gold.... the entire operation had to be extremely secret. He made a point of noting that they sailed immediately afterward.

It has only been in the last few years that information has come to me from sources that I trust that the " other" 25 million was picked up by agents of a certain Canadian by the name of William Stephenson.... that Stephenson himself was standing there on the deck with Dad by his side.... watching the gold being loaded. My source  has made mention that the gold was not the only thing that Stephenson was interested in....  That there were other larger but much lighter boxes that were afforded the same security.
And thats why I bring the Nashville up.  Linda Brown

[Linda Brown]

This is the section of the autobiography I think others might find interesting
http://www.qualight.com/misc/auto.htm

This is not dated but I know that Dad dictated this short autobiography in his office at Avalon on Catalina Island. Would have made the date the summer of 1973.

Its long but I would like to copy it here so that your readers can see this section  right away.... The total paper is charming group of memories though and well worth going to Andrew Bollands site if you are interested in more of it.
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U.S. Navy - Trip to Europe on U.S. Nashville (Maiden Voyage):

Chamberlain was trying to stop Hitler - visited Stockholm, Sweden, Goteberg, Germany on U.S. Nashville on her maiden voyage. We listened to gun-fire of Germans at practice, getting ready for World War II. We were exposed to the German Navy while we were in the Baltic sea, but no incidents occurred. We then went to Portsmouth, England. Of course, it was while we were there that the pending war became so hot we were told to leave for safety's sake, in dead of night - which we did. Before we left they loaded 50 million dollars worth of gold aboard. It was gold brought from London (Bank of England) and it arrived at ship side in 3 garbage trucks - no escort, motorcycles or convoy. We had it carried aboard and placed in the magazines of the ship. It was in ingots encased in wooden boxes. Each gold nugget in wooden box with numbers boldly stamped on each box. Each box worth 1/4 million and weighed so much it was all one man could do to carry it. One man was at the foot of gangway making entries in large ledger as it was unloaded from the trucks - a check-off-list - and another man with a similar ledger at the head of the elevator/conveyor which lowered the gold into the magazines. These two ledgers had to check. This gold was consigned to the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York.

We had barely returned from leave in London when we were on full alert and ordered to set sail immediately. Out in the Atlantic, South of Iceland, we ran into the tail of a hurricane up from the West Indies - with mountainous seas. The forward deck of the ship was 10 ft. underwater between waves!! The officers amused themselves by saying that this might be the "Golden Gallion" never to be discovered in water so deep, let alone salvaged.
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Oh.... see..... I was right, it was Portsmouth..... or at least thats what Dad wrote. One other internet account have it at Portland. Course they say it was twenty five million too.

Linda

[rdunk]

Of course, that was when gold was probably @ $35 per ounce. At today's prices, the $50 million would equate to between 2.0 and 2.5 billion dollars. That was then, and is now, a lot of gold!

[Linda Brown]

Yes rdunk thanks for bringing that up. I haven't looked at what gold was priced at per ounce.... But Dads statement of fifty million THEN would be Billions now....somebody who is a historian of gold prices, let us know what that would be.... curious.

Going further I know that it wasn't long before William Stephenson private intelligence network was in full operation..... his cable address in New York ( where he was supposed to be a Passport Official for England) was " Intrepid".  He hired mainly women.... usually Canadian students... they " ran codes" personally from Washington DC and New York City..... could have been very dangerous work if anyone had ever discovered who they were. Most of those ladies never said anything about their connection with William Stephenson... I discovered in my search about my Dads activities that Mother was one of those ladies..... in fact.... she was listed as a " supervisor" He was on the hunt for Nazi sympathizers in the United States and was doing everything that he could at the time to convince the United States government to join in the war because he knew that was probably the only thing that could save England.

He paid for all of the thousands who worked for him at this time " out of his own pocket" it is said. The major question remains..... who put the money in his pocket to begin with? My sources have told me that Twenty five million went toward that New York Passport office" as well as various scientific accomplishments and projects. Dads was one of them.

Linda