In September 1939, the British government decreed that all people living in the UK had to declare their securities with the
Treasury. 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 Agar and his ship, the
light cruiser . At 23:18 on 3 October 1939,
Emerald dropped anchor in
Plymouth, England. A short time later, Agar was briefed by Rear Admiral
Lancelot Holland on his mission. The written instructions are below. 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, as well as her spotter plane, a
Fairey Seafox. 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 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. 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, 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. 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 $2.5 billion (US$ billion in ) had been shipped from the UK to Canada without one gold bar being lost. ==Commemoration==