I am thinking your story and this one have got mixed together.
In early April 1941 and in light of the fact that the country of Greece was to fall to the Nazi occupation, orders were given by the government to transfer the gold reserves from the National Bank of Greece to "lands that were not occupied".
According to documents that have been published,the total of the gold reserves for Greece at that time was 611,000 ounces in the form of bars and British sovereigns (approx 17.4 tons).
In total secrecy the reserves were loaded on the frigates " King George" and "Queen Olga" and ordered to sail from Pireaus harbor in Athens for Irakleion ,Crete where it was to be stowed in the Bank of Greece there.
Because of attacks from enemy bombers while the ships were en route, a decision was made ,orders were changed and the gold was to go to Egypt.
The Greek frigates met up with the Brittish Royal Navy corvette "Salvia" and the frigate "Dido" ,the gold was transferred to those ships while under heavy attack.
The gold made it safely to Alexandria Egypt were it was tranfered and stored in the Bank of Egypt in Cairo.
But after some success by Rommel in North Africa, it was ruled that the gold was unsafe even there.
King George of Greece was on his way to London with his family via South Africa, so it was only natural that the gold reserves follow him, so the gold ended up in Germiston,Traansval, where it was decided to change the gold coins to bars.
After a short period of safe keeping in the Bank of South Africa, when it was deemed safe, and the gold was not under threat from the Germans, it was loaded and transfered once again, this time to London.
At the end of the war, and with the allied occupion, when Greece asked for return of the gold reverves from Britain, the answer was ,"the reserves were used to cover the xpenses of the Greek Armed Forces in the Middle East and that "the Crown owed nothing to Greece"
It is worth noting here ,that on March 9 1942, the Crown had signed an agreement with Greece that they would cover all the expenses of the Greek Armed Forces since they were under direct orders from British Middle East Headquarters.
Now, in 1942 there were two resistance groups in Greece. EDES and ELAS. EDES was right wing, ELAS was left.
According to British documents,during the period 1942-44, there were 1,300,000 gold sovereigns dropped by parachute in small aluminum tubes or "barrels" to these resistance forces for support. 250-300,000 to EDES and 1,000,000 to ELAS.
At the end of the War and with the exit of the allied forces, the country was in total anarchy and in need of a government. Rioting,killing and looting was rampant, and civil war broke out.
The left wing forces wanted a communist government for the people and their method of persuation was force. Join the "Party" or die.
They roamed the countryside taking whatever was needed for the "cause" looting, plundering,recruiting soldiers by force.
As an afternote, during 1942-44, ELAS wasn't a total communist party.It was a left resistance movement.It became communist toward the end of the war. Thats a whole different story on its own.
Because of the war, the National paper currency was worthless, and the currency of the day was gold coin, so we can only imagine how much gold was looted ,and if we take into account the 1,300,000 sovereigns dropped by parachute this is the gold which we seek.
Now because of finds of documentation found in bunkers in the mountains, we come to conclusions that there was an organized plan and all the gold was for the "party",hidden in approximately 1100 hideouts throughout the country to be used for whatever was necessary for the party's survival.
We dont know the exact figure of the gold coins out there, but we can only speculate if we take into account how much gold was used for arms, clothing ,food, ( a lot of this was also stolen )how much gold was stolen by the crooked captains and their bunch and re hidden, how much was stolen from the people,from the monasteries ( probably close to half of what was dropped by the Brits. The monasteries ruled over the centuries and held a lot of wealth.),but we know there were 1100 documented caches of which approximately the 7-800 have been found or removed by members of the party who returned after many years in exile,found by accident etc.
They had their own code for hiding , marking large trees and big rocks which they knew would withstand time.
These caches can be anywhere from 500-1000, 1000-4000,7000 (ammo can),20,000 or 40,000 gold sovereigns which was a large olive oil can of the day.
They would organize the cache location. They were topographers. A group would go make the marks, then the captain or 2nd lieutenant would would have slaves or soldiers carry the loot,dig the hole, and in most cases everyone present would get shot after the cache was hidden, and only the #1 and 2# knew where the cache was. The cache would have a number and thats how we know how many there were. There were notebooks with the codes.
These were held by the colonels. Some have come to light. A lot have been deciphered.
We know a lot more now from past finds.
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« Last Edit: August 17, 2013, 08:10:41 pm by seldom »
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