Redd Gullet! – English version titled, Gold Run – please see below

The following is a true story concerning arguably one of the greatest gold snatches in history. It is a tale of immense bravery, endurance and great leadership of loyal Norwegians…plus a little good fortune and help from the British against that of betrayal, intrigue and spies.

The night of April 8th/9th 1940 was a traumatic period in the history of Norway: Hitler’s Third Reich had launched a completely unprovoked attack on neutral Norway, sweeping up its Scandinavian neutral partner Denmark in the process. Simultaneous invasion landings took place along the south and west coast of Norway as the might of the German armed forces swung into action. However, the Germans had grossly miscalculated the defiance of a small coastal battery, Oscarsborg Fort, that defended the Narrows in Oslofjord that lead directly to the much-prized capital, Oslo – home to the Norwegian Royal Family, the government and the nation’s gold bullion. The fort, commanded by Colonel Eriksen ordered his guns into action and as the lead German ship, the mighty cruiser Blücher, came into view, Eriksen gave the order to fire and two enormous shells ripped into the pride of the German force and set her ablaze. As the crippled ship inched forward two torpedoes fired from the battery slammed into Blücher’s port side ensuring a watery grave for the ship and a great loss of many Germans in the icy waters of Oslofjord – the invasion had been stalled for a crucial few hours.

Redd-Gullet-01The Norwegians, surprised by the unprovoked attack, but taking advantage of the sinking of the Blücher immediately took steps to move the Royal Family, its government and the nation’s gold reserves to safety; an urgent cry for help was dispatched to Britain. Meanwhile, the German minister to Norway, Dr Bräuer was handing the Norwegian government an ultimatum of nineteen pages totally unaware that the invasion to capture Oslo had stalled: stunned, he was dismissed out of hand by the Norwegian government. Using any form of transport they could lay their hands on the Royal Family and the government made good their escape. Hotly pursued by the Germans the Norwegian Royal party were bombed and strafed at every opportunity, but fortune was on their side and after a series of lucky escapes they found themselves at the west coast port of Molde, but even here the relentless bombing continued and to escape certain death the Royal party sought the relative safety of the woods on the hillside above Molde. Meanwhile, the Bank of Norway, with the help of some of its employees and a handful of soldiers had managed to secure road, rail and fishing boat transport to move the bullion away from the desperate, grabbing hands of the Germans. Combating German parachute troops and dodging enemy bombers the Norwegian soldiers and bank officials managed to get the bullion away to safety of the then unoccupied west coasts ports of Åndalsnes, Molde and Tromsø – it was at Åndalsnes that a spy was caught and disposed of – and into the safe hands of the Royal Navy through a determination that surpasses all.

Redd-Gullet-03Three Royal Navy cruisers – HM Ships Enterprise, Galatea, and Glasgow rescued the gold under appalling conditions…attacked in port and then constantly chased, harassed and bombed by the Luftwaffe as they made their way back to the UK. However, all three cruisers safely made it to their designated ports: Enterprise docked at Devonport, whilst Galatea and Glasgow off-loaded their precious cargo on the Clyde. Intriguingly an enterprising Royal Marine pocketed some of the gold, but was later caught although not all of the gold was recovered.

HMS Glasgow’s role was slightly different to the others as she not only liberated 23 tons of bullion from the pursuing Germans, but was also further tasked with rescuing King Haakon, his son Crown Prince Olav, and members of the Norwegian Government. King Haakon, not wanting to forsake his people, asked Captain Pegram if he could be taken to North Norway where he could carry on the fight. Pegram obliged the King and HMS Glasgow sailed duly north. A short time later and having executed their duty to the King, Glasgow returned to Greenock to off-load her precious cargo of bullion.

With still a considerable cargo left on the dockside when HMS Glasgow departed Molde under air attack, the remaining bullion was taken north by lorry, boat and finally fishing boats to Tromsø, but on their way they too were attacked and harried managing to hide from a lurking U-boat before finally making the safety of Tromsø and handing their precious cargo over to HMS Enterprise which steamed at full speed to the UK. The gold had been rescued

NB. The manuscript has been published in Norway (Dinamo 2010) under the title of ‘Red Gullet!’ – aka ‘Save the Gold!’. I am currently seeking to publish the book in English.

Robert Pearson – March 2014

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August 2014: I can confirm that I have been in discussions with a UK based publisher to publish the book in USA as well as the UK. Will update the page as soon as I have official confirmation. Proposed release date is the Spring of 2015.

December 2014: Casemate has issued their spring catalogue for 2015 and it includes a piece on the English version of Redd Gullet!, titled, ‘Gold Run’. Please see the link for details: http://www.casematepublishing.co.uk/pdf/Spring2015_Catalogue.pdf The book is to be released in hardback form in the UK and USA.

May 2015: I am pleased to announce that ‘Gold Run’ has now been published and is available from Casemate Publishing and Amazon, both in the UK and USA.

"Harald Espeli in his article about Norges Bank under okkupasjonen [occupation] mentions your work as the most thorough study of the gold transport."

Professor Dag Tangen – School of Business & Economics, Oslo