[waspgold]

I have no hard evidence, but have been told the following............


"I was a GLO on a GR4 Sqn. In the gulf I had to sign for all of the gold, money & blood chits. All were wrapped into bundles that consisted of:

1 x blood chit (printed on waterproof paper IIRC)
10 x Large Krugerrands (from the picture on the previous page)
$250 or $500 (can't remember, sorry) in $20 bills

With reference to the last, if crews had to divert and didn't take some operating cash with them, then God bless 'em, they'd just pile inot the cash and try to justify it on their return. Some of the packs had mangy $1's, $5's and the like! On our Op, all received the same pack-up which was signed out just prior to flight with their PPW. The Ops Sgt and I spent a whole day at either end of the tour sorting it all out and checking it for audit purposes. We calculted that the safe where it was all kept had in excess of £40,000 in gold alone!!!"


"If I recall it was the biggest one (sorry, can't remember what it was called!) of those in the picture and the guys carried 5 of them. I think they amounted to about £2500 and were wrapped in the E&E maps and then plastic to stop the maps getting covered in sweat (not that it made a difference to the map, I guess it was to stop them stinking out the office!). They would carry them along with their goolie chit in the top pocket of their flying suit. By the time they walked to the jets with everything else they had to carry they were a good couple of stones heavier!"

"Aircrew currently carry Krugerands. Had to sign for the detachments gold - some £40,000 worth!"