Ted Barris on WW II’s Operation Fish
STORY BY ALEX BOWERS
“It’s a stunning story that has sort of been lost to time,” said Canadian author and journalist Ted Barris on WW II’s stranger-than-fiction Operation Fish.
That tale, recounted in the bestselling author’s 2023 book Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory, involved a bold yet desperate gamble to safeguard Britain’s gold in the event of a Nazi invasion—by shipping the country’s entire reserves to Canada.
Despite remaining little-known today, Barris believes that the mission’s importance, with all its immense perils, can’t be overstated. “We often think of the Second World War as being a six-year-long siege,” he said. “Well, there were pivot points along the way where had they gone differently, the war would have been much longer and might not have ended up the way it did. One of those pivot points was Operation Fish.”
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Royal Canadian Legion, US Branch #25 