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    American Military use of Gold Sovereigns...


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    • 5 months later...

    Was chatting with someone on another forum, who had this to say.......

    OK, I asked a retired Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) instructor

    with about 40 years of experience.

    As for gold coins in evasion "barter kits," the last time that the USAF and the

    other services used these was in WW II. I have heard stories from old pilots

    about how they would try to appropriate these coins from survival kits, such

    that some units resorted to encasing the coins in large bars of wax to prevent

    tampering.

    Notably, the CIA used gold coins in the early 1960s and Francis Gary Powers was

    found with gold barter coins after his U-2 was shot down, these were presented

    as material evidence at his espionage trial.

    The USAF considered the idea of gold barter coins in the very early days of

    Vietnam, but the SERE people vetoed the proposition rationalizing that an

    isolated person is worth more as a prisoner without valuable property, than as

    a prisoner found with valuable property (in which case they would probably

    end-up being a robbed corpse). In Vietnam, some Air America (CIA) pilots wore

    heavy gold bracelets when they flew, the object was to use these to buy

    assistance while evading, but it was a personal preference and not official

    policy.

    Now the British continued the tradition of gold coins up to Desert Storm, and

    on one particular occasion an evading SAS unit obtained some very unwelcome

    attention in a village when they used their coins while evading in a country

    other than Iraq -- they very quickly ran out of coins.

    The short answer is that gold barter coins were last used in WW II (maybe in

    the early Cold War), but never used by American crews in Vietnam nor later in

    Desert Storm.

    Bill Jones (LM #91)

    I was particularly interested in his story about the SAS, which I`ve asked for more info on if he has. If so I`ll post it here, for anyone whopse interested.

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    Andy McNabb's Bravo State 00 or whatever it's call sign was were issued with them were'nt they?

    Sure did, as it various other call signs & RAF pilots, etc. See Military use of the Gold Sovereign, During the First Gulf War (1991), on this topic for more details if your interested.

    Gordon.

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