Pimpernel Gold: How Norway foiled the Nazis

By Dorothy Baden-Powell

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031261165X
• ISBN13: 9780312611651
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: St. Martin's
• Length: 207 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

What A Movie Plot!

"Pimpernel Gold" by Dorothy Baden-Powell Subtitled: "How Norway Foiled The Nazis". St. Martin's Press, New York 1978. This book reads like a movie plot. In reality, it was written by a Norwegian lady who served in the WRNS, (Women's Royal Naval Service) in the Second World War. Dorothy Baden-Powell also served in the British SOE (Special Operations Executive), whose task was to "...set Europe ablaze", according to Winston Churchill. Dorothy Baden-Powell records her experiences in another book. The author was friendly with King Haakon of Norway, and also with Crown Prince Olav. She uses some of their memories to fill in places in the book, "Pimpernel Gold". In April, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Norway, and met with some early successes and some naval set-backs. What we would call "special forces", nowadays, were sent into the snowy country of Norway to (a) capture the king and the crown prince and (b) grab Norway's gold reserves. The author recounts how groups of Norwegian volunteers were gathered to collect the tons of gold bullion, load it on a train and move everything away from the rapidly approaching front lines. Almost casually, she tells how the Norwegian "reserve soldiers" gather their rifles, load the gold, convince the SWEDISH train engineer to get going and race away from the advancing Germans. The book was like a movie. The train just gets away from one group of Germans. The Norwegians hide the train, loaded with gold, in a gully/valley, but they still discovered by a German scout plane. Are they being betrayed by Norwegian Quisling spies?? A Nazi force, looking for the King, finds the gold train, but the Germans are easily defeated. One Norwegian volunteer is killed, and then, later in the book, his brother is also killed. The decision is made to off-load the gold onto "lorries", and these trucks race ahead of the advancing German army. The fully loaded trucks reach a coastal port, where most of the gold is loaded onto allied destroyers. One set of vehicles are delayed by a bombing raid (the Luftwaffe was very active), and reach the port after the last vessel has left. So!, HMS Glasgow, a Royal Navy destroyer, is signalled and she comes into the port to get the last of the gold. While all of this naval maneuvering is taking place, the leader of the Norwegian volunteers (who have saved Norway's gold) is greeted by Norway's King Haakon, who is also leaving the country. If it weren't for the war time experiences of Dorothy Baden-Powell, the reader would be inclined to dismiss some of the coincidences and easy victories of the Norwegian volunteers as too much artistic license of an arm-chair author, but she tells like it was.

Pimpernel Gold: a great read at any age.

I first read the Pimpernel Gold during middle-school, and then again in college. While it's prose at best is simple enough for a middle-schooler, the story is impossible to put down at any age. This true story has everything: evil Nazi's, a train full of royal gold, a young officer charged with shipping the gold out of occupied Norway, partisans hiding from the Gestapho, lovers separated by war, and plenty of near-escapes.If ever there was a WWII story worthy of a movie screen-play, this is it!