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Show j Martinique Has France's Gold ! $225,0C0,CC0 in Coin Still I Held Despite Orders .oaaed on the fast cruiser Emil Berlin Ber-lin and taken to Halifax under the command of Admiral Battet, who then went to Martinique despite reported re-ported efforts of British ships to halt his mission. Battet left Martinique, joined the Giraudists and made an attempt to swing Admiral Robert to Giraud's side. To Sink It in Sea. FORT - DE - FRANCE. MARTI-. MARTI-. NIQUE. Despke repeated orders : from the Vichy government to sink i some S2S5.000.0CO in gold coin stored in Fort Desaix's casemates, ' France's greatest single cache of i wealth is safe in Allied hands, i Officials recently found messages ; from Vichy in government house, I ordering Admiral Robert to resist with force any foreign intervention or internal uprising and to sink the ' gold and scutly the French warships war-ships and merchantmen in Fort-de-j France's harbor. The orders were j sent on the average of once every , three days. ! Plans for sinking the gold in the event of foreign attack had been completed. The 8.766 boxes of metal were to be loaded aboard one of l the ships and taken to sea at a point j known for its great depth. Here, where the sea is too deep for successful suc-cessful diving and retrievement. the gold was to be dumped overboard : and the ship itself scuttled. Colonel Leads the Way. j With Col. Pierre de Chevigne. I member of the French delegation' i from Washington and interim chief of the island's police and military establishments, leading the way, a ! guard of honor greeted an inspection party at the fort's gateway. The j colonel led the way toward the gold-' gold-' studded casemates holding the coin rom the Banque de France. The containers, each holding about I $32,000 in coins of various nations, , resemble so many boxes in a shoe-store. shoe-store. Most of the coins are French ' Louis d'Or, or 20-franc pieces of the days when the franc was more valuable, but one third of the total j is in U. S. $5 and $10 gold coins, j The "shoeboxes" are piled to shoulder height within three casemates case-mates about 50 feet underground and further protected by an additional addi-tional 40-foot rampart built above the ground at the fort's inner waE The boxes are sealed with heavy steel bands which require some time to break: Found It AU There. About two months ago the U. S. I naval observer. Capt. A. S. Hickey, and Marcel Malige, the consul, inspected in-spected the vaults to ascertain the presence of the gold. Accompanied by the local manager of the Banque de France, M. de Katof, who alone holds the key to the armored doorway, door-way, HicRey and Malige found that French officials had obligingly placed one of the heavy boxes on the floor, ready for opening. A large sack containing several smaller sacks was found inside. Opening one of these the inspectors found glittering coins of the Latin Monetary Union. Hickey plunged his hand in the sack, drew out a handful of coins and let them fall through his fingers. The American officials were thus satisfied the gold was still there, and so they reported to Washington. , lhen France fell, the gold wag |