Evidence has emerged of a wartime blunder that resulted in millions of pounds of Russian bullion, supposedly bound for America, being lost in the river Clyde. The gold and silver bars had been loaded in Murmansk onto a former Irish Sea ferry, converted into a battle cruiser with her superstructure stripped to take part in a dangerous Arctic convoy.

The bullion was to pay the Americans for arms shipped to Russia during one of the most crucial stages of the Second World War.

The former ferry, HMS Ulster Queen, arrived in Greenock in November 1942, after 13 days at sea and two ships sunk by German U-boats. But as a delicate operation began to transfer the cases of treasure onto a waiting boat, one slipped and fell into the muddy waters.

In fact, the incident has only come to light thanks to a secret diary kept by one of the Ulster Queen's engineers, and now revealed by his daughter for the first time in a new book.

Edinburgh man Leonard H. Thomas served on the Ulster Queen on four convoys to and from Murmansk and Archangel in Russia's extreme northwest.

Mr Thomas had got into the habit of keeping copious notes and sketches during his pre-war role as a crewman on the research ship RRS Discovery II in the Southern Ocean.

He had joined the Discovery as a 17-year-old in his native Portsmouth. He continued his writings on the Convoys - but aware that should any of his diaries be discovered he would be in serious trouble, he wrote in code and secreted them well.

Before he died in 2000, aged 88, he transcribed some of them into four A4 journals, which his daughter, Leona Thomas, has now edited into a book.

To read the complete article, see:
Was Soviet wartime fortune lost by accident in the Clyde? Evidence emerges that case of bullion fell into river as it was transferred between ships during secret operation (www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3039284/Was-fortune-wartime-Soviet-gold-lost-accident-Clyde-Evidence-emerges-case-bullion-fell-river-transferred-ships-secret-operation.html)