In 1945, at the end of the 2nd World War Japanese soldiers surrendered but some of them escaped. Others were put in prison in Palawan.
One Japanese soldier befriended one of his Filipino inmates. When the Japanese soldier knew that he will be executed he confessed to his Filipino friend about the treasure that they have buried in Negros. He passed the information and a simple map or direction to the hidden treasure.
When this Filipino inmate was finally freed after the war, he gave this map and the information about the hidden treasure to his bestfriend.
In 1953, the bestfriend of the Filipino co-inmate of the Japanese prisoner along with his close friends attemted to locate the buried treasure following the instructions on the map. They were aiming to retrieve the giveways of five gold bars hidden beside the waterfall at the depth of 6 feet.
The instructions on the map stated that once recovered these five gold bars should be utilized in retrieving the remaining of the hidden cache of gold bars buried deeper within the area. The cache was buried by bombing the sides of the waterfall to cover the treasure.
The Japanese covered it with concrete before bombing the place. The location was supposedly at the center of the area at the bottom of the 7th waterfall from the bottom of the mountain facing the east.
It was believed that over a thousand Filipino prisoners of war were forced to carry and stockpiled these the treasure. All of them were killed after theoperation. Upon the initial inspection to this place bones and skulls were still scattered around.
The first group who explored the site using the map alledgedly recovered the give-aways of five (5) gold bars each weighing approx. 6.5 kg. However, on their way down from the mountain, they were intercepted by the HUKs or HUKBALAHAP (Hukbong Bayan Laban sa mga Hapones) who sequestered the five (5) gold bars recovered from the 7th waterfall.
And one of those adventurers was a 16-year old lad who shared this information with his bestfriend. However, due to the mishap with the HUKS, all of them were traumatized and never desired to go back the place to recover theremaining of the hidden treasure.
All of this lad's companions during the retrieval were all dead by now. In 2000, the lad who was by the time 63 was invited by his best friend to revisit the site. And he could still vividly remember all the places where they had passed especially the place where they were intercepted by the armed men who confiscated their find.
They found out that this seventh waterfall had different surroundings. The stones and rocks were broken. Cut and splintered logs were all over the place making an indication of the bombing as described by the Japanese prisoner.
The group started to dig up a hole 10 by 10 feet not in accordance with the instructions given by the Japanese.
On the contrary the alledged instruction passed on by the Japanese prisoner was to move the three big rocks that held the stockpile to the lower portion of the creek, then start clearing until the concrete slab was reached. And the flooding during the rainy days would assist them to clear the stock pile and expose the concrete slab beneath.
The diggers didn’t follow the above procedures at first because they thought that by doing what they did, they could work it out more easily in a shorted time period. At 15 feet deep, they had recovered a Japanese helmet. At 27 feet theyhad finally reached the concrete slab. The alleged treasure contained the maps of the other buried treasure within the area.
Then after almost a year of operaton and having spent approx. P150,000.00 and had removed almost two-thirds (2/3) of the stockpile moved out becausethey had finally followed the right instruction.
However, on December 2002, a heavy rain struck the area and resulted to the collapse of the excavation and covered the hole with rocks once more.
The group are very willing to start the operation again, but because of insufficient funds they orginal group is now willing to work with anybody group who are willing to finace the retrieval operation.
Interested to know more? Send email
Aug 26, 2008
Aug 25, 2008
Aug 24, 2008
DENR requires treasure hunters to get permits
By TJ BurgonioPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 09:59pm (Mla time) 12/19/2007
MANILA, Philippines
Oops, hold it right there. You can't dig treasures inside caves without permit. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has issued an administrative order requiring treasure hunters to secure a permit before digging in caves across the country. Administrative Order No. 2007-34 was aimed at conserving, protecting and managing the flora and fauna in the caves from destructive treasure hunting, Environment Secretary Lito Atienza said.
"It is a national policy that the State should have full control and supervision in the discovery and disposition of hidden treasures in caves,'' he said.
The order governs the issuance of permits for the collection of hidden treasures in caves within public domain and private lands.
It complements Republic Act No. 9072, also known as the National Caves and Cave Resources Management and Protection Act.
"There's an ecosystem inside caves that should be protected from destructive treasure hunting activities,'' Director Mundita Lim of the Protected Area and Wildlife Bureau said in a phone interview.
The rich flora and fauna inside more than 1,000 caves across the country risk getting damaged by diggings, she said.
Over the years, there have been continuing reports about individuals digging caves in mountains in search of the famed Yamashita treasure.
Under the order, an individual, a partnership, association, cooperative, or corporation may apply for a permit upon payment of P10,000 application fee at the regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.
The permit is effective for one year, and may be renewed only once for another year.
The applicant is required to post a surety bond with the Government Service Insurance System or any accredited bonding company to guarantee payment for whatever damage that may be incurred during digging and excavations.
This is apart from the rehabilitation fee that will be posted by the applicant as a guarantee payment for disasters of adverse impacts on communities, according to the order. Teams from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources will monitor the treasure hunting activities to ensure the permit holder's compliance with the conditions of the permit.
Once hidden treasures are dug up, the National Museum will be called to assess whether these are of cultural and historical value. If they have such a value, they will be turned over to the Museum.
Otherwise, they will be turned over to the Oversight Committee for Treasure Hunting.
Of treasures recovered within public lands, 75 percent will go to the government and the rest to the permit holder. With regards to treasures dug up on private land, 30 percent will go to government, and the rest to the permit holder and landowner.
The permit will be cancelled once the terms are violated.
MANILA, Philippines
Oops, hold it right there. You can't dig treasures inside caves without permit. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has issued an administrative order requiring treasure hunters to secure a permit before digging in caves across the country. Administrative Order No. 2007-34 was aimed at conserving, protecting and managing the flora and fauna in the caves from destructive treasure hunting, Environment Secretary Lito Atienza said.
"It is a national policy that the State should have full control and supervision in the discovery and disposition of hidden treasures in caves,'' he said.
The order governs the issuance of permits for the collection of hidden treasures in caves within public domain and private lands.
It complements Republic Act No. 9072, also known as the National Caves and Cave Resources Management and Protection Act.
"There's an ecosystem inside caves that should be protected from destructive treasure hunting activities,'' Director Mundita Lim of the Protected Area and Wildlife Bureau said in a phone interview.
The rich flora and fauna inside more than 1,000 caves across the country risk getting damaged by diggings, she said.
Over the years, there have been continuing reports about individuals digging caves in mountains in search of the famed Yamashita treasure.
Under the order, an individual, a partnership, association, cooperative, or corporation may apply for a permit upon payment of P10,000 application fee at the regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.
The permit is effective for one year, and may be renewed only once for another year.
The applicant is required to post a surety bond with the Government Service Insurance System or any accredited bonding company to guarantee payment for whatever damage that may be incurred during digging and excavations.
This is apart from the rehabilitation fee that will be posted by the applicant as a guarantee payment for disasters of adverse impacts on communities, according to the order. Teams from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources will monitor the treasure hunting activities to ensure the permit holder's compliance with the conditions of the permit.
Once hidden treasures are dug up, the National Museum will be called to assess whether these are of cultural and historical value. If they have such a value, they will be turned over to the Museum.
Otherwise, they will be turned over to the Oversight Committee for Treasure Hunting.
Of treasures recovered within public lands, 75 percent will go to the government and the rest to the permit holder. With regards to treasures dug up on private land, 30 percent will go to government, and the rest to the permit holder and landowner.
The permit will be cancelled once the terms are violated.
3 Yamashita treasure hunters die in Laguna
Ferdinand F. Castro
BINAN, Laguna
Tragedy ended the search of brothers for the fabled Yamashita treasure in Barangay Timbao, this town.
A friend who desperately tried to save the two also lost his life in a freak accident.
Police were told that brothers Apolinario S. Samiano, 25, married, a tricycle driver, and his elder brother Bonifacio, 28, also married, a construction worker, had died inside the hole they had been digging for one month, reportedly, after they had inhaled toxic fumes.
Their friend, Percival Delgado, 42, single, a construction worker, reportedly had tried to save the two by using a rope to go down a 30-foot-deep hole, not knowing it was tied to a water pump, that when he descended, the pump also hurtled down and crashed on his head, killing him instantly.
Binan chief of police, P/Supt. Edgardo de Leon said the Samianos and Delgado were residents of Pandacan St., Sitio Kiliti, Timbao, Binan.
Police said relatives of the victims, Francisco J. Samiano and his wife, Lucita Salazar, answered questions of police in connection with the death of the three victims.
On Tuesday afternoon, Binan police received a call at about 5:45 p.m. informing them that an explosion took place at the compound of the residence of the Samiano couple where the victims live. Police probers were still trying to verify the said report.
The victims reportedly were looking for Yamashita treasure when the tragedy took place.
"Allegedly, pag may malapit na makuha ang object o ginto may lason ang mga takip or cover nito, iyon ang trap", De Leon had claimed.
General Yamashita was in command of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. When American forces, led by General Douglas MacArthur, arrived to liberate the Philippines, Yamashita reportedly hid in different places the fabled treasures he had amassed from the several places in the country, particularly in Baguio City.
Probers were still investigating the real cause of death of the victims. Police are also trying to investigate if the trios are victims of methane gas poisoning
source: http://www.mb.com.ph/issues/2007/11/15/PROV20071115108657.html
source:
BINAN, Laguna
Tragedy ended the search of brothers for the fabled Yamashita treasure in Barangay Timbao, this town.
A friend who desperately tried to save the two also lost his life in a freak accident.
Police were told that brothers Apolinario S. Samiano, 25, married, a tricycle driver, and his elder brother Bonifacio, 28, also married, a construction worker, had died inside the hole they had been digging for one month, reportedly, after they had inhaled toxic fumes.
Their friend, Percival Delgado, 42, single, a construction worker, reportedly had tried to save the two by using a rope to go down a 30-foot-deep hole, not knowing it was tied to a water pump, that when he descended, the pump also hurtled down and crashed on his head, killing him instantly.
Binan chief of police, P/Supt. Edgardo de Leon said the Samianos and Delgado were residents of Pandacan St., Sitio Kiliti, Timbao, Binan.
Police said relatives of the victims, Francisco J. Samiano and his wife, Lucita Salazar, answered questions of police in connection with the death of the three victims.
On Tuesday afternoon, Binan police received a call at about 5:45 p.m. informing them that an explosion took place at the compound of the residence of the Samiano couple where the victims live. Police probers were still trying to verify the said report.
The victims reportedly were looking for Yamashita treasure when the tragedy took place.
"Allegedly, pag may malapit na makuha ang object o ginto may lason ang mga takip or cover nito, iyon ang trap", De Leon had claimed.
General Yamashita was in command of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. When American forces, led by General Douglas MacArthur, arrived to liberate the Philippines, Yamashita reportedly hid in different places the fabled treasures he had amassed from the several places in the country, particularly in Baguio City.
Probers were still investigating the real cause of death of the victims. Police are also trying to investigate if the trios are victims of methane gas poisoning
source: http://www.mb.com.ph/issues/2007/11/15/PROV20071115108657.html
source:
Treasure hunter busted for selling fake gold
By Ernie N. Olson Jr.
BAGUIO CITY -- A treasure hunter and his two companions were arrested by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for selling a fake 32-kilogram gold bar.
The buyer became suspicious when the gold was sold to him at a discounted price of P16 million, way below its supposed value of P22 million.
NBI Regional Director Ricardo Pangan Jr. identified Tuesday the alleged swindler as Gabriel Mariano Bagtang, 67, married, a jobless resident of Purok 6, Pinsao Pilot Project who claims to be a treasure hunter.
Bagtang's two other companions, meanwhile, were found to have only acted as intermediaries and were said to be unaware that what they were selling was only a gold-plated bar.
The supposed buyer was Ferdinand Laceste Laranang, of legal age, married, a civil engineer, who lives along Mirador Hill. Laranang narrated that his cousin informed him last Friday that someone was looking for a buyer of a genuine gold bar being sold at a discounted price.
Laranang said he and the sellers executed an agreement over the gold bar Monday morning. Laranang said the sellers told him they would hand over the gold bar to him once he makes an advance payment of P5 million, and a guarantee that the balance would be paid within 24 hours.
He then issued the suspects a check for P5 million but informed them it could only be cashed at East-West Bank along Abanao Street at 2 p.m., to give him time to have the gold bar examined at the local Central Bank office.
Laranang had the genuine gold ingot sawed and scraped on its surface and it was then that it was discovered to be only gold-plated.
He said he immediately reported the incident to the NBI-Cordilleras, and Pangan formed a team to entrap the suspects while they where in the act of having the check cashed.
It was only during interrogation that Bagtang's companions reportedly realized they sold a fake gold bar. (Sun.Star Baguio/Sunnex)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2006/02/15/treasure.hunter.busted.for.selling.fake.gold.html
BAGUIO CITY -- A treasure hunter and his two companions were arrested by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for selling a fake 32-kilogram gold bar.
The buyer became suspicious when the gold was sold to him at a discounted price of P16 million, way below its supposed value of P22 million.
NBI Regional Director Ricardo Pangan Jr. identified Tuesday the alleged swindler as Gabriel Mariano Bagtang, 67, married, a jobless resident of Purok 6, Pinsao Pilot Project who claims to be a treasure hunter.
Bagtang's two other companions, meanwhile, were found to have only acted as intermediaries and were said to be unaware that what they were selling was only a gold-plated bar.
The supposed buyer was Ferdinand Laceste Laranang, of legal age, married, a civil engineer, who lives along Mirador Hill. Laranang narrated that his cousin informed him last Friday that someone was looking for a buyer of a genuine gold bar being sold at a discounted price.
Laranang said he and the sellers executed an agreement over the gold bar Monday morning. Laranang said the sellers told him they would hand over the gold bar to him once he makes an advance payment of P5 million, and a guarantee that the balance would be paid within 24 hours.
He then issued the suspects a check for P5 million but informed them it could only be cashed at East-West Bank along Abanao Street at 2 p.m., to give him time to have the gold bar examined at the local Central Bank office.
Laranang had the genuine gold ingot sawed and scraped on its surface and it was then that it was discovered to be only gold-plated.
He said he immediately reported the incident to the NBI-Cordilleras, and Pangan formed a team to entrap the suspects while they where in the act of having the check cashed.
It was only during interrogation that Bagtang's companions reportedly realized they sold a fake gold bar. (Sun.Star Baguio/Sunnex)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2006/02/15/treasure.hunter.busted.for.selling.fake.gold.html
Aug 18, 2008
Photo Essay
Looking down, the top level of the accumulated water in the dig before it is being pumped out in the moring. It is approx. 34 ft below the surface. The bottom floor is approx. 48 ft below the level of the ground where the photographer was standing.
The depth of water accumulated in the morning before pumping was MOL 14ft. It would take approx. 5 hours of pumping before the abanteros could go down and start the work. The 2HP submersible pump could pump out a max. capa. of 350 liter per min. with a maximum head of 35m. (115 ft). One could simply quantify the amount of water being pumped out in the morning before we could start the work.
--ooOOOoo--
The plastic buckets being lowered down in the dig. We were using a total of 4 pulleys and a manual winch to take out 70 buckets of 20 liters of sand everyday. Notice the cathedral like ceiling on top of the cavern. The shape was like a dome.
--ooOOoo--
This was one source of spring water located on the southwest corner of the dig at 40 ft below the ground level. Although crystal clear, some sort of grease compnents was highly visible on the photograph.--ooOOoo--
The part of the log recoevered at 48 ft. below surface. I kept this as a soveiner. I has it varnished and installed on a wooden stand.--ooOOoo--
This was the log laying 48 ft below the surface along east-west axis.--ooOOoo--
A handful of grease-like substance was splattered on the sand at the bottom of the dig to show the difference in color and texture on the soil located below the surface at the level of the then on-going excavation.--ooOOoo--
Different layers and structure of soil and sand located at ground zero.--ooOOoo--
Another comparative stain, color and texture of the soil below.--ooOOoo--
A pile of different soil and sand accumulating on the dumping area near the mouth of the dig.--ooOOoo--
The "grease" as recovered and packed in a plastic bag. The condition was so preserved that the color and the stickiness was so likened to the newly opened grease. If one has to consider that it stayed at the botoom of the dig for decades, it's endeed so inspiring to continue the excavation work. More than 50 buckets x 20 liters of this substance was taken out from the dig.--ooOOoo--
The shot was taken halfway below the dig looking up. It ring one could notice is the beginning of the cathedral opening of the cavern.--ooOOoo--
The :abantero" about to commence the work of the day. There was a time that the water was so muddy. This was on level 30-36 ft below surface.--ooOOoo--
This was some of the rocks found in the 1st chamber of the cave.--ooOOoo--
Another rock found in the second chamber.--ooOOoo--
The same rock in the seond chamber from another angle.--ooOOoo--
Aug 16, 2008
Deal or No Deal
(An Excerpt from MEN & EVENTS By Alito L. Malinao)
Source: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/aug/28/yehey/opinion/20070828opi6.html
Based on an earlier Supreme Court ruling, the Marcos net worth from l965 to February 1986 was estimated to be only P2.3 million. If that is so, how come that he has acquired properties that are worth billions of pesos?
On several occasions, in and outside the courts, former first lady Mrs. Imelda Romualdez Marcos has said that her husband was already a very rich man before he entered politics.
Lore or fact
This brings us back to the fabled Yamashita treasure that was supposed to be the source of Marcos’s immense wealth.
Yamashita’s gold, also referred to as the Yamashita treasure, is the name given to the loot worth tens of billions of dollars stolen in Southeast Asia by Japanese forces during World War II and hidden in caves, tunnels and underground complexes in the Philippines.
The “gold” reportedly included different kinds of valuables looted from banks, depositories, temples, churches, other commercial premises, mosques, museums and private homes. It takes its name from General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who assumed command of Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1944.
According to various accounts, the loot was initially concentrated in Singapore, from where it was later moved to the Philippines. The Japanese hoped to ship the treasure from the Philippines to Japan after the war.
Several historians have made well-documented cases that Yamashita’s gold did exist. Sterling Seagrave & Peggy Seagrave have written two books which deal with Yamashita’s Gold: The Yamato Dynasty: the Secret History of Japan’s Imperial Family (2000) and Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold (2003).
Golden Buddha
According to the Seagraves, Marcos recovered US$8 billion from one concealed tunnel known as “Teresa 2” in Rizal province. In 1996, a US Federal Court made a ruling that Marcos had stolen a cache of recovered Japanese loot, from a man named Rogelio Roxas.
According to his family, Roxas found a one-ton solid-gold Buddha and thousands of gold bars in a tunnel near Baguio in 1971. Roxas died prematurely in suspicious circumstances, leading to suggestions that he was murdered.
The US court awarded US$22 billion, against Marcos’s estate, to the heirs of Roxas. This amount was greatly reduced on appeal.
If a US federal court had acknowledged the existence of the fabled Yamashita treasure and that Marcos had acquired a part of it, although under some mysterious circumstances, then the claim that he was indeed not a pauper when he assumed the presidency in l965 gains some credibility.
Perhaps this has now emboldened the Marcos heirs to come out in the open, hoping that finally they can present their evidence in court to prove that their father was wealthy enough to acquire the properties that they are now claiming as theirs.
malinaolito@yahoo.com
Based on an earlier Supreme Court ruling, the Marcos net worth from l965 to February 1986 was estimated to be only P2.3 million. If that is so, how come that he has acquired properties that are worth billions of pesos?
On several occasions, in and outside the courts, former first lady Mrs. Imelda Romualdez Marcos has said that her husband was already a very rich man before he entered politics.
Lore or fact
This brings us back to the fabled Yamashita treasure that was supposed to be the source of Marcos’s immense wealth.
Yamashita’s gold, also referred to as the Yamashita treasure, is the name given to the loot worth tens of billions of dollars stolen in Southeast Asia by Japanese forces during World War II and hidden in caves, tunnels and underground complexes in the Philippines.
The “gold” reportedly included different kinds of valuables looted from banks, depositories, temples, churches, other commercial premises, mosques, museums and private homes. It takes its name from General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who assumed command of Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1944.
According to various accounts, the loot was initially concentrated in Singapore, from where it was later moved to the Philippines. The Japanese hoped to ship the treasure from the Philippines to Japan after the war.
Several historians have made well-documented cases that Yamashita’s gold did exist. Sterling Seagrave & Peggy Seagrave have written two books which deal with Yamashita’s Gold: The Yamato Dynasty: the Secret History of Japan’s Imperial Family (2000) and Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold (2003).
Golden Buddha
According to the Seagraves, Marcos recovered US$8 billion from one concealed tunnel known as “Teresa 2” in Rizal province. In 1996, a US Federal Court made a ruling that Marcos had stolen a cache of recovered Japanese loot, from a man named Rogelio Roxas.
According to his family, Roxas found a one-ton solid-gold Buddha and thousands of gold bars in a tunnel near Baguio in 1971. Roxas died prematurely in suspicious circumstances, leading to suggestions that he was murdered.
The US court awarded US$22 billion, against Marcos’s estate, to the heirs of Roxas. This amount was greatly reduced on appeal.
If a US federal court had acknowledged the existence of the fabled Yamashita treasure and that Marcos had acquired a part of it, although under some mysterious circumstances, then the claim that he was indeed not a pauper when he assumed the presidency in l965 gains some credibility.
Perhaps this has now emboldened the Marcos heirs to come out in the open, hoping that finally they can present their evidence in court to prove that their father was wealthy enough to acquire the properties that they are now claiming as theirs.
malinaolito@yahoo.com
Aug 15, 2008
A Story from Ming Forum - Help Us With Our Site
By the way I am kind of confused on whether this comment field here that I am typing into right now might be the entry for posting messages just like those lines up this field here at your site or would i be doing it through email? Well anyway I would now divulge about my TH experience.
My site is in the province of Bohol (sorry but for now the "municipality" would still be secret). The primary signs that we had seen on that site was a life sized statue mounted halfway at the right side of a waterfall.
The statue was oriented parallel with the waterfall which is facing north and it was holding an arrow in its right hand and pointed it downwards towards the basin at the bottom of the waterfall, its left hand is held up high with its palm facing a big protruding rock along the vertical center of the waterfall at 3/4 of its height from the bottom or basin.
The big circular rock has a diameter of approximately 6 feet and had an embossed sign of the "sun" with its rays but unfortunately we were unable to count the rays because as we were trying to clear it from an outgrowth of balite roots, it was peeled off together with the roots. The statue was soon pulverized into pieces and no gold was ever found. We then hired someone with a metal detector and was very excited when it detected the presence of metal along the wall of the waterfall right there at the basin which is only a knee deep and started digging and found out that the bottom is actually a bed of asphalt.
We soon realized that the wall of the falls is actually cement. We dug down the asphalt bed along the concrete wall reaching 15 feet but was not at its bottom yet at that depth because we were slowly digging it fearing we would hit a bomb and also because we were very busy prying out nuggets of gold-like metal embedded in the asphalt until the rains come and our waterpump was then useless.
As it was already impossible to dig further due to heavy water flow we then busied ourselves looking for some signs until we found a sign at the wall of the waterfall which according to our interpreter it meant "door" so that dig we did and soon found out that this part was also made of concrete but in its pure form or unmixed with gravel and very hard.
We tunneled through this 8 foot thick concrete wall for more than two months using 12 pound hammer and chisel until we hit another concrete wall separated by an inch thick of asphalt and found a sign engraved on a protruding concrete molded like a human head with its face flattened and inscribed by the character "7KD" which was according to our interpreter of the sign as meaning "A thick wall approximately 50 yards".
Now that meaning was very unbelievable for us during that time as who could have thought of covering something with that so costly a project as having that thickness of concrete cover so we just go along and dig hoping positively that somewhere behind the second wall was the treasure that we're looking. Excitement turned to dissapointment as we were again facing another wall after an arduous 2 months of labor against another 6 feet thick cement wall.
At this time there was already only six of us left from the original 13 but we still pushed through it until after more than 2 years and a series of walls at a distance of 34 meters thick of straight tunnel through the cement walls we cleared another wall with a crack with a jet of water gushing out from the crack at high velocity indicating high fluid pressure and thereby made all of us very excited as we had already expected earlier that the tunnel should be filled with water and thats what we did encounter at that level.
We broke the wall and suddenly was groping in the dark hurriedly crawling going outside as all the lights were blown out by the sudden gush of pressurized water. We were frightened aside from being excited because the color of the out-gushing water was red just like rust which we were also expecting as it should be due to the rotten iron casings or boxes containing some of the buried loot.
It took us almost 4 hours before going back inside the tunnel after the gush of water subsided enough for us to crawl back inside while some of us checked the color of the river and it almost reached half a kilometer until the water was clear enough to arouse suspicions from people washing clothes or bathing their carabao as it was already summertime and rain had not fallen yet during that month.
Big disappointment followed as another wall was again on our front and no cavern was yet found so that at this point we were forced to accept the meaning of the sign that it was 50 yards thick cover and therefore continued our digging operation for another 8 months until one day while the six of us were having a day off celebrating my brother's b-day, we decided to have some sideline as we were informed about an easy TH site within a spring from a cave and doing it at night to avoid being seen we proceeded with our plan.
Unfortunately my cousin drowned during that expedition and it disbanded our group as pressures from our relatives criticism was already unbearable and that ended our digging operation.
My final word is this question that I have in my mind "Would this site be a positive one or we were just had wasted our time digging this site?".
My site is in the province of Bohol (sorry but for now the "municipality" would still be secret). The primary signs that we had seen on that site was a life sized statue mounted halfway at the right side of a waterfall.
The statue was oriented parallel with the waterfall which is facing north and it was holding an arrow in its right hand and pointed it downwards towards the basin at the bottom of the waterfall, its left hand is held up high with its palm facing a big protruding rock along the vertical center of the waterfall at 3/4 of its height from the bottom or basin.
The big circular rock has a diameter of approximately 6 feet and had an embossed sign of the "sun" with its rays but unfortunately we were unable to count the rays because as we were trying to clear it from an outgrowth of balite roots, it was peeled off together with the roots. The statue was soon pulverized into pieces and no gold was ever found. We then hired someone with a metal detector and was very excited when it detected the presence of metal along the wall of the waterfall right there at the basin which is only a knee deep and started digging and found out that the bottom is actually a bed of asphalt.
We soon realized that the wall of the falls is actually cement. We dug down the asphalt bed along the concrete wall reaching 15 feet but was not at its bottom yet at that depth because we were slowly digging it fearing we would hit a bomb and also because we were very busy prying out nuggets of gold-like metal embedded in the asphalt until the rains come and our waterpump was then useless.
As it was already impossible to dig further due to heavy water flow we then busied ourselves looking for some signs until we found a sign at the wall of the waterfall which according to our interpreter it meant "door" so that dig we did and soon found out that this part was also made of concrete but in its pure form or unmixed with gravel and very hard.
We tunneled through this 8 foot thick concrete wall for more than two months using 12 pound hammer and chisel until we hit another concrete wall separated by an inch thick of asphalt and found a sign engraved on a protruding concrete molded like a human head with its face flattened and inscribed by the character "7KD" which was according to our interpreter of the sign as meaning "A thick wall approximately 50 yards".
Now that meaning was very unbelievable for us during that time as who could have thought of covering something with that so costly a project as having that thickness of concrete cover so we just go along and dig hoping positively that somewhere behind the second wall was the treasure that we're looking. Excitement turned to dissapointment as we were again facing another wall after an arduous 2 months of labor against another 6 feet thick cement wall.
At this time there was already only six of us left from the original 13 but we still pushed through it until after more than 2 years and a series of walls at a distance of 34 meters thick of straight tunnel through the cement walls we cleared another wall with a crack with a jet of water gushing out from the crack at high velocity indicating high fluid pressure and thereby made all of us very excited as we had already expected earlier that the tunnel should be filled with water and thats what we did encounter at that level.
We broke the wall and suddenly was groping in the dark hurriedly crawling going outside as all the lights were blown out by the sudden gush of pressurized water. We were frightened aside from being excited because the color of the out-gushing water was red just like rust which we were also expecting as it should be due to the rotten iron casings or boxes containing some of the buried loot.
It took us almost 4 hours before going back inside the tunnel after the gush of water subsided enough for us to crawl back inside while some of us checked the color of the river and it almost reached half a kilometer until the water was clear enough to arouse suspicions from people washing clothes or bathing their carabao as it was already summertime and rain had not fallen yet during that month.
Big disappointment followed as another wall was again on our front and no cavern was yet found so that at this point we were forced to accept the meaning of the sign that it was 50 yards thick cover and therefore continued our digging operation for another 8 months until one day while the six of us were having a day off celebrating my brother's b-day, we decided to have some sideline as we were informed about an easy TH site within a spring from a cave and doing it at night to avoid being seen we proceeded with our plan.
Unfortunately my cousin drowned during that expedition and it disbanded our group as pressures from our relatives criticism was already unbearable and that ended our digging operation.
My final word is this question that I have in my mind "Would this site be a positive one or we were just had wasted our time digging this site?".
Aug 14, 2008
Guilding the Lily—The Japanese Looting of Asia in World War II
Source: http://spitfirelist.com/f427.html
FTR#427—Guilding the Lily—The Japanese Looting of Asia in World War II—(One 30-minute segment) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 9/29/2003.)
Click Here to Support the Work of Dave Emory
Foreshadowing information presented at greater length in FTR#428 and supplementing information presented in FTR#’s 290, 291, 426, the program sets forth the fascinating tale of “Golden Lily,” the name for the looting of Asia by Japan during the Second World War. Overseen by Emperor Hirohito’s brother Prince Chichibu, Golden Lily concentrated incredible amounts of wealth in secret locations, where it became the foundation for Japan’s postwar “economic miracle”—much as the Bormann organization effected the resurrection of Germany after the war.
As American submarine warfare made the transfer of loot to Japan increasingly difficult, the wealth (chiefly gold bullion, platinum and gems) was stashed in the Philippines, where much of it was subsequently recovered by the Japanese. A major outgrowth of Golden Lily was the utilization of much of the gold secreted in the Philippines by US intelligence to finance postwar covert operations.
Program Highlights Include: The John Birch Society’s recovery of some of the gold stashed in the Philippines to finance its postwar anti-communist activities; the Japanese sinking of ships loaded with treasure for subsequent recovery; Japan’s use of hospital ships to transfer the loot to the Home Islands; US intelligence agents’ transfer of much of the Golden Lilly wealth to Switzerland and elsewhere; the use of Golden Lily bullion to establish accounts for Douglas MacArthur and Herbert Hoover; the role of OSS (and later CIA) operative Severino Garcia Santa Romana in recovering the Golden Lily treasure, in company with General Edward Lansdale—a prime mover in the world of postwar covert operations.
1. Beginning with an overview of the Japanese plunder of Asia, the program sets forth the story of “Golden Lily”—the formal name for the program of looting from the occupied nations of Asia. “During World War II, Japan’s militarism became a heady mixture of glory and greed as the army and navy embarked upon a binge of conquest and looting, from which Tokyo could not extricate itself. We know a log about the conquest, but amazingly little about the looting. In the Japanese holocaust, millions wee killed and billions were stolen, but the loot vanished. One of the great mysteries of World War II is what happened to the billions of dollars’ worth of treasure confiscated by the Japanese Army from a dozen conquered countries. The answer involves the imperial family, so it is an essential part of this biography.” (The Yamato Dynasty; Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Copyright 1999 by Peggy and Sterling Seagrave; Broadway Books [a division of Random House] [HC]; ISBN 0-7679-0496-6; p. 18.)
2. The program was overseen by Emperor’s brother, Prince Chichibu and much of the plunder was secreted away in the Philippines. “Recognizing after the Battle of Midway in June 1942 that the war was going badly, a number of imperial princes devoted the rest of the war to hiding the loot ingeniously to give Japan a hedge against disaster. This systematic campaign of looting and hiding treasure, codenamed Golden Lily, was under the direct supervision of Hirohito’s brother Prince Chichibu. Until now, he was assumed to have spent the war on medical leave from the army, recuperating from tuberculosis at a country estate beneath Mount Fuji, nursed by his wife. In fact, he traveled all over occupied China and Southeast Asia supervising the collection of plunder, using hospital ships to carry much of it to manila for onward shipment to Japan. From early 1943 til mid-1945, he was in the Philippines overseeing the hiding of this loot in bunkers, in vaults beneath old Spanish churches and in vast underground tunnel complexes. Golden Lily stripped Asia of currency, gold, platinum, silver, gems, jewelry, art treasures and religious artifacts, including more than a dozen solid gold Buddhas, each weighing more than a ton. According to Japanese who participated, some $100 billion worth of gold and gems was hidden at more than two hundred sites in the Philippines when it became physically impossible to move the loot to Japan. We have corroborated accounts from eyewitnesses and participants, including Japanese, and members of Prince Chichibu’s personal retinue.” (Ibid.; pp. 18-19.)
3. As discussed in FTR#’s 290, 428, the wealth looted by the Japanese during World War II was instrumental in financing the resurrection of the Japanese economy after World War II. “Faced with Allied invasion of the Home Islands, and the total destruction of Japan’s heritage, Emperor Hirohito was finally persuaded to opt for a quick surrender. This was a bitter pill, but it allowed Japan to survive the war with the bulk of its assets intact, including billions of dollars of loot that would help put the nation back on its feet. Since the war, the gold hidden in a number of sites in the Philippines has been recovered by teams from Japan and other countries, and these recoveries have been verified. A Swiss court disclosed in 1997 that one of the solid gold Buddhas is now in a bank vault beneath Zurich’s Kloten Airport, along with a large quantity of other gold bullion recovered by former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and held in Marcos family accounts. In 1997, a Japanese investigative team from Asahi Television was taken to an underground vault in Luzon where they filmed (and took core samples of) 1,800 gold bars worth $150 million—gold that was stolen from Sumatra, Cambodia and Burma. This gold had been melted down in occupied Malaya, recast and marked in accordance with the accounting procedures of Golden Lily, and then sent to Manila on fake Japanese hospital ships. Treasure looted from China was taken to Japan by way of Korea and hidden in underground vaults in the mountains near Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. Gold bullion aboard ships at the time of surrender in 1945 was sunk in Tokyo Bay and other points along the coast, and some of it has since been recovered.” (Ibid.; pp. 19-20.)
4. As discussed in FTR#’s 290, 426, 428, the successful recovery of this wealth was realized in considerable measure through the deliberate subversion of attempts at reforming Japanese political and economic life after World War II. “Thanks to Prince Chichibu and Golden Lily, when the U.S. occupation ended in 1952 ‘bankrupt’ Japan was able to begin a ‘miraculous’ recovery, on its way to becoming the world’s second-richest economy. War reparations were dodged, the imperial family evaded punishment, and Japan’s financial elite resumed control as if the war had not occurred. Claims that Japan and its imperial family were left virtually penniless by the war would therefore appear to be completely false. War loot also provided a huge pool of black money used by postwar politicians to corrupt Japan’s bureaucracy, bringing the country full circle again at the millennium to the verge of economic collapse.” (Ibid.; p. 20.)
5. Further detailing the realization of “Golden Lilly,” the program sets forth details of the establishment of the Philippines as a primary repository for the vast sums of looted wealth. “Because of the failure of its economic strategy, Japan’s financial rape of Asia became more important than its military conquest. Loot and plunder became the only way Japan could stay afloat and continue to finance the war . . . Until the end of 1942, this treasure was accumulated in Rangoon, Penang, Singapore and Jakarta, then shipped by sea to Manila for transshipment to Japan. There was no overland route by way of China until the brief success of Operation Ichigo in late 1944. The merchant ships used were painted to resemble hospital ships, one of which—the Awa Maru—was sunk by an American submarine anyway, in fairly shallow water just off the coast of China. (By international agreement, hospital ships are supposed to be immune to attack.) Warehouses along the Manila Bay front became clogged with bullion and oil drums full of gems and coins. A 35-mile-long tunnel half as wide again as a loaded army truck, was dug by POW’s so that this loot could be trucked from the bay front to the old Spanish military forts on the eastern perimeter of Manila, where there were catacombs available to hide it. The tunnel is still there, although Filipinos are unaware of it . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 184-186.)
6. “ . . . When the U.S. submarine blockade became effective early in 1943, and the war turned increasingly against Japan, a huge quantity of looted treasure was still in the pipeline, unable to move beyond the Philippines. According to Japanese sources, Prince Chichibu moved Golden Lily’s headquarters from Singapore to Luzon, the northern island of the Philippines, where he devoted two and a half years to inventorying and hiding the treasure I carefully engineered vaults, tunnels, bunkers and caves at 172 ‘imperial’ sites. (There were many other sites for which the army was separately responsible.) According to Japanese who participated, a second inventory team in Luzon was headed by Asaka’s son, Prince Takahito. The Japanese hoped that they would be able to arrange a cease-fire that would allow them to hold on to the Philippines, essentially annexing it, so that they could recover the war loot at their leisure. If they were unable to annex the Philippines, they reasoned that they could still recover the treasure gradually under a variety of covers—which is essentially what did happen after the war. Having gambled and lost, it was essential not to forfeit the plunder, which would be needed to rebuild Japan.” (Ibid.; pp. 186-187.)
7. “In the last year of the war, Japan also hid large quantities of bullion at sea, deliberately scuttling ships including the cruiser Nachii, sunk with all hands in Manila Bay by a Japanese submarine that then machine-gunned all the Japanese crew members who came to the surface. The gold aboard the Nachii was recovered from its hulk in the late 1970’s by President Marcos. The Japanese sub I-52, a cargo vessel the length of a football field was attempting to deliver two tons of gold worth $25 million to the Nazi sub base at Lorient, France, when it was sunk in mid-Atlantic by a U.S. Navy plane. It has now been located and a recovery operation is under way. Other bullion shipments were made by sub to Europe and South America, and deposited in overseas branches of Swiss banks.” (Ibid.; p. 187.)
8. “For decades after the war, the existence of this hidden treasure was regarded by many as sheer fantasy. It served Japan’s purpose to have people think so, while recovery efforts went on secretly. But in the 1990’s, courts in America and Switzerland concluded that billions of dollars in gold were looted by Japan and hidden in the Philippines. In 1997, a team from Japan’s Asahi television was led to a mountain cave in the Philippines, where they examined 1,800 of these bars, worth $150 million, and drilled core samples that confirmed their province . . . Sources at Asahi Television said they were discouraged from doing a full investigation because of fear of reprisals by Japanese extremists.” (Idem.)
9. “There is growing evidence confirming that Prince Chichibu was indeed in the Philippines during this period, heading the treasure effort. But a full and detailed study of Golden Lily must be the subject of another book. In Tokyo in the 1950’s, after Chichibu’s premature death from TB, a member of the imperial family confided to a foreign visitor that the army had amassed over $100 billion in treasure, and much of this was hidden in the Philippines, where ‘it will take a century to recover.’ He confirmed that Chichibu was in Luzon for two and a half years, escaping to Japan by submarine early in 1945. The involvement of the imperial family in such activities has been acknowledged in Japan, although in recent years it has been widely discussed in private. Nazi war loot got more attention because of the powerful postwar Jewish lobby which was able to mount an effective, coordinated campaign for which there was no Asian equivalent. Both wars had horrific consequences. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis but as many as 30 million Asians died as a result of Japan’s aggression, 23 million in China alone.” (Ibid.; pp. 187-188.)
10. Discovering some of the caches of wealth in the Philippines, US personnel subsequently recovered some of the loot for their own purposes. Among those was MacArthur’s intelligence chief General Charles Willoughby. An arch reactionary whose idol was Francisco Franco (the fascist dictator of Spain), Willoughby went on to become a key figure in postwar rightwing politics, including the John Birch Society. (For more about Willoughby, see—among other programs—RFA#’s 10, 11, 15, 37—available from Spitfire. Willoughby is also discussed in FTR#’s 54, 120.) The John Birch Society was among those interests that effected postwar recoveries of some of the Golden Lily bullion, in order to finance their political activities. (For more about the John Birch Society, see RFA#’s 11, 12, available from Spitfire.) “During the closing months of the war, American guerrilla forces operating in the mountains of Luzon observed Japanese Army units hiding truckloads of very heavy small boxes in caves. They captured and interrogated Japanese soldiers and learned that the boxes contained gold bars. When the war ended, MacArthur’s G-2 General Charles Willoughby and other intelligence officers backed secret recovery operations that netted huge sums, according to some of the American officers who participated. The gold was slipped into the market cautiously to avoid affecting world gold prices. These recoveries continued intermittently over the years. One such effort involved the John Birch Society, a virulently anti-Communist organization named after an American who was killed by Marxist forces during the Chinese civil war. In the mid-1970’s, the society lent nearly$500,000 to an American treasure-hunter to finance a recovery in the Philippines, promising to help him launder up to $20 billion of the recovered gold. (The society seemed to believe that it was perfectly correct to break American laws regarding the illegal laundering of money, providing it was done to finance anti-communism.) Colonel Laurence Bunker, a close friend of General Willoughby who took over from Bonner Fellers as MacArthur’s chief aide, personal secretary and spokesman from 1946 until his retirement in 1952, was a charter member of the John Birch Society.” (Ibid.; pp. 226-227.)
11. Directly anticipating information presented in Sterling and Peggy Seagrave’s Gold Warriors (see FTR#428), the program details the recovery of Golden Lily bullion by elements of US intelligence, its transfer abroad, and its development as an asset in order to finance CIA covert operations. “We refer here to a major recovery of Japanese war loot carried out in Luzon between 1945 and 1948. Severino Garcia Santa Romana, a Filipino-American OSS officer and later an officer in the CIA, under the direct field supervision of the CIA’s General Edward G. Lansdale, oversaw the recovery. Documents show that this massive recovery of war loot was known to OSS chief General William Donovan, to General MacArthur, to Brigadier General Fellers and to Herbert Hoover, and later to CIA director Allen Dulles and his deputies, so it was probably known to President Truman. We must assume that Truman’s close associate Pauley was also aware of it when he went to Japan.” (Ibid.; p. 294.)
12. “The Santa Romana recovery—the first of its kind—came about the following manner. In the closing months of the war, American OSS officers fighting alongside Filipino guerillas observed a heavily laden Japanese hospital ship unloading bronze boxes at Subic Bay. A convoy of army trucks carrying the cargo was tracked into the mountains where guerrillas watched Japanese soldiers carry the remarkably heavy boxes into a cave. When the Japanese sealed and disguised the cave entrance and left, the guerillas—including one American OSS major—opened the cave and discovered that the boxes contained gold bars. They then resealed the cave. After the war, Santa Romana was assigned by Generals Donovan and Lansdale to empty the cave secretly. Documents show that no attempt was made to return this bullion to its rightful owners, or even to set up a fund to benefit victims of the war. Instead, the gold bullion was deposited by Santa Romana in 176 bank accounts in 42 countries, and became the basis of the CIA’s ‘off the books’ operational funds during the immediate postwar years, to create a worldwide anti-Communist network. This was done by distributing gold certificates to influential people, binding them to the CIA. One single account in General Lansdale’s name at the Geneva branch of Union Banque Suisse, documents show, contained 20,000 metric tons of gold. It is only one of many. Here is a clear precedent to the secret accounts set up by Colonel Oliver North during the Iran-Contra arms conspiracy of the 1980’s which were trivial by comparison.” (Ibid.; pp. 294-295.)
13. Significantly, large amounts of gold appear to have ended up in accounts in the name of General Douglas MacArthur and former President Herbert Hoover, both deeply involved in subversion of the reform of Japan in the postwar period and the exoneration of Emperor Hirohito of war guilt. “Some of the bullion accounts that Santa Romana squirrelled away were set up for his own private use, with gold bars that he side-tracked during the recovery process. These accounts still exist in New York and elsewhere, and they are the object of numerous legal actions by people claiming to be Santa Romana’s heirs. But there is a lot more gold still in the ground in the Philippines, yet to be recovered. Documents also show that one of the big gold-bullion accounts set up by Santa Romana was in the name of General Douglas MacArthur. Other documents indicate that gold bullion worth $100 million was placed in an account in the name of Herbert Hoover. Both men were deeply involved in rescuing Emperor Hirohito, and suborning witnesses at the Tokyo war-crimes tribunal. What does this suggest?” (Ibid.; p. 295.)
FTR#427—Guilding the Lily—The Japanese Looting of Asia in World War II—(One 30-minute segment) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 9/29/2003.)
Click Here to Support the Work of Dave Emory
Foreshadowing information presented at greater length in FTR#428 and supplementing information presented in FTR#’s 290, 291, 426, the program sets forth the fascinating tale of “Golden Lily,” the name for the looting of Asia by Japan during the Second World War. Overseen by Emperor Hirohito’s brother Prince Chichibu, Golden Lily concentrated incredible amounts of wealth in secret locations, where it became the foundation for Japan’s postwar “economic miracle”—much as the Bormann organization effected the resurrection of Germany after the war.
As American submarine warfare made the transfer of loot to Japan increasingly difficult, the wealth (chiefly gold bullion, platinum and gems) was stashed in the Philippines, where much of it was subsequently recovered by the Japanese. A major outgrowth of Golden Lily was the utilization of much of the gold secreted in the Philippines by US intelligence to finance postwar covert operations.
Program Highlights Include: The John Birch Society’s recovery of some of the gold stashed in the Philippines to finance its postwar anti-communist activities; the Japanese sinking of ships loaded with treasure for subsequent recovery; Japan’s use of hospital ships to transfer the loot to the Home Islands; US intelligence agents’ transfer of much of the Golden Lilly wealth to Switzerland and elsewhere; the use of Golden Lily bullion to establish accounts for Douglas MacArthur and Herbert Hoover; the role of OSS (and later CIA) operative Severino Garcia Santa Romana in recovering the Golden Lily treasure, in company with General Edward Lansdale—a prime mover in the world of postwar covert operations.
1. Beginning with an overview of the Japanese plunder of Asia, the program sets forth the story of “Golden Lily”—the formal name for the program of looting from the occupied nations of Asia. “During World War II, Japan’s militarism became a heady mixture of glory and greed as the army and navy embarked upon a binge of conquest and looting, from which Tokyo could not extricate itself. We know a log about the conquest, but amazingly little about the looting. In the Japanese holocaust, millions wee killed and billions were stolen, but the loot vanished. One of the great mysteries of World War II is what happened to the billions of dollars’ worth of treasure confiscated by the Japanese Army from a dozen conquered countries. The answer involves the imperial family, so it is an essential part of this biography.” (The Yamato Dynasty; Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Copyright 1999 by Peggy and Sterling Seagrave; Broadway Books [a division of Random House] [HC]; ISBN 0-7679-0496-6; p. 18.)
2. The program was overseen by Emperor’s brother, Prince Chichibu and much of the plunder was secreted away in the Philippines. “Recognizing after the Battle of Midway in June 1942 that the war was going badly, a number of imperial princes devoted the rest of the war to hiding the loot ingeniously to give Japan a hedge against disaster. This systematic campaign of looting and hiding treasure, codenamed Golden Lily, was under the direct supervision of Hirohito’s brother Prince Chichibu. Until now, he was assumed to have spent the war on medical leave from the army, recuperating from tuberculosis at a country estate beneath Mount Fuji, nursed by his wife. In fact, he traveled all over occupied China and Southeast Asia supervising the collection of plunder, using hospital ships to carry much of it to manila for onward shipment to Japan. From early 1943 til mid-1945, he was in the Philippines overseeing the hiding of this loot in bunkers, in vaults beneath old Spanish churches and in vast underground tunnel complexes. Golden Lily stripped Asia of currency, gold, platinum, silver, gems, jewelry, art treasures and religious artifacts, including more than a dozen solid gold Buddhas, each weighing more than a ton. According to Japanese who participated, some $100 billion worth of gold and gems was hidden at more than two hundred sites in the Philippines when it became physically impossible to move the loot to Japan. We have corroborated accounts from eyewitnesses and participants, including Japanese, and members of Prince Chichibu’s personal retinue.” (Ibid.; pp. 18-19.)
3. As discussed in FTR#’s 290, 428, the wealth looted by the Japanese during World War II was instrumental in financing the resurrection of the Japanese economy after World War II. “Faced with Allied invasion of the Home Islands, and the total destruction of Japan’s heritage, Emperor Hirohito was finally persuaded to opt for a quick surrender. This was a bitter pill, but it allowed Japan to survive the war with the bulk of its assets intact, including billions of dollars of loot that would help put the nation back on its feet. Since the war, the gold hidden in a number of sites in the Philippines has been recovered by teams from Japan and other countries, and these recoveries have been verified. A Swiss court disclosed in 1997 that one of the solid gold Buddhas is now in a bank vault beneath Zurich’s Kloten Airport, along with a large quantity of other gold bullion recovered by former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and held in Marcos family accounts. In 1997, a Japanese investigative team from Asahi Television was taken to an underground vault in Luzon where they filmed (and took core samples of) 1,800 gold bars worth $150 million—gold that was stolen from Sumatra, Cambodia and Burma. This gold had been melted down in occupied Malaya, recast and marked in accordance with the accounting procedures of Golden Lily, and then sent to Manila on fake Japanese hospital ships. Treasure looted from China was taken to Japan by way of Korea and hidden in underground vaults in the mountains near Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. Gold bullion aboard ships at the time of surrender in 1945 was sunk in Tokyo Bay and other points along the coast, and some of it has since been recovered.” (Ibid.; pp. 19-20.)
4. As discussed in FTR#’s 290, 426, 428, the successful recovery of this wealth was realized in considerable measure through the deliberate subversion of attempts at reforming Japanese political and economic life after World War II. “Thanks to Prince Chichibu and Golden Lily, when the U.S. occupation ended in 1952 ‘bankrupt’ Japan was able to begin a ‘miraculous’ recovery, on its way to becoming the world’s second-richest economy. War reparations were dodged, the imperial family evaded punishment, and Japan’s financial elite resumed control as if the war had not occurred. Claims that Japan and its imperial family were left virtually penniless by the war would therefore appear to be completely false. War loot also provided a huge pool of black money used by postwar politicians to corrupt Japan’s bureaucracy, bringing the country full circle again at the millennium to the verge of economic collapse.” (Ibid.; p. 20.)
5. Further detailing the realization of “Golden Lilly,” the program sets forth details of the establishment of the Philippines as a primary repository for the vast sums of looted wealth. “Because of the failure of its economic strategy, Japan’s financial rape of Asia became more important than its military conquest. Loot and plunder became the only way Japan could stay afloat and continue to finance the war . . . Until the end of 1942, this treasure was accumulated in Rangoon, Penang, Singapore and Jakarta, then shipped by sea to Manila for transshipment to Japan. There was no overland route by way of China until the brief success of Operation Ichigo in late 1944. The merchant ships used were painted to resemble hospital ships, one of which—the Awa Maru—was sunk by an American submarine anyway, in fairly shallow water just off the coast of China. (By international agreement, hospital ships are supposed to be immune to attack.) Warehouses along the Manila Bay front became clogged with bullion and oil drums full of gems and coins. A 35-mile-long tunnel half as wide again as a loaded army truck, was dug by POW’s so that this loot could be trucked from the bay front to the old Spanish military forts on the eastern perimeter of Manila, where there were catacombs available to hide it. The tunnel is still there, although Filipinos are unaware of it . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 184-186.)
6. “ . . . When the U.S. submarine blockade became effective early in 1943, and the war turned increasingly against Japan, a huge quantity of looted treasure was still in the pipeline, unable to move beyond the Philippines. According to Japanese sources, Prince Chichibu moved Golden Lily’s headquarters from Singapore to Luzon, the northern island of the Philippines, where he devoted two and a half years to inventorying and hiding the treasure I carefully engineered vaults, tunnels, bunkers and caves at 172 ‘imperial’ sites. (There were many other sites for which the army was separately responsible.) According to Japanese who participated, a second inventory team in Luzon was headed by Asaka’s son, Prince Takahito. The Japanese hoped that they would be able to arrange a cease-fire that would allow them to hold on to the Philippines, essentially annexing it, so that they could recover the war loot at their leisure. If they were unable to annex the Philippines, they reasoned that they could still recover the treasure gradually under a variety of covers—which is essentially what did happen after the war. Having gambled and lost, it was essential not to forfeit the plunder, which would be needed to rebuild Japan.” (Ibid.; pp. 186-187.)
7. “In the last year of the war, Japan also hid large quantities of bullion at sea, deliberately scuttling ships including the cruiser Nachii, sunk with all hands in Manila Bay by a Japanese submarine that then machine-gunned all the Japanese crew members who came to the surface. The gold aboard the Nachii was recovered from its hulk in the late 1970’s by President Marcos. The Japanese sub I-52, a cargo vessel the length of a football field was attempting to deliver two tons of gold worth $25 million to the Nazi sub base at Lorient, France, when it was sunk in mid-Atlantic by a U.S. Navy plane. It has now been located and a recovery operation is under way. Other bullion shipments were made by sub to Europe and South America, and deposited in overseas branches of Swiss banks.” (Ibid.; p. 187.)
8. “For decades after the war, the existence of this hidden treasure was regarded by many as sheer fantasy. It served Japan’s purpose to have people think so, while recovery efforts went on secretly. But in the 1990’s, courts in America and Switzerland concluded that billions of dollars in gold were looted by Japan and hidden in the Philippines. In 1997, a team from Japan’s Asahi television was led to a mountain cave in the Philippines, where they examined 1,800 of these bars, worth $150 million, and drilled core samples that confirmed their province . . . Sources at Asahi Television said they were discouraged from doing a full investigation because of fear of reprisals by Japanese extremists.” (Idem.)
9. “There is growing evidence confirming that Prince Chichibu was indeed in the Philippines during this period, heading the treasure effort. But a full and detailed study of Golden Lily must be the subject of another book. In Tokyo in the 1950’s, after Chichibu’s premature death from TB, a member of the imperial family confided to a foreign visitor that the army had amassed over $100 billion in treasure, and much of this was hidden in the Philippines, where ‘it will take a century to recover.’ He confirmed that Chichibu was in Luzon for two and a half years, escaping to Japan by submarine early in 1945. The involvement of the imperial family in such activities has been acknowledged in Japan, although in recent years it has been widely discussed in private. Nazi war loot got more attention because of the powerful postwar Jewish lobby which was able to mount an effective, coordinated campaign for which there was no Asian equivalent. Both wars had horrific consequences. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis but as many as 30 million Asians died as a result of Japan’s aggression, 23 million in China alone.” (Ibid.; pp. 187-188.)
10. Discovering some of the caches of wealth in the Philippines, US personnel subsequently recovered some of the loot for their own purposes. Among those was MacArthur’s intelligence chief General Charles Willoughby. An arch reactionary whose idol was Francisco Franco (the fascist dictator of Spain), Willoughby went on to become a key figure in postwar rightwing politics, including the John Birch Society. (For more about Willoughby, see—among other programs—RFA#’s 10, 11, 15, 37—available from Spitfire. Willoughby is also discussed in FTR#’s 54, 120.) The John Birch Society was among those interests that effected postwar recoveries of some of the Golden Lily bullion, in order to finance their political activities. (For more about the John Birch Society, see RFA#’s 11, 12, available from Spitfire.) “During the closing months of the war, American guerrilla forces operating in the mountains of Luzon observed Japanese Army units hiding truckloads of very heavy small boxes in caves. They captured and interrogated Japanese soldiers and learned that the boxes contained gold bars. When the war ended, MacArthur’s G-2 General Charles Willoughby and other intelligence officers backed secret recovery operations that netted huge sums, according to some of the American officers who participated. The gold was slipped into the market cautiously to avoid affecting world gold prices. These recoveries continued intermittently over the years. One such effort involved the John Birch Society, a virulently anti-Communist organization named after an American who was killed by Marxist forces during the Chinese civil war. In the mid-1970’s, the society lent nearly$500,000 to an American treasure-hunter to finance a recovery in the Philippines, promising to help him launder up to $20 billion of the recovered gold. (The society seemed to believe that it was perfectly correct to break American laws regarding the illegal laundering of money, providing it was done to finance anti-communism.) Colonel Laurence Bunker, a close friend of General Willoughby who took over from Bonner Fellers as MacArthur’s chief aide, personal secretary and spokesman from 1946 until his retirement in 1952, was a charter member of the John Birch Society.” (Ibid.; pp. 226-227.)
11. Directly anticipating information presented in Sterling and Peggy Seagrave’s Gold Warriors (see FTR#428), the program details the recovery of Golden Lily bullion by elements of US intelligence, its transfer abroad, and its development as an asset in order to finance CIA covert operations. “We refer here to a major recovery of Japanese war loot carried out in Luzon between 1945 and 1948. Severino Garcia Santa Romana, a Filipino-American OSS officer and later an officer in the CIA, under the direct field supervision of the CIA’s General Edward G. Lansdale, oversaw the recovery. Documents show that this massive recovery of war loot was known to OSS chief General William Donovan, to General MacArthur, to Brigadier General Fellers and to Herbert Hoover, and later to CIA director Allen Dulles and his deputies, so it was probably known to President Truman. We must assume that Truman’s close associate Pauley was also aware of it when he went to Japan.” (Ibid.; p. 294.)
12. “The Santa Romana recovery—the first of its kind—came about the following manner. In the closing months of the war, American OSS officers fighting alongside Filipino guerillas observed a heavily laden Japanese hospital ship unloading bronze boxes at Subic Bay. A convoy of army trucks carrying the cargo was tracked into the mountains where guerrillas watched Japanese soldiers carry the remarkably heavy boxes into a cave. When the Japanese sealed and disguised the cave entrance and left, the guerillas—including one American OSS major—opened the cave and discovered that the boxes contained gold bars. They then resealed the cave. After the war, Santa Romana was assigned by Generals Donovan and Lansdale to empty the cave secretly. Documents show that no attempt was made to return this bullion to its rightful owners, or even to set up a fund to benefit victims of the war. Instead, the gold bullion was deposited by Santa Romana in 176 bank accounts in 42 countries, and became the basis of the CIA’s ‘off the books’ operational funds during the immediate postwar years, to create a worldwide anti-Communist network. This was done by distributing gold certificates to influential people, binding them to the CIA. One single account in General Lansdale’s name at the Geneva branch of Union Banque Suisse, documents show, contained 20,000 metric tons of gold. It is only one of many. Here is a clear precedent to the secret accounts set up by Colonel Oliver North during the Iran-Contra arms conspiracy of the 1980’s which were trivial by comparison.” (Ibid.; pp. 294-295.)
13. Significantly, large amounts of gold appear to have ended up in accounts in the name of General Douglas MacArthur and former President Herbert Hoover, both deeply involved in subversion of the reform of Japan in the postwar period and the exoneration of Emperor Hirohito of war guilt. “Some of the bullion accounts that Santa Romana squirrelled away were set up for his own private use, with gold bars that he side-tracked during the recovery process. These accounts still exist in New York and elsewhere, and they are the object of numerous legal actions by people claiming to be Santa Romana’s heirs. But there is a lot more gold still in the ground in the Philippines, yet to be recovered. Documents also show that one of the big gold-bullion accounts set up by Santa Romana was in the name of General Douglas MacArthur. Other documents indicate that gold bullion worth $100 million was placed in an account in the name of Herbert Hoover. Both men were deeply involved in rescuing Emperor Hirohito, and suborning witnesses at the Tokyo war-crimes tribunal. What does this suggest?” (Ibid.; p. 295.)
Aug 10, 2008
Application Procedures for Treasure Hunting Permit (THP)
Source: http://www.mgb.gov.ph/treasure_hunting_procedure.htm
DENR Administrative Order No. 2002-04: Rules and Regulations Governing the Issuance of Permits for Treasure Hunting, Shipwreck/Sunken Vessel Recovery and Disposition of Recovered Treasures/Valuable Cargoes, including Hoarded Hidden Treasure
Qualified Applicants
a. In case of an individual, the applicant must be a Filipino citizen, of legal age, with capacity to enter into contract and capable of conducting Treasure Hunting or Shipwreck/Sunken Vessel Recovery activities.
b. In case of partnership, association or corporation – must be organized or authorized for the purpose of engaging in treasure hunting or shipwreck/sunken vessel recovery, duly registered in accordance with law, and with technical and financial capability to undertake treasure hunting or shipwreck/sunken vessel recovery activities.
Procedures
1. All applications shall be made under oath and shall be filled with the MINES & GEOSCIENCES BUREAU where all legal, technical, financial and operational requirements shall be evaluated. The mandatory requirements include:
Prescribed Personal and/or Corporate Information;
For partnership, associations or corporations;
Certified true copy of Certificate of Registration issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or concerned authorized Government agency;
Certified true copy of Articles of Incorporation/Partnership/Association and By-laws, and;
Organizational and Operational structure.
Consent of land owner(s), when the activities are bound to affect private lands or consent of the concerned Government Agency, when the activities affect Government buildings, dams, watersheds and other areas or sites reserved or used for purposes affecting vital national interest, military or naval camps, bases and reservations, shrines and other hallowed places; or consent of concessionaries when the permit area affects aquaculture or fishery projects or beach/marine recreation areas, if applicable;
Area clearance from concerned Government agency, when the activities affect public land or if the area applied for is located near submarine cables, pipelines, ports and harbors, or within protected seascape/area or marine parks, if applicable;
Certified true copy of Joint Venture Agreement (s), if any;
Free and prior informed consent of indigenous cultural community in areas covered by ancestral land domain;
Technical description of the site expressed in terms of latitude and longitude, which shall not be more than one (1) hectare for land or twenty (20) hectares for bodies of water accompanied by a vicinity map and location map duly prepared and certified by a licensed Geodetic Engineer: Provided, that a larger area may be allowed on a case to case basis subject to prior approval by the Secretary of the DENR.
Technical Work Program, including appropriate technology, manpower equipment and cost estimates;
Environmental Work Program, including the nature and extent of predicted damages to the environment, if any, and the proposed restoration/rehabilitation program and budgetary requirements. This shall be the basis for the assessment of the required surety bond for the restoration/rehabilitation works;
Certificate of Non-Coverage from the Environmental Management Bureau (if an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) is not applicable);
Curriculum vitae of technical person/s who shall undertake the Technical and Environmental Work Programs;
Latest income/corporate tax return, if applicable;
Certified true copies of latest audited financial statements, if applicable, and;
Bank guarantees/references, credit lines, cash deposits, and other proofs or evidence of the sources of funding.
*Upon submission of the above requirements, a non-refundable application fee in the amount of Ten Thousand Pesos (Php 10,000) shall be paid to the bureau.
2. Within thirty (30) working days upon payment of a non-refundable application fee and submission of the complete requirements to the Bureau, the application shall be processed and evaluated by the Technical Review Committee, the members of which shall be constituted by the Director.
The Technical Review Committee shall assist the Director on the following:o Plotting of area applied for in control map (s);o Evaluation and review of applications;o Determination of the amount of surety bond to be posted;o Monitoring of compliance with permitting terms and conditions;o Recommendation of any measure in connection with authorized activities, and;o Preparation of progress report on the said activities.
If necessary, the evaluation shall include a field assessment/verification of the location, public or private structures that may be affected based on the submitted Technical and Environment Work Programs. The corresponding field verification fee of Two Thousand Pesos (Php 2,000.00) per man per shift shall be paid by the applicant.
3. The Director shall endorse the results of the technical evaluation of the application to the Secretary for consideration and approval, including the recommendation for the amount of surety bond to be posted by the applicant.
4. A surety bond shall be posted by the applicant upon the approval but before the release of the Permit, to answer for and guarantee payment for whatever actual damages that may be incurred during locating, digging and excavating activities. The applicant shall post the bond with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).
DENR Administrative Order No. 2002-04: Rules and Regulations Governing the Issuance of Permits for Treasure Hunting, Shipwreck/Sunken Vessel Recovery and Disposition of Recovered Treasures/Valuable Cargoes, including Hoarded Hidden Treasure
Qualified Applicants
a. In case of an individual, the applicant must be a Filipino citizen, of legal age, with capacity to enter into contract and capable of conducting Treasure Hunting or Shipwreck/Sunken Vessel Recovery activities.
b. In case of partnership, association or corporation – must be organized or authorized for the purpose of engaging in treasure hunting or shipwreck/sunken vessel recovery, duly registered in accordance with law, and with technical and financial capability to undertake treasure hunting or shipwreck/sunken vessel recovery activities.
Procedures
1. All applications shall be made under oath and shall be filled with the MINES & GEOSCIENCES BUREAU where all legal, technical, financial and operational requirements shall be evaluated. The mandatory requirements include:
Prescribed Personal and/or Corporate Information;
For partnership, associations or corporations;
Certified true copy of Certificate of Registration issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or concerned authorized Government agency;
Certified true copy of Articles of Incorporation/Partnership/Association and By-laws, and;
Organizational and Operational structure.
Consent of land owner(s), when the activities are bound to affect private lands or consent of the concerned Government Agency, when the activities affect Government buildings, dams, watersheds and other areas or sites reserved or used for purposes affecting vital national interest, military or naval camps, bases and reservations, shrines and other hallowed places; or consent of concessionaries when the permit area affects aquaculture or fishery projects or beach/marine recreation areas, if applicable;
Area clearance from concerned Government agency, when the activities affect public land or if the area applied for is located near submarine cables, pipelines, ports and harbors, or within protected seascape/area or marine parks, if applicable;
Certified true copy of Joint Venture Agreement (s), if any;
Free and prior informed consent of indigenous cultural community in areas covered by ancestral land domain;
Technical description of the site expressed in terms of latitude and longitude, which shall not be more than one (1) hectare for land or twenty (20) hectares for bodies of water accompanied by a vicinity map and location map duly prepared and certified by a licensed Geodetic Engineer: Provided, that a larger area may be allowed on a case to case basis subject to prior approval by the Secretary of the DENR.
Technical Work Program, including appropriate technology, manpower equipment and cost estimates;
Environmental Work Program, including the nature and extent of predicted damages to the environment, if any, and the proposed restoration/rehabilitation program and budgetary requirements. This shall be the basis for the assessment of the required surety bond for the restoration/rehabilitation works;
Certificate of Non-Coverage from the Environmental Management Bureau (if an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) is not applicable);
Curriculum vitae of technical person/s who shall undertake the Technical and Environmental Work Programs;
Latest income/corporate tax return, if applicable;
Certified true copies of latest audited financial statements, if applicable, and;
Bank guarantees/references, credit lines, cash deposits, and other proofs or evidence of the sources of funding.
*Upon submission of the above requirements, a non-refundable application fee in the amount of Ten Thousand Pesos (Php 10,000) shall be paid to the bureau.
2. Within thirty (30) working days upon payment of a non-refundable application fee and submission of the complete requirements to the Bureau, the application shall be processed and evaluated by the Technical Review Committee, the members of which shall be constituted by the Director.
The Technical Review Committee shall assist the Director on the following:o Plotting of area applied for in control map (s);o Evaluation and review of applications;o Determination of the amount of surety bond to be posted;o Monitoring of compliance with permitting terms and conditions;o Recommendation of any measure in connection with authorized activities, and;o Preparation of progress report on the said activities.
If necessary, the evaluation shall include a field assessment/verification of the location, public or private structures that may be affected based on the submitted Technical and Environment Work Programs. The corresponding field verification fee of Two Thousand Pesos (Php 2,000.00) per man per shift shall be paid by the applicant.
3. The Director shall endorse the results of the technical evaluation of the application to the Secretary for consideration and approval, including the recommendation for the amount of surety bond to be posted by the applicant.
4. A surety bond shall be posted by the applicant upon the approval but before the release of the Permit, to answer for and guarantee payment for whatever actual damages that may be incurred during locating, digging and excavating activities. The applicant shall post the bond with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).
Aug 9, 2008
Frangible Hydrocyanic Acid (AC)Grenade
Frangible glass grenades of various types were used by most of the armies involved in WWII. They typically were incendiary or smoke producing types. The Japanese used a variety of them, including this poison gas grenade. Frangible poison gas hand grenades were never widely used for obvious reasons. The only other that comes to mind is the French Bertrand Mle.1915 used during WWI.There are two body styles in this size, a short and long neck. This is the latter. It is spherical and about 10cm in diameter (3.9"). There are no markings evident.
Identified in the USN Japanese Explosive Ordnance (revised edition) Jan 1 1945 as: "Prussic Acid, Glass, Type TB"
Identified in the USN Japanese Explosive Ordnance (revised edition) Jan 1 1945 as: "Prussic Acid, Glass, Type TB"
AC (Hydrocyanic acid) is a clear liquid that vaporizes when released. It is a powerful nerve agent and in strong concentrations will kill instantly. Useful for clearing bunkers and other confined spaces.
Also described in the War Department Technical Manual TM-E 30-480, October 1944:
"Frangible hydrocyanic acid grenade, arsenic trichloride stabilized type.
General description: Two different types exist. One is stabilized with copper powder and is packed in a sheet metal outer container; the other is stabilized with arsenic trichloride and packed in a cardboard container. The grenade consists of a spherical glass flask about 3 1/2 inches in diameter containing approximately 1 pint of hydrocyanic acid. The flask is packed in a mixture of sawdust and a neutralizing agent. The outer container is approximately 5 1/4 inches high and 5 1/2 inches in diameter, it is painted khaki and banded in brown."
http://www.inert-ord.net/jap02h/grenades/tbgas/index.html
http://www.inert-ord.net/jap02h/grenades/tbgas/index.html
Buried WWII Treasures in the Philippines
by Tony Wells.
You may not know it, but there are literally billions in gold, statues and other Asian looted treasures buried in hundreds of secret locations throughout the Philippines right now. No, this is not some wild, imaginative fiction story written by a bored author on a Sunday afternoon. The story The story you are about to read is based on years of research, interviews and fact. Absolutely, no fiction involved.
Because the Japanese General, Yamashita Tomoyuke (a.k.a.-The Tiger of Malaya), was in command of the Philippines when it was invaded by the Americans, these hidden treasures have become known as Yamashita's Gold or the Tiger's Gold. Shortly following the end of World War II, Yamashita was tried for war crimes and hung in the Philippines. He never disclosed any of the secret locations of Asia's buried looted war treasures.
During the earlier part of the war W.W.II looted treasures were being shipped back to Japan for badly needed war finances. However, when American patrolling naval vessels made the shipping of these looted treasures to Japan much too risky to continue with due to almost certain loss, another plan was devised.
Investigative reports show that a great bulk of World War II treasures reached the Philippines from the latter part of 1943 through October, 1944, at that period when Field Marshall Count Terauchi was in charge of the Japanese Imperial Forces in the southeast area of the Pacific. He had ordered Admiral Masaharu (then over-all military commander of the Philippines before General Yamashita) and several other admirals and generals (including Yamashita) that all war booties taken from their respective occupied territories comprising Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, and Northern India be collected and thereafter transferred to the Philippines.
Japan had always considered the Philippine Islands to be a very important strategic location for military bases in Southeast Asia. Unknown to the rest of the world, the Japanese had a major plan for post war sovereignty, and the Philippine Archipelago was included in this elaborate scheme. Once the shipping lanes became too dangerous due to American Naval vessels, almost all of the loot that the Japanese had accumulated thereafter was being channeled to the Philippines and buried. Their ultimate plan was that when the war was over they were going to withdraw forces from all the other Asian countries, but try to maintain there colonial rule over the Philippine Islands.
Under the banner of "Asia for Asians" they prescribed some reforms in the guise of nationalism. In hopes to win over the Philippine people, in 1943, the Japanese went as far as setting up a "Philippine Republic" and installing a puppet government with the Judge Jose Laurel as president. By winning over the hearts of the Philippine people and later even granting them independence, the Japanese hoped that they would then be regarded as "heroes" by them. This would also allow them to put military bases there as a pretext of "protection for the Philippine people". In this way, they could remain in the Philippines for as long as they liked and take their time to re-excavate the stolen W.W.II loot at their leisure. It was a good plan but in the end it didn't work out--the Americans invaded the Philippines in October 1944.
However, before this U.S. invasion, the Japanese were very busy hiding and securing its Asian W.W.II loot. Elaborate tunnels were dug, some down to depths of a few hundred feet, to the final "storage chambers" where the gold was to be kept. Most, if not all of these tunnels, were booby-trapped and rigged with 1,000 and 2,000 pound W.W.II bombs and poisonous gas. This trick would help deter the buried loot from falling into enemy hands. Detailed maps of the sites were drawn up on rectangular rice paper--all written in the 2,000 year-old Japanese script known as "Kungi", which hasn't been used for the past 150 years. Numerous concrete markers, which were to be left as clues, were also buried at strategic locations that would later lead the looters back to the hidden caches. These markers were in the shapes of different animals and had Kungi writing on them.
In most cases, POW labor was used to dig the intricate tunneling systems. In all cases, upon completion of securing the gold in the pits...the POWs were all executed and buried along with the treasures. In some rare cases, Japanese officers even had their own soldiers killed and buried along with the treasure to protect their secret locations.
In all there were 172 "documented" Philippine burial sites (138 land and 34 water sites) left by the Japanese. This is not to even mention the numerous "private" burials of W.W.II loot by greedy officers and renegade soldiers. There was still much treasure remaining to be buried when the U.S. abruptly invaded the islands. Japanese forces took all of this with them up into the mountains in the northern Philippines and other areas during their retreat, where it was all buried at many different locations.
It is estimated that the total worth of this war loot ranged up to three billion 1940's dollars--the equivalent of over $100 billion today. According to various post war estimates, the amount of gold bullion alone was 4,000 to 6,000 tons. Top U.S. and Japanese sources claim that it would take at least one hundred years to unearth all of these hidden treasures.
If you're wondering why the Japanese themselves haven't gone back to the Philippines to try and secretly recover some of this hidden booty, the answer is: They certainly have...but only a very small percentage of what was actually buried! Ex-president Ferdinand Marcos himself managed to recover several sites (with the assistance of some ex-Japanese soldiers) and that is how he became so wealthy.
Tony Wells is President of SEARCHMASTERS, a salvage group based in Singapore, and he is the author of Shipwrecks & Sunken Treasure in Southeast Asia. Searchmasters is seeking investors to participate in the recovery of billions in W.W.II treasures buried in the Philippines.
MD of Searchmasters:
(http://www.singnet.com.sg/~twells/smloot2.htm)
E-mail: twells@singnet.com.sg
You may not know it, but there are literally billions in gold, statues and other Asian looted treasures buried in hundreds of secret locations throughout the Philippines right now. No, this is not some wild, imaginative fiction story written by a bored author on a Sunday afternoon. The story The story you are about to read is based on years of research, interviews and fact. Absolutely, no fiction involved.
Because the Japanese General, Yamashita Tomoyuke (a.k.a.-The Tiger of Malaya), was in command of the Philippines when it was invaded by the Americans, these hidden treasures have become known as Yamashita's Gold or the Tiger's Gold. Shortly following the end of World War II, Yamashita was tried for war crimes and hung in the Philippines. He never disclosed any of the secret locations of Asia's buried looted war treasures.
During the earlier part of the war W.W.II looted treasures were being shipped back to Japan for badly needed war finances. However, when American patrolling naval vessels made the shipping of these looted treasures to Japan much too risky to continue with due to almost certain loss, another plan was devised.
Investigative reports show that a great bulk of World War II treasures reached the Philippines from the latter part of 1943 through October, 1944, at that period when Field Marshall Count Terauchi was in charge of the Japanese Imperial Forces in the southeast area of the Pacific. He had ordered Admiral Masaharu (then over-all military commander of the Philippines before General Yamashita) and several other admirals and generals (including Yamashita) that all war booties taken from their respective occupied territories comprising Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, and Northern India be collected and thereafter transferred to the Philippines.
Japan had always considered the Philippine Islands to be a very important strategic location for military bases in Southeast Asia. Unknown to the rest of the world, the Japanese had a major plan for post war sovereignty, and the Philippine Archipelago was included in this elaborate scheme. Once the shipping lanes became too dangerous due to American Naval vessels, almost all of the loot that the Japanese had accumulated thereafter was being channeled to the Philippines and buried. Their ultimate plan was that when the war was over they were going to withdraw forces from all the other Asian countries, but try to maintain there colonial rule over the Philippine Islands.
Under the banner of "Asia for Asians" they prescribed some reforms in the guise of nationalism. In hopes to win over the Philippine people, in 1943, the Japanese went as far as setting up a "Philippine Republic" and installing a puppet government with the Judge Jose Laurel as president. By winning over the hearts of the Philippine people and later even granting them independence, the Japanese hoped that they would then be regarded as "heroes" by them. This would also allow them to put military bases there as a pretext of "protection for the Philippine people". In this way, they could remain in the Philippines for as long as they liked and take their time to re-excavate the stolen W.W.II loot at their leisure. It was a good plan but in the end it didn't work out--the Americans invaded the Philippines in October 1944.
However, before this U.S. invasion, the Japanese were very busy hiding and securing its Asian W.W.II loot. Elaborate tunnels were dug, some down to depths of a few hundred feet, to the final "storage chambers" where the gold was to be kept. Most, if not all of these tunnels, were booby-trapped and rigged with 1,000 and 2,000 pound W.W.II bombs and poisonous gas. This trick would help deter the buried loot from falling into enemy hands. Detailed maps of the sites were drawn up on rectangular rice paper--all written in the 2,000 year-old Japanese script known as "Kungi", which hasn't been used for the past 150 years. Numerous concrete markers, which were to be left as clues, were also buried at strategic locations that would later lead the looters back to the hidden caches. These markers were in the shapes of different animals and had Kungi writing on them.
In most cases, POW labor was used to dig the intricate tunneling systems. In all cases, upon completion of securing the gold in the pits...the POWs were all executed and buried along with the treasures. In some rare cases, Japanese officers even had their own soldiers killed and buried along with the treasure to protect their secret locations.
In all there were 172 "documented" Philippine burial sites (138 land and 34 water sites) left by the Japanese. This is not to even mention the numerous "private" burials of W.W.II loot by greedy officers and renegade soldiers. There was still much treasure remaining to be buried when the U.S. abruptly invaded the islands. Japanese forces took all of this with them up into the mountains in the northern Philippines and other areas during their retreat, where it was all buried at many different locations.
It is estimated that the total worth of this war loot ranged up to three billion 1940's dollars--the equivalent of over $100 billion today. According to various post war estimates, the amount of gold bullion alone was 4,000 to 6,000 tons. Top U.S. and Japanese sources claim that it would take at least one hundred years to unearth all of these hidden treasures.
If you're wondering why the Japanese themselves haven't gone back to the Philippines to try and secretly recover some of this hidden booty, the answer is: They certainly have...but only a very small percentage of what was actually buried! Ex-president Ferdinand Marcos himself managed to recover several sites (with the assistance of some ex-Japanese soldiers) and that is how he became so wealthy.
Tony Wells is President of SEARCHMASTERS, a salvage group based in Singapore, and he is the author of Shipwrecks & Sunken Treasure in Southeast Asia. Searchmasters is seeking investors to participate in the recovery of billions in W.W.II treasures buried in the Philippines.
MD of Searchmasters:
(http://www.singnet.com.sg/~twells/smloot2.htm)
E-mail: twells@singnet.com.sg
AQUAREGIA
AQUAREGIA is used to identify if metal is either gold or platinum.
It is a mixture of 3 parts hydrocloric acid and 1 part nitric acid. (Ex. mix - 1 1/2 liter hydrocloric acid and 1/2 liter nitric acid you get 2 liters of AQUAREGIA. )
AQUAREGIA dissolves gold and platinum if dipped in it.
It the metal on test does not dissolve in AQUAREGIA, then it is not real gold or platinum.
It is a mixture of 3 parts hydrocloric acid and 1 part nitric acid. (Ex. mix - 1 1/2 liter hydrocloric acid and 1/2 liter nitric acid you get 2 liters of AQUAREGIA. )
AQUAREGIA dissolves gold and platinum if dipped in it.
It the metal on test does not dissolve in AQUAREGIA, then it is not real gold or platinum.
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF METALS AND WATER
A post from Ming
Volume – is the unit of space occupy by a given object. Any object (solid, liquid, gas) that occupy space has a volume. A regularly shape object whose thickness is 1 centimeter(cm) , whose width is 1 cm , and whose length is 1 cm has 1 cubic centimeter(cc) volume; or 1cm x 1cm x 1cm = 1 cubic centimeter (cc). On the other hand, a 1meter(m) x 1m x 1m object has a 1 cubic meter(cM) volume.
Can you imagine how big is 1cm x 1cm x 1cm or one cubic centimeter(cc) of water? By the way, 1 inch is approximately 2.54 centimeters(cm). Density – is the weight per unit volume of an object. At 4°C, one cubic centimeter (cc) of water (1cm x 1cm x 1cm) or one milliliter (mL), weights 1 gram. Therefore the density of water is 1gram per cubic centimeter(cc).
One liter is 1,000 cubic centimeter(cc), therefore, one liter(L) of water weights approximately 1 kilo because there are 1000 grams in one kilo. Therefore one cubic meter of fresh water weights 1 ton!!!
Now do you know how heavy is one cubic centimeter(cc) (1cm x 1cm x 1cm) of pure gold is? One cubic centimeter of pure gold weights 19.32 grams!!! Gold is 19.32 times heavier than equal volulme of water.
The same volume of Platinum weights 21.45_grams!!! The term specific gravity is used to describe the weight or density of an object compared to an equal volume of fresh water at 4°C (39° F).
Water has an specific gravity of 1(one). Any object whose specific gravity is less than one is lighter than water and will therefore float on water, and any object whose specific gravity is greater than one(1) will sink in water. From above, we can say that pure gold is 19.32 times heavier than an equal volume of water and therefore gold has a specific gravity of 19.32. Densities and Specific Gravity of some common metals and water:
Element----------Density --------Specific Gravity
------------------grams/cc
1. Water.................1.00................……1.00
2. Aluminum.......…2.70...............……2.00
3. Iron.................….7.87...............…….7.87
4. Nickel.............…..8.90...............……8.90
5. Copper............….9.96................……9.96
6. Silver.................10.50..............…...10.50
7. Lead...............….11.35...............…..11.35
8. Palladium.......….12.02...............….12.02
9. Gold...............…..19.32................….19.32
10. Platinum.......….21.45...............….21.45
Application:
A. It is impossible to use iron, nickel, copper or silver to fake a gold, or platinum!!! Why?
Because: 1) To fake one cubic centimeter(cc) volume of gold (1cm x 1cm x 1cm) with gold plated iron, nickel or silver, your final product will only weights about 10 grams because either iron, nickel or copper has a density of just about 10grams per cc which is only half the density of pure gold which is about 19 grams per cc.
On the other hand: 2) To fake a one kilo of gold using gold plated iron, nickel or silver, your final product volume will be already 100 cc which is already two times larger than the volume of pure gold should be, which would be just about 50 cc, for the same reason that the density or specific gravity of gold is about two times heavier than those of iron, nickel or silver.
B. The volume of water spilled or displaced if you immersed an irregular object say gold or platinum in a water filled container is equal to the volume of the object. To determine that, you can either weights the displaced water with a weighting scale, and since you know that 1 cubic centimeter(cc) water weights 1 gram, then if the spilled water weights 50 grams then its volume is 50 cubic centimeter(cc) and that is the volume of the object.
On the other hand, if you don’t have a weighting scale but have a graduated cylinder instead, then you can measures the volume of the spilled water in cubic centimeter(cc) or milliliters(mL) directly and that will be the volume of the object you have immersed in the water.
GOLD PROPERTIES Metal Density
Gold 19.3
Silver 10.5
Platinum 21.4
Palladium 12.0
Copper 9.0
GOLD
9ct 10.9 to 12.7
14ct 12.9 to 14.6
18ct Yellow 15.2 to 15.9
18ct White 14.7 to 16.9
22ct 17.7 to 17.8
Sterling Silver 10.2 to 10.3 950
Platinum 20.1
Other Facts about Gold Weight
It follows from the above table that:-
• A cubic centimetre of gold will weighs 19.3 grams.
• A cubic meter of gold will weighs 19.3 tonnes.
• A cubic inch of gold will weighs 315.2 grams = 10.13 troy ounces = 11.06 avoirdupois (ordinary) ounces.
• A cubic foot of gold will weighs 545.225 kilos = 1188.6 pounds (avoirdupois).
QUICK GOLD TESTING:
1. Use 80% Aqua Regia / Cyanide Solution. This dissolves Gold and Platinum.
2. Use Water Displacement Method: MATERIALS NEEDED
-water container with hole for overflow
-calibrated beaker in cubic centimeter cc (to catch overflow for calibration)
-weighing scale in grams gms (for weighing the overflow, if beaker not calibrated)
PROCEDURES -
-weigh the reputed gold in grams -use water displacement method to find the volume (water density 1 gms/cc) -calculate au 19.32 gms/cc x volume(water displaced), (unit in grams)
-the result should be equal or little less equal to the reputed gold depending on karat rating.
A 4”x4”x16” 24k gold should weigh 81,049 grams (convert the 256 cubic inches to cubic centimeter equals 4,195.09.
Multiply this to gold spec. gravity of 19.32 gms/cc, the answer is 81,049 grams.
Where- as the same size gold bar in 22k will give only 74,500 grams only.
Volume – is the unit of space occupy by a given object. Any object (solid, liquid, gas) that occupy space has a volume. A regularly shape object whose thickness is 1 centimeter(cm) , whose width is 1 cm , and whose length is 1 cm has 1 cubic centimeter(cc) volume; or 1cm x 1cm x 1cm = 1 cubic centimeter (cc). On the other hand, a 1meter(m) x 1m x 1m object has a 1 cubic meter(cM) volume.
Can you imagine how big is 1cm x 1cm x 1cm or one cubic centimeter(cc) of water? By the way, 1 inch is approximately 2.54 centimeters(cm). Density – is the weight per unit volume of an object. At 4°C, one cubic centimeter (cc) of water (1cm x 1cm x 1cm) or one milliliter (mL), weights 1 gram. Therefore the density of water is 1gram per cubic centimeter(cc).
One liter is 1,000 cubic centimeter(cc), therefore, one liter(L) of water weights approximately 1 kilo because there are 1000 grams in one kilo. Therefore one cubic meter of fresh water weights 1 ton!!!
Now do you know how heavy is one cubic centimeter(cc) (1cm x 1cm x 1cm) of pure gold is? One cubic centimeter of pure gold weights 19.32 grams!!! Gold is 19.32 times heavier than equal volulme of water.
The same volume of Platinum weights 21.45_grams!!! The term specific gravity is used to describe the weight or density of an object compared to an equal volume of fresh water at 4°C (39° F).
Water has an specific gravity of 1(one). Any object whose specific gravity is less than one is lighter than water and will therefore float on water, and any object whose specific gravity is greater than one(1) will sink in water. From above, we can say that pure gold is 19.32 times heavier than an equal volume of water and therefore gold has a specific gravity of 19.32. Densities and Specific Gravity of some common metals and water:
Element----------Density --------Specific Gravity
------------------grams/cc
1. Water.................1.00................……1.00
2. Aluminum.......…2.70...............……2.00
3. Iron.................….7.87...............…….7.87
4. Nickel.............…..8.90...............……8.90
5. Copper............….9.96................……9.96
6. Silver.................10.50..............…...10.50
7. Lead...............….11.35...............…..11.35
8. Palladium.......….12.02...............….12.02
9. Gold...............…..19.32................….19.32
10. Platinum.......….21.45...............….21.45
Application:
A. It is impossible to use iron, nickel, copper or silver to fake a gold, or platinum!!! Why?
Because: 1) To fake one cubic centimeter(cc) volume of gold (1cm x 1cm x 1cm) with gold plated iron, nickel or silver, your final product will only weights about 10 grams because either iron, nickel or copper has a density of just about 10grams per cc which is only half the density of pure gold which is about 19 grams per cc.
On the other hand: 2) To fake a one kilo of gold using gold plated iron, nickel or silver, your final product volume will be already 100 cc which is already two times larger than the volume of pure gold should be, which would be just about 50 cc, for the same reason that the density or specific gravity of gold is about two times heavier than those of iron, nickel or silver.
B. The volume of water spilled or displaced if you immersed an irregular object say gold or platinum in a water filled container is equal to the volume of the object. To determine that, you can either weights the displaced water with a weighting scale, and since you know that 1 cubic centimeter(cc) water weights 1 gram, then if the spilled water weights 50 grams then its volume is 50 cubic centimeter(cc) and that is the volume of the object.
On the other hand, if you don’t have a weighting scale but have a graduated cylinder instead, then you can measures the volume of the spilled water in cubic centimeter(cc) or milliliters(mL) directly and that will be the volume of the object you have immersed in the water.
GOLD PROPERTIES Metal Density
Gold 19.3
Silver 10.5
Platinum 21.4
Palladium 12.0
Copper 9.0
GOLD
9ct 10.9 to 12.7
14ct 12.9 to 14.6
18ct Yellow 15.2 to 15.9
18ct White 14.7 to 16.9
22ct 17.7 to 17.8
Sterling Silver 10.2 to 10.3 950
Platinum 20.1
Other Facts about Gold Weight
It follows from the above table that:-
• A cubic centimetre of gold will weighs 19.3 grams.
• A cubic meter of gold will weighs 19.3 tonnes.
• A cubic inch of gold will weighs 315.2 grams = 10.13 troy ounces = 11.06 avoirdupois (ordinary) ounces.
• A cubic foot of gold will weighs 545.225 kilos = 1188.6 pounds (avoirdupois).
QUICK GOLD TESTING:
1. Use 80% Aqua Regia / Cyanide Solution. This dissolves Gold and Platinum.
2. Use Water Displacement Method: MATERIALS NEEDED
-water container with hole for overflow
-calibrated beaker in cubic centimeter cc (to catch overflow for calibration)
-weighing scale in grams gms (for weighing the overflow, if beaker not calibrated)
PROCEDURES -
-weigh the reputed gold in grams -use water displacement method to find the volume (water density 1 gms/cc) -calculate au 19.32 gms/cc x volume(water displaced), (unit in grams)
-the result should be equal or little less equal to the reputed gold depending on karat rating.
A 4”x4”x16” 24k gold should weigh 81,049 grams (convert the 256 cubic inches to cubic centimeter equals 4,195.09.
Multiply this to gold spec. gravity of 19.32 gms/cc, the answer is 81,049 grams.
Where- as the same size gold bar in 22k will give only 74,500 grams only.
THE EMPEROR'S GOLDEN LILY
Link: http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp10.html
Nazi Gold
Part 10:The Emperor's Golden Lily
While the size of the Bormann treasure is not known with any accuracy, it undoubtedly is the largest Nazi treasure that has not been recovered. The only other treasure remaining from WWII that could rival it in size is the Golden Lily treasure collected for the Japanese Emperor. While the Nazi treasure has been the subject of numerous searches and research, the Japanese treasure has been largely left unexplored. While the Nazis appointed a special unit of the SS, Devisenschutzkommando to take charge of the looting of Europe, the Japanese likewise had a special unit. Whereas, the Nazi unit employed Frenchmen to locate gold and currency on a ten percent commission, the unit was plagued by individuals seeking to enrich themselves rather than the Third Reich and much gold was siphoned off into private treasures. Seeking to avoid a similar problem, Hirohito appointed Prince Takeda Tsuneoshi as chief financial officer of the Kwantung Army. Several princes were involved with the Golden Lily operation. After the Japanese invaded China in 1937, the Golden Lily operation conducted a parallel operation. Loot was amassed and trucked to Korea for shipment to the Japanese homeland.77
In 1939, the Japanese invaders suffered a stinging defeat at Nomonhan after a boarder clash with the Soviets. It’s worth noting that this was the first battle in which the Japanese Unit 731 employed biological warfare, using typhoid bacteria. The experiment was a failure. In 1941, Roosevelt signed a secret agreement with Britain and the Netherlands agreeing to go to their defense if their colonies in Southeast Asia were attacked. In 1940, Prince Chichibu was appointed to head the Golden Lily. He and Takeda traveled throughout China and Southeast Asia, overseeing the looting and shipping the treasure back to Japan aboard hospital ships. By 1943, the United States submarine blockade of the home islands became effective. This forced Prince Chichibu to move his Golden Lily headquarters from Singapore to Luzon. He spent the next two and half years inventorying and hiding the treasure in a series of vaults, tunnels, and caves. The treasure was hidden in a total of 172 sites.78 The hope was Japan could arrange a cease-fire and be allowed to hang onto the Philippines as a territory and then recover the treasure at their leisure.
Besides using the Philippines to hide the treasure in the last year of the war, Japan hid gold at sea by scuttling ships. The cruiser, Nachii was torpedoed by a submarine in Manila Bay. The submarine then machined gunned any survivors to ensure secrecy. President Marcos recovered the gold from the Nachii in the 1970s. In 1997, A Japanese television crew filmed the recovery of 1,800 gold bars worth $150 million. The Igorot hill people had discovered the gold. After the death of Prince Chichibu in the 1950s, a member of the Imperial family confided that the Golden Lily had amassed over $100 billion in treasure, much of which was hidden in the Philippines.79 He also confirmed that the prince had escaped from MacArthur’s advancing forces by submarine.
The hospital ship, Tenno Maru, arrived at Yoksuka Naval Base loaded with causalities from the Philippines and 2,000 metric tons of gold. Days later it moved to Maizura Naval Base, where additional treasure was put aboard. The ship then sailed at night. Its crew was murdered and the ship sunk in the bay. In a secret operation in 1987, Japan recovered the gold. Another hospital ship, Awa Maru was sunk mistakenly off the coast of China in April 1945. Aboard the ship was 40 metric tons of gold, 12 metric tons of platinum, 150,000 carats of diamonds, a large quantity of titanium, and other strategic materials. Old mines in the Japanese mountains served as repositories for portions of the Golden Lily treasure. Near the Olympic Village of Nagano, a tunnel complex was dug by Korean slave labors. A ten kilometer tunnel completed the complex.80 This complex was used to hide portions of the Golden Lily.
The Allies had made it clear that they intended to prosecute Japanese war criminals in the same manner as Nuremberg. However, unlike Germany, only a few generals and admirals were ever convicted. The archives in Japan had vanished. The United States took exclusive control over Japan, unlike the four zones in Germany. President Truman appointed MacArthur as the Supreme Commander. For six years after the surrender of Japan, MacArthur held virtually unchallenged power. As Supreme Commander he ignored the Far Eastern commission of eleven nations. MacArthur had the power to reform the country, but instead left it in the same hands that bombed Pearl Harbor. The only reform implemented was the successful land reform that went ahead before it could be blocked. Washington D.C. was at least partially responsible for the lack of reforms. The liberals in Washington wanted reform while the conservatives blocked all reform efforts. The conservative Democrats and the Republicans held Congress until the 1946 election when the Republicans regained a majority of seats, putting Congress solidly in the conservative camp.
There were great plans for reforms, such as the dissolution of the zaibatsu, conglomerates, banking reforms, and a new constitution as well as restitution payments to nations ravaged by Japan. None of these plans were ever implemented. MacArthur killed those plans and was soon backing away from punishment of war criminals. To protect the ruling elite, MacArthur soon banned all labor demonstrations and canceled the right of labor unions to strike.
Just as the denazification of Germany had been sabotaged, the democratization of Japan was sabotaged by MacArthur and his staff with additional help coming from the former ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, and former President Herbert Hoover. Grew had been ambassador to Japan appointed to the post by Hoover in 1932 and was acting secretary of state in 1945. His wife was a grand niece of Commodore Perry and her mother was a Cabot. Grew was from the top society of Boston and was deaf to those beneath his stature in society. Grew’s family had longtime ties to Asia. The Grews had been bankers, who underwrote the opium clipper ships of the 1800s.
Grew had started sabotaging the democratization of Japan during the war. During the war Grew held private talks with Japan’s ambassador to Switzerland and promised that the United States would not prosecute Hirohito and that he would be allowed to keep his throne. Such a promise was adamantly opposed by both the Roosevelt and the Truman administrations, which both called for unconditional surrender and prosecution of war criminals.
Grew however, knew he had the backing of some of the most powerful figures in American politics and high finance. He left it up to Bonner Fellers to see to it. Fellers was a former OSS agent attached to MacArthur’s command who had been stationed in Cairo in 1941. While stationed in Cairo to observe the British operations in North Africa, he transmitted reports back to his superiors using the black code. The Italians had broken the black code and within minutes of Feller’s transmissions, Rommel knew the positions of British forces and battleplan. After being transferred to the states for a brief period Fellers was attached to MacArthur’s command.
The groundwork for sabotaging the peace in Japan had been laid out by Grew and Hoover. Fellers was friends with both and had acquired a reputation of being an expert on Japan. He had been stationed in the Philippines in the 1930s and had made frequent trips to Japan during that time. Hoover used Fellers during the occupation of Japan to convey ideas to MacArthur. MacArthur used Fellers in turn to push his presidential ambitions to Hoover and the Republican hierarchy.
As president, Hoover showed little concern about foreign affairs. However, after his defeat and as the war clouds descended on Europe, he took an active interest in foreign affairs. In 1938, Hoover met with Hitler. Even at this late date, Hoover still would have aligned the country with Hitler to defeat Stalin. He was also a friend with Japanese royalty from his time spent in China. Hoover wanted Japan to be a conservative Pacific outpost strongly opposed to communism. He wanted Japan to be allied with the US and to act as an Asian base for the Republican Party and its Wall Street cronies. Once he could cleanse the emperor of any guilt over the war, he could cleanse the government and Japanese factories would be humming again.
Hoover’s and Grew’s plan to cleanse the emperor and the Japanese government of any war crimes had to be kept secret. There were still far too many, bitter war memories from Pearl Harbor, the Bataan death march, and Japanese forced labor camps. As late as 1945, Congress had voted that Hirohito should be tried as a war criminal. Fellers and another Grew protégé, Max Bishop, engineered the cleansing process. First, to discover the true extent of Hirohito’s guilt, they questioned Japanese officials and indicted war criminals in secret. Once all the facts had been assembled, they sanitized each incriminating bit of information by suborning witnesses. Before the trials could begin, several adverse witnesses conveniently died. American POWs on their way home were forced by US intelligence to sign documents forbidding them to talk about the harsh treatment they received at the hands of the Japanese.
While MacArthur was quietly trying to stop the trials, he received a blunt reminder from the Joint Chiefs to get serious about bringing the Emperor to trial. Despite such orders, MacArthur would not permit a trial of Hirohito. MacArthur even put Hirohito on the public relations circuit, showing him shaking hands and portraying him as a great pacifist. Behind the scenes, MacArthur and Fellers were castigating anyone not falling in line with the opinion that the war was the fault of the military.
MacArthur’s list of war criminals was remarkably short. Of 300 cases investigated only 28 appeared before the court. Only seven were executed. All of those hung were Choshu and not Satsuma. This may have been a payoff to the royal court from a long-standing feud dating back to the early days of the Meiji Restoration. Even post war maps omitted the name Choshu after renaming the prefecture Yamaguchi.
Chief prosecutor was Joseph Keenan, the eleven-member panel of judges consisted of a judge from each Allied nation. Some of the criminals high on the list were granted pardons arbitrarily. For instance, the British decided not to prosecute a naval officer who ordered the machine gunning of 600 British sailors trying to stay afloat after their ship had been sunk. MacArthur ordered that not a single bit of information about biological warfare and Unit 731 be admitted in the trials.81
While Herbert Hoover kept Fellers and MacArthur busy in Japan, nursing MacArthur’s political ambition, he guided Grew stateside. At the end of the war Grew resigned from the State Department and moved to Wall Street, where he became the leading spokesman for the Japan crowd. Grew became the co-chairman of the American Council on Japan (ACJ). The ACJ was a political action committee formed by wealthy conservatives immediately after the war to lobby Washington and to fight any efforts to reform Japan. The ACJ was backed by Newsweek, a newsmagazine founded in 1937 by Averell Harriman. His brother was a director. While Harriman was equally guilty in supplying Hitler before the war, he is normally associated with the Democratic Party. Newsweek’s pro-Japanese stance had his blessing. His role as a leading fundraiser of Democratic causes obviously came at a cost as he was looking out for his financial interests and those of his clients. The magazine hailed the Wall Street vision for Japan. Chief organizers for the AJC were Harry Kern, Newsweek foreign editor, Compton Pakenham, Newsweek’s bureau chief in Tokyo, and James Kauffman, a New York lawyer who served the interest of General Electric, Standard Oil, Ford, National Cash register, Ottis Elevator, and Dillon Reed in Japan.82
Grew’s cochairman at ACJ was another agent of Herbert Hoover, William Castle. Castle was a wealthy plantation owner from Hawaii and a former ambassador to Japan. Ambassador positions at the state department were regarded by the wealthy as their own providence. Grew’s assistant at the ACJ was Eugene Dooman, who was raised in Japan. They regarded their mission to stop any excesses in reforming Japan. Right wing business leaders were careful to denounce cartels and monopolies in principle, but fought vigorously against any effort to break up Japanese conglomerates. They looked toward restoring trade with Japan and saw that Japan was Asia’s only industrial base. Once the financial elite of Japan could be restored to power, the quicker business could resume.
In the summer of 1947, Kauffman visited Tokyo on behalf of Dillon Reed and made a personal assessment of Truman’s plan to break apart the zaibatsu. Truman’s plans were classified secret. However, Undersecretary of Defense William Draper leaked the documents to Newsweek. The reader should recall that William Draper played a prominent role in sabotaging the 4-Ds program in postwar Germany. In December, as the nation was gearing up for the presidential election, Newsweek denounced the overall plan for Japan as costly.
In Congress, the attack was led by Republican Senator William Knowland a wealthy newspaper publisher from California. Knowland claimed the Truman policy on Japan was written by communists, paving the way for Joe McCarthy. Knowland and Congressman Walter Judd a Republican from Minnesota, led the China lobby on Capitol Hill and blamed the loss of China to communism on Truman. Herbert Hoover meanwhile continued to lead MacArthur on about his chances of being nominated for the Republican ticket. MacArthur was particularly sensitive to Newsweek’s charges of communism. Those charges enraged the general and he halted all further implementation of the reform program.
The final deathblow for reform in Japan came early in 1948. In February, William Draper and Percy Johnson, a Wall Street banker, toured Japan to review the policy. Johnston was chairman of Chemical Bank, which had a long time relationship with Mitsui Bank. The outcome was predictable. Of the original list of 325 Japanese companies that were to be broken apart, only 20 remained on the Draper-Johnston list. Not a single Japanese bank would be restructured. The Japanese banks changed their names as a precaution and hid their past.
By 1952, when the occupation ended, all leftists had once again been purged and the conservatives were in control of Japan. The Emperor’s fortune still laid under the waters of Tokyo Bay and in other locations. The first recovery of a portion of the Golden Lily is known as the Santa Romana recovery. In the Philippines during the waning days of the war, Filipino guerillas observed the Japanese transporting heavy bronze cases and hiding them in a cave. An OSS major was with the group that observed the burial. After the treasure was hidden in the cave, the entrance was dynamited shut and concealed. The OSS agent reopened the cave and found the cases to contain gold. Following the war, between 1945 and 1948, the gold was recovered. The operation was known to Wiliam Donovan, MacArthur, Fellers, Edward Langsdale, and Herbert Hoover. Later, Allen Dulles knew of the operation. Donovan and Langsdale were assigned the recovery. No attempt was ever made to return the gold to its rightful heirs. Instead, the gold was deposited in 176 bank accounts in 42 different countries. It became the basis of the CIA off the books financing. This financing was done by issuing gold certificates to influential people, binding them to the CIA. One account in Langsdale’s name in the Geneva branch of Union Banque Suisse contained 20,000 metric tons of gold. The insiders squirreled some of the bullion away for private use. Documents confirm that one of the largest accounts was in the name of MacArthur.
Other documents indicated Herbert Hoover had an account containing $100 million in gold bullion. One can be certain that Hoover’s deep concern over Japan was based on his ability to smell a big payoff in gold from his previous experiences in China and Australia. The large holding of gold by Hoover was confirmed after his death, when his son sought out government approval to dispose of a large sum of gold bullion. The large accounts of MacArthur and Hoover suggest that the cleansing of Hirohito came at a high price.83
Edwin Pauley, a rich oilman, had been dispatched to Japan to assess Japan’s ability to pay reparations. Pauly was informed of the $2 billion dollars of gold in Tokyo Bay shortly after his arrival in Japan. Yet, Pauley concluded Japan was in shambles and could not pay its fair share of expenses of the American occupation, let alone to anyone else’s rebuilding efforts. Largely due to Pauley’s assessment, Japan’s bill for reparations came to only one billion dollars. If such a sum had been distributed equally to the next of kin of the 20 million people who died as a result of Japan’s aggression, each would have received the paltry sum of $30. In the immediate post war scramble for reparations, the wealthy in Japan who had profited from the war and hid their profits submitted their own claim for reparations, totaling $5 billion. Many of these claims were paid.
Instead of cash payment to countries, Japan was ordered to provide industrial equipment. Even such token payments were suspended by Washington when the equipment was claimed as collateral for bonds issued before the war by American firms. Two of the largest American firms making such claims were Morgan Bank and Dillon Reed. By 1950, Japan owed Morgan Bank over $600 million in interest, penalties, and principle just for the 1924 earthquake loans. In 1951, Japan arranged for refinancing of the loans through Smith Barney and Guaranty Trust. By 1952, Japan had repaid all prewar investments by American corporations and compensated them for all property damage. While all prewar Japanese bonds held by companies affiliated with the ACJ were repaid, companies not affiliated were not so fortunate. The reader should ponder long and hard how a country so shattered was able to pay off such a colossal debt in such a short time.84
The issue of Japan’s compensation is still an issue. In 1998, one month before Prince Akihito’s visit to Britain, Congress passed the following resolution.
Whereas the government of Germany has formally apologized to the victims of the Holocaust and gone to great lengths to provide financial compensation to the victims and to provide for their needs and recovery; and Whereas by contrast the Government of Japan has refused to fully acknowledge the crimes it committed during World War II and to provide Reparations to its victims: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that the Government of Japan should.
1.Formally issue a clear and unambiguous apology for the atrocious war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II; and:
2. Immediately pay reparations to the victims of those crimes including United States military and civilian prisoners of, people of Guam who were subjected to violence and imprisonment, survivors of the "Rape of Nanking" from December 1937, until February, 1938, and the women who were forced into sexual slavery and known by the Japanese military as "comfort women."85
One intriguing theory that sheds additional light on the fate of the Golden Lily comes from David Guyatt, author and researcher.86 Guyatt theorizes that the total mined supply of gold has been deliberately understated and that the supply of gold is much larger than the 140,000 tons reported. This additional supply of black gold is controlled by extremely right wing fascists. One reported trader in this market is the son of George Bush.
His theory revolves around the year 1954. London Bullion Market was shut down in 1939 at the onset of war. Even before the war, England’s gold reserves were extremely low. The war was an additional drain on those reserves, as evident by the destroyer trade and England’s reliance on the Lend Lease program. As well as the concession of Portugal to accept the pound in trade rather than demand gold. In short, England was walking among the financially dead at the war’s end. However, in 1954, just nine short years from the end of the war, England had apparently acquired enough supply of gold to reopen the bullion market.
The Bilderberg group held its first meeting in 1954. The Bilderberg group was founded by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and former officer in the SS. Bernhard had also worked in I.G. Farben’s notorious NW7 group, which served as spies for the Third Reich. The Prince is also associated with the Knights of Templar, through its Dutch variety. Bernhard was appointed to govern the Dutch order in 1954. John Foster Dulles was reported to have been one of the most helpful Americans in establishing the Bilderberg group. Incidentally, in 1954 Dulles testified in favor of a bill designed to return vested enemy assets such as GAF, to their previous owners. From the beginning, the Bilderberg group had several members of the intelligence community associated with it. Sir Colin Gubbins, Britian’s wartime SOE head, was a founding member. Walter Bedell Smith was a co-chairman of the group in the US.
The year 1954 was significant in a number of other ways. A memorandum of agreement between the CIA and the Justice Department that allowed the CIA to police itself was dated February 18, 1954. In effect, it allowed the CIA free reign as the Justice department would turn a blind eye towards matters of national security. Another noteworthy aspect of 1954 was the merger of the Schroder Bank and the Wagg family to form the city based merchant bank, J. Henry Schroder Wagg & Co. Wackenhut Corporation, a corporation with deep ties to both the military and intelligence communities, was formed in 1954.
However, more significant was that 1954 was the year the U.S. had forecasted that the Soviet Union would have thermo nuclear weapons. With their greater numerical strength, a massive military build up had been launched, costing taxpayers billions, while the corporations reaped fat profits. It was also the year in which General James Doolittle concluded his study of the CIA and reached the conclusion that the agency was not as adept as the KGB. The MK-Ultra, the mind control program of the CIA, began in 1954.
Perhaps the most noteworthy of all events in 1954 was a strange audit of the gold supply in Fort Knox. Every bar, totaling almost three quarters of a million, was weighed singularly. Moreover, every hundredth bar was drilled and a small sample taken to be assayed. No single assayer was used so the extent of the audit could not be deduced. No reasonable explanation for such a detailed and secret audit has been uncovered.
A partial list of significant events of 1954 follows: After learning about the Japanese treasures in November 1953, Marcos starts digging for gold in the Philippines. Fred Meuser, Lockheed's European Director, transfers to Geneva to live, this event figures in later. The Four-Power Treaty is signed in Paris to terminate the occupation regime in Germany. Germany joins NATO. Geneva Accord reached regarding peace between France and Indochina. Additionally, 1954 was the year that Edward Landsdale arrived in Vietnam to take over the opium trade. The Israeli Mossad and US CIA formed an intelligence "partnership." Nazi gold was moved from Argentina to the Philippines in 1954 after the Mosad determined it was located in Argentina.
Guyatt provides a more extensive list of events revolving around 1954 than provided above. However, the essential events to support his theory have been covered and we can now begin to look more directly at the Golden Lily and its recovery. Research done by the Seagraves has found 172 treasure sites of the Golden Lily in the Philippines. One of those sites audited by Japanese accountants contained a staggering 777 billion yen or the equivalent of $194 billion.87 Estimates for all 172 sites comes to a staggering $100 trillion. Over the years, numerous right wing groups have aided and abetted the CIA by laundering plundered items from the Golden Lily.
One of the latest recoveries, which raised scandalous headlines in 1994 involving former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, was part of an operation involving the CIA and former General John Singlaub. The operation, dubbed Nippon Star, had recovered in excess of 500 metric tons of gold recovered from the Philippines. Singlaub, who is very active in right wing extremist groups and political intrigue in Central and South America, headed the team. Singlaub was part of the military/CIA intelligence complex before retiring. The team consisted of Gunther Russbacher, a CIA agent, five other Americans, and a handful of Filipinos. The recovered gold contained Nazi gold and gold stole from China by the Japanese. Kurt Waldheim served as the intermediary between the Austrian National Bank and Philippine President Ramos.
What is intriguing about this sale, besides the extraordinary size, is this operation was also known to the Knights of Malta. A document from the Knights of Malta entitled the Landsdale Project references 500 MT. Moreover, it refers to a meeting of Washington people to discuss the ramifications of another Landsdale project. While a number of former intelligence officials and military leaders are known members of the Knights of Malta, their knowledge of a secret CIA operation raises further questions. Who else was in on this operation? What were the ramifications of the second Landsdale Project? Was the Vatican a part of this operation? For now, those questions and others will have to go unanswered.
The stated reason for the transfer to Austria was to provide backing for the Euro dollar. However, the presence of Waldheim as an intermediary only raises questions of connections to Nazis and fascism. Even before Waldheim took his office in the UN, the CIA and military intelligence must have known about his former background as an SS officer. It is inconceivable that the US did not know of his background, since he was in an automatic arrest category following the war.
One of the earliest documents attesting to Marcos’s recovering the treasure of the Golden Lily is a gold certificate dated 1956. This was before Marcos had become a member of the senate. Swiss Bank Corporation (Schweizerische Bank GESELLSCHAFT M.H.C.) issued the certificate for a deposit of 7,120 metric tons of gold. Marcos collaborated with Japanese-American investigator Minoru Fukimatsu. Together they interviewed over 300 witnesses and somehow accessed secret Japanese government archives in determining the locations of the treasure.
Another gold certificate was issued on January 17, 1963 by Unions Bank of Switzerland. The certificate was issued to Adnan Kasogi. Adnan Kasogi was actually Adnan Khashoggi, a Marcos crony. Khashoggi's name was misspelled, but that is often the case in these certificates. Khashoggi was a Lockheed agent and partner of Yoshio Kodama. Kodama was a Japanese rear admiral during the war and also a member of the Japanese Yakuza crime clan. Kodama was charged with shipping the loot to the Philippines during the war. This gold certificate was issued just before Lockheed paid the first known bribe to Prince Bernhard. Lockheed was being used by the CIA to funnel money worldwide. Moreover, Lockheed’s European Sales Director, Dutchman Fred Meuser, had been a member of Prince Bernhard’s wartime air force squadron. An additional member of the Lockheed bribe team was CIA officer Nicholas Deak. Deak had founded a money brokering firm that was used to funnel money to Kodama. Deak’s company later merged with Lionel C. Perera, who founded the money firm of Perera, Manfra & Brookes. Perera was attached to the Chief of Military Government Finance Office at the Third Army’s headquarters in Germany at war's end, where he interviewed Colonel Rauch. Rauch was the SS colonel responsible for hiding the Reich Bank gold reserves.
With so many figures involved directly with both the Nazi and the Japanese treasures, such an event as the Lockheed bribery cannot be dismissed as mere happenstance. However, the intrigue does not stop there. Marcos, Kodama, and Singlaub were all members of the World Anti-Communist League, a right wing extremist group populated with known war criminals and fascists. Under the Reagan administration, the World Anti-Communist League was granted tax-exempt status. That raises the possibility that the World Anti-Communist League was being used as a front for the CIA. Moreover, the intrigue continues. Guyatt goes on to claim that a letter from Henry Kissinger was sent to Marcos on Trilateral notepaper. Kissinger demanded that Marcos sell "63,321 tons of gold to 2000 US and European banks admittedly controlled by the Trilateral." The letter was dated February 21, 1986. Marcos refused and was overthrown as a result of his refusal. Imelda Marcos, however, chose to sell the gold to avoid criminal charges, and the gold was transferred aboard the US Eisenhower to the United States.
Additional evidence of Marco’s recovering the Golden Lily treasure comes from the Filipino newspaper, The Inquirer. In 1998 the paper published an article entitled "Soldiers of Fortune." The article revealed that all members of the 16th Infantry Battalion had signed a joint affidavit declaring that, together with members of the 51st Engineering Brigade, they had recovered 60,000 metric tons of gold from thirty sites between 1973 and 1985. Both units operated in strict secrecy under Marcos’ henchman Fabian Ver.
Whether Guyatt’s theory of a secret gold treaty being reached in 1954 is correct or not, it is obvious from his findings and those of the Seagraves that considerable treasure has been recovered from the Golden Lily, ending up in the hands of those involved in intelligence and right wing causes. Was this gold put to private use or the use of the CIA? It’s most likely that a portion was skimmed for private use while the bulk of the remainder was used to fund clandestine CIA operations. It is interesting to note that those connected with the secret recoveries: Herbert Hoover, MacArthur, Allen Dulles, and others were the very ones that worked the hardest in derailing the reform of Japan and Nazi Germany. Their sole objective was to reestablish the cartels and get on with business as usual, and to hell with war crimes. Moreover, it seems certain that a large portion of the Nazi treasure and the Golden Lily was used in rebuilding Germany and Japan with the explicit approval of the right wing in America.
While the largest portions of the Nazi hoard and the Golden Lily remains shrouded under a curtain of mystery and controversy a good deal is known about smaller caches that have been recovered. Until recently, little was known about America’s acquisition of treasures from the war. Much mystery still remains and undoubtedly more caches will surface with additional time. Although Congress passed legislation requiring the return to Germany of much of this material, the bulk of it remains stored in the American archives and private collections. The legislation has been supported by court rulings. Only after Clinton authorized Eizenstat to reach a settlement on unclaimed assets has the New York Federal Reserve admitted to holding two tons of Nazi gold. There has been little effort to return the war booty.
Nazi Gold
Part 10:The Emperor's Golden Lily
While the size of the Bormann treasure is not known with any accuracy, it undoubtedly is the largest Nazi treasure that has not been recovered. The only other treasure remaining from WWII that could rival it in size is the Golden Lily treasure collected for the Japanese Emperor. While the Nazi treasure has been the subject of numerous searches and research, the Japanese treasure has been largely left unexplored. While the Nazis appointed a special unit of the SS, Devisenschutzkommando to take charge of the looting of Europe, the Japanese likewise had a special unit. Whereas, the Nazi unit employed Frenchmen to locate gold and currency on a ten percent commission, the unit was plagued by individuals seeking to enrich themselves rather than the Third Reich and much gold was siphoned off into private treasures. Seeking to avoid a similar problem, Hirohito appointed Prince Takeda Tsuneoshi as chief financial officer of the Kwantung Army. Several princes were involved with the Golden Lily operation. After the Japanese invaded China in 1937, the Golden Lily operation conducted a parallel operation. Loot was amassed and trucked to Korea for shipment to the Japanese homeland.77
In 1939, the Japanese invaders suffered a stinging defeat at Nomonhan after a boarder clash with the Soviets. It’s worth noting that this was the first battle in which the Japanese Unit 731 employed biological warfare, using typhoid bacteria. The experiment was a failure. In 1941, Roosevelt signed a secret agreement with Britain and the Netherlands agreeing to go to their defense if their colonies in Southeast Asia were attacked. In 1940, Prince Chichibu was appointed to head the Golden Lily. He and Takeda traveled throughout China and Southeast Asia, overseeing the looting and shipping the treasure back to Japan aboard hospital ships. By 1943, the United States submarine blockade of the home islands became effective. This forced Prince Chichibu to move his Golden Lily headquarters from Singapore to Luzon. He spent the next two and half years inventorying and hiding the treasure in a series of vaults, tunnels, and caves. The treasure was hidden in a total of 172 sites.78 The hope was Japan could arrange a cease-fire and be allowed to hang onto the Philippines as a territory and then recover the treasure at their leisure.
Besides using the Philippines to hide the treasure in the last year of the war, Japan hid gold at sea by scuttling ships. The cruiser, Nachii was torpedoed by a submarine in Manila Bay. The submarine then machined gunned any survivors to ensure secrecy. President Marcos recovered the gold from the Nachii in the 1970s. In 1997, A Japanese television crew filmed the recovery of 1,800 gold bars worth $150 million. The Igorot hill people had discovered the gold. After the death of Prince Chichibu in the 1950s, a member of the Imperial family confided that the Golden Lily had amassed over $100 billion in treasure, much of which was hidden in the Philippines.79 He also confirmed that the prince had escaped from MacArthur’s advancing forces by submarine.
The hospital ship, Tenno Maru, arrived at Yoksuka Naval Base loaded with causalities from the Philippines and 2,000 metric tons of gold. Days later it moved to Maizura Naval Base, where additional treasure was put aboard. The ship then sailed at night. Its crew was murdered and the ship sunk in the bay. In a secret operation in 1987, Japan recovered the gold. Another hospital ship, Awa Maru was sunk mistakenly off the coast of China in April 1945. Aboard the ship was 40 metric tons of gold, 12 metric tons of platinum, 150,000 carats of diamonds, a large quantity of titanium, and other strategic materials. Old mines in the Japanese mountains served as repositories for portions of the Golden Lily treasure. Near the Olympic Village of Nagano, a tunnel complex was dug by Korean slave labors. A ten kilometer tunnel completed the complex.80 This complex was used to hide portions of the Golden Lily.
The Allies had made it clear that they intended to prosecute Japanese war criminals in the same manner as Nuremberg. However, unlike Germany, only a few generals and admirals were ever convicted. The archives in Japan had vanished. The United States took exclusive control over Japan, unlike the four zones in Germany. President Truman appointed MacArthur as the Supreme Commander. For six years after the surrender of Japan, MacArthur held virtually unchallenged power. As Supreme Commander he ignored the Far Eastern commission of eleven nations. MacArthur had the power to reform the country, but instead left it in the same hands that bombed Pearl Harbor. The only reform implemented was the successful land reform that went ahead before it could be blocked. Washington D.C. was at least partially responsible for the lack of reforms. The liberals in Washington wanted reform while the conservatives blocked all reform efforts. The conservative Democrats and the Republicans held Congress until the 1946 election when the Republicans regained a majority of seats, putting Congress solidly in the conservative camp.
There were great plans for reforms, such as the dissolution of the zaibatsu, conglomerates, banking reforms, and a new constitution as well as restitution payments to nations ravaged by Japan. None of these plans were ever implemented. MacArthur killed those plans and was soon backing away from punishment of war criminals. To protect the ruling elite, MacArthur soon banned all labor demonstrations and canceled the right of labor unions to strike.
Just as the denazification of Germany had been sabotaged, the democratization of Japan was sabotaged by MacArthur and his staff with additional help coming from the former ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, and former President Herbert Hoover. Grew had been ambassador to Japan appointed to the post by Hoover in 1932 and was acting secretary of state in 1945. His wife was a grand niece of Commodore Perry and her mother was a Cabot. Grew was from the top society of Boston and was deaf to those beneath his stature in society. Grew’s family had longtime ties to Asia. The Grews had been bankers, who underwrote the opium clipper ships of the 1800s.
Grew had started sabotaging the democratization of Japan during the war. During the war Grew held private talks with Japan’s ambassador to Switzerland and promised that the United States would not prosecute Hirohito and that he would be allowed to keep his throne. Such a promise was adamantly opposed by both the Roosevelt and the Truman administrations, which both called for unconditional surrender and prosecution of war criminals.
Grew however, knew he had the backing of some of the most powerful figures in American politics and high finance. He left it up to Bonner Fellers to see to it. Fellers was a former OSS agent attached to MacArthur’s command who had been stationed in Cairo in 1941. While stationed in Cairo to observe the British operations in North Africa, he transmitted reports back to his superiors using the black code. The Italians had broken the black code and within minutes of Feller’s transmissions, Rommel knew the positions of British forces and battleplan. After being transferred to the states for a brief period Fellers was attached to MacArthur’s command.
The groundwork for sabotaging the peace in Japan had been laid out by Grew and Hoover. Fellers was friends with both and had acquired a reputation of being an expert on Japan. He had been stationed in the Philippines in the 1930s and had made frequent trips to Japan during that time. Hoover used Fellers during the occupation of Japan to convey ideas to MacArthur. MacArthur used Fellers in turn to push his presidential ambitions to Hoover and the Republican hierarchy.
As president, Hoover showed little concern about foreign affairs. However, after his defeat and as the war clouds descended on Europe, he took an active interest in foreign affairs. In 1938, Hoover met with Hitler. Even at this late date, Hoover still would have aligned the country with Hitler to defeat Stalin. He was also a friend with Japanese royalty from his time spent in China. Hoover wanted Japan to be a conservative Pacific outpost strongly opposed to communism. He wanted Japan to be allied with the US and to act as an Asian base for the Republican Party and its Wall Street cronies. Once he could cleanse the emperor of any guilt over the war, he could cleanse the government and Japanese factories would be humming again.
Hoover’s and Grew’s plan to cleanse the emperor and the Japanese government of any war crimes had to be kept secret. There were still far too many, bitter war memories from Pearl Harbor, the Bataan death march, and Japanese forced labor camps. As late as 1945, Congress had voted that Hirohito should be tried as a war criminal. Fellers and another Grew protégé, Max Bishop, engineered the cleansing process. First, to discover the true extent of Hirohito’s guilt, they questioned Japanese officials and indicted war criminals in secret. Once all the facts had been assembled, they sanitized each incriminating bit of information by suborning witnesses. Before the trials could begin, several adverse witnesses conveniently died. American POWs on their way home were forced by US intelligence to sign documents forbidding them to talk about the harsh treatment they received at the hands of the Japanese.
While MacArthur was quietly trying to stop the trials, he received a blunt reminder from the Joint Chiefs to get serious about bringing the Emperor to trial. Despite such orders, MacArthur would not permit a trial of Hirohito. MacArthur even put Hirohito on the public relations circuit, showing him shaking hands and portraying him as a great pacifist. Behind the scenes, MacArthur and Fellers were castigating anyone not falling in line with the opinion that the war was the fault of the military.
MacArthur’s list of war criminals was remarkably short. Of 300 cases investigated only 28 appeared before the court. Only seven were executed. All of those hung were Choshu and not Satsuma. This may have been a payoff to the royal court from a long-standing feud dating back to the early days of the Meiji Restoration. Even post war maps omitted the name Choshu after renaming the prefecture Yamaguchi.
Chief prosecutor was Joseph Keenan, the eleven-member panel of judges consisted of a judge from each Allied nation. Some of the criminals high on the list were granted pardons arbitrarily. For instance, the British decided not to prosecute a naval officer who ordered the machine gunning of 600 British sailors trying to stay afloat after their ship had been sunk. MacArthur ordered that not a single bit of information about biological warfare and Unit 731 be admitted in the trials.81
While Herbert Hoover kept Fellers and MacArthur busy in Japan, nursing MacArthur’s political ambition, he guided Grew stateside. At the end of the war Grew resigned from the State Department and moved to Wall Street, where he became the leading spokesman for the Japan crowd. Grew became the co-chairman of the American Council on Japan (ACJ). The ACJ was a political action committee formed by wealthy conservatives immediately after the war to lobby Washington and to fight any efforts to reform Japan. The ACJ was backed by Newsweek, a newsmagazine founded in 1937 by Averell Harriman. His brother was a director. While Harriman was equally guilty in supplying Hitler before the war, he is normally associated with the Democratic Party. Newsweek’s pro-Japanese stance had his blessing. His role as a leading fundraiser of Democratic causes obviously came at a cost as he was looking out for his financial interests and those of his clients. The magazine hailed the Wall Street vision for Japan. Chief organizers for the AJC were Harry Kern, Newsweek foreign editor, Compton Pakenham, Newsweek’s bureau chief in Tokyo, and James Kauffman, a New York lawyer who served the interest of General Electric, Standard Oil, Ford, National Cash register, Ottis Elevator, and Dillon Reed in Japan.82
Grew’s cochairman at ACJ was another agent of Herbert Hoover, William Castle. Castle was a wealthy plantation owner from Hawaii and a former ambassador to Japan. Ambassador positions at the state department were regarded by the wealthy as their own providence. Grew’s assistant at the ACJ was Eugene Dooman, who was raised in Japan. They regarded their mission to stop any excesses in reforming Japan. Right wing business leaders were careful to denounce cartels and monopolies in principle, but fought vigorously against any effort to break up Japanese conglomerates. They looked toward restoring trade with Japan and saw that Japan was Asia’s only industrial base. Once the financial elite of Japan could be restored to power, the quicker business could resume.
In the summer of 1947, Kauffman visited Tokyo on behalf of Dillon Reed and made a personal assessment of Truman’s plan to break apart the zaibatsu. Truman’s plans were classified secret. However, Undersecretary of Defense William Draper leaked the documents to Newsweek. The reader should recall that William Draper played a prominent role in sabotaging the 4-Ds program in postwar Germany. In December, as the nation was gearing up for the presidential election, Newsweek denounced the overall plan for Japan as costly.
In Congress, the attack was led by Republican Senator William Knowland a wealthy newspaper publisher from California. Knowland claimed the Truman policy on Japan was written by communists, paving the way for Joe McCarthy. Knowland and Congressman Walter Judd a Republican from Minnesota, led the China lobby on Capitol Hill and blamed the loss of China to communism on Truman. Herbert Hoover meanwhile continued to lead MacArthur on about his chances of being nominated for the Republican ticket. MacArthur was particularly sensitive to Newsweek’s charges of communism. Those charges enraged the general and he halted all further implementation of the reform program.
The final deathblow for reform in Japan came early in 1948. In February, William Draper and Percy Johnson, a Wall Street banker, toured Japan to review the policy. Johnston was chairman of Chemical Bank, which had a long time relationship with Mitsui Bank. The outcome was predictable. Of the original list of 325 Japanese companies that were to be broken apart, only 20 remained on the Draper-Johnston list. Not a single Japanese bank would be restructured. The Japanese banks changed their names as a precaution and hid their past.
By 1952, when the occupation ended, all leftists had once again been purged and the conservatives were in control of Japan. The Emperor’s fortune still laid under the waters of Tokyo Bay and in other locations. The first recovery of a portion of the Golden Lily is known as the Santa Romana recovery. In the Philippines during the waning days of the war, Filipino guerillas observed the Japanese transporting heavy bronze cases and hiding them in a cave. An OSS major was with the group that observed the burial. After the treasure was hidden in the cave, the entrance was dynamited shut and concealed. The OSS agent reopened the cave and found the cases to contain gold. Following the war, between 1945 and 1948, the gold was recovered. The operation was known to Wiliam Donovan, MacArthur, Fellers, Edward Langsdale, and Herbert Hoover. Later, Allen Dulles knew of the operation. Donovan and Langsdale were assigned the recovery. No attempt was ever made to return the gold to its rightful heirs. Instead, the gold was deposited in 176 bank accounts in 42 different countries. It became the basis of the CIA off the books financing. This financing was done by issuing gold certificates to influential people, binding them to the CIA. One account in Langsdale’s name in the Geneva branch of Union Banque Suisse contained 20,000 metric tons of gold. The insiders squirreled some of the bullion away for private use. Documents confirm that one of the largest accounts was in the name of MacArthur.
Other documents indicated Herbert Hoover had an account containing $100 million in gold bullion. One can be certain that Hoover’s deep concern over Japan was based on his ability to smell a big payoff in gold from his previous experiences in China and Australia. The large holding of gold by Hoover was confirmed after his death, when his son sought out government approval to dispose of a large sum of gold bullion. The large accounts of MacArthur and Hoover suggest that the cleansing of Hirohito came at a high price.83
Edwin Pauley, a rich oilman, had been dispatched to Japan to assess Japan’s ability to pay reparations. Pauly was informed of the $2 billion dollars of gold in Tokyo Bay shortly after his arrival in Japan. Yet, Pauley concluded Japan was in shambles and could not pay its fair share of expenses of the American occupation, let alone to anyone else’s rebuilding efforts. Largely due to Pauley’s assessment, Japan’s bill for reparations came to only one billion dollars. If such a sum had been distributed equally to the next of kin of the 20 million people who died as a result of Japan’s aggression, each would have received the paltry sum of $30. In the immediate post war scramble for reparations, the wealthy in Japan who had profited from the war and hid their profits submitted their own claim for reparations, totaling $5 billion. Many of these claims were paid.
Instead of cash payment to countries, Japan was ordered to provide industrial equipment. Even such token payments were suspended by Washington when the equipment was claimed as collateral for bonds issued before the war by American firms. Two of the largest American firms making such claims were Morgan Bank and Dillon Reed. By 1950, Japan owed Morgan Bank over $600 million in interest, penalties, and principle just for the 1924 earthquake loans. In 1951, Japan arranged for refinancing of the loans through Smith Barney and Guaranty Trust. By 1952, Japan had repaid all prewar investments by American corporations and compensated them for all property damage. While all prewar Japanese bonds held by companies affiliated with the ACJ were repaid, companies not affiliated were not so fortunate. The reader should ponder long and hard how a country so shattered was able to pay off such a colossal debt in such a short time.84
The issue of Japan’s compensation is still an issue. In 1998, one month before Prince Akihito’s visit to Britain, Congress passed the following resolution.
Whereas the government of Germany has formally apologized to the victims of the Holocaust and gone to great lengths to provide financial compensation to the victims and to provide for their needs and recovery; and Whereas by contrast the Government of Japan has refused to fully acknowledge the crimes it committed during World War II and to provide Reparations to its victims: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that the Government of Japan should.
1.Formally issue a clear and unambiguous apology for the atrocious war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II; and:
2. Immediately pay reparations to the victims of those crimes including United States military and civilian prisoners of, people of Guam who were subjected to violence and imprisonment, survivors of the "Rape of Nanking" from December 1937, until February, 1938, and the women who were forced into sexual slavery and known by the Japanese military as "comfort women."85
One intriguing theory that sheds additional light on the fate of the Golden Lily comes from David Guyatt, author and researcher.86 Guyatt theorizes that the total mined supply of gold has been deliberately understated and that the supply of gold is much larger than the 140,000 tons reported. This additional supply of black gold is controlled by extremely right wing fascists. One reported trader in this market is the son of George Bush.
His theory revolves around the year 1954. London Bullion Market was shut down in 1939 at the onset of war. Even before the war, England’s gold reserves were extremely low. The war was an additional drain on those reserves, as evident by the destroyer trade and England’s reliance on the Lend Lease program. As well as the concession of Portugal to accept the pound in trade rather than demand gold. In short, England was walking among the financially dead at the war’s end. However, in 1954, just nine short years from the end of the war, England had apparently acquired enough supply of gold to reopen the bullion market.
The Bilderberg group held its first meeting in 1954. The Bilderberg group was founded by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and former officer in the SS. Bernhard had also worked in I.G. Farben’s notorious NW7 group, which served as spies for the Third Reich. The Prince is also associated with the Knights of Templar, through its Dutch variety. Bernhard was appointed to govern the Dutch order in 1954. John Foster Dulles was reported to have been one of the most helpful Americans in establishing the Bilderberg group. Incidentally, in 1954 Dulles testified in favor of a bill designed to return vested enemy assets such as GAF, to their previous owners. From the beginning, the Bilderberg group had several members of the intelligence community associated with it. Sir Colin Gubbins, Britian’s wartime SOE head, was a founding member. Walter Bedell Smith was a co-chairman of the group in the US.
The year 1954 was significant in a number of other ways. A memorandum of agreement between the CIA and the Justice Department that allowed the CIA to police itself was dated February 18, 1954. In effect, it allowed the CIA free reign as the Justice department would turn a blind eye towards matters of national security. Another noteworthy aspect of 1954 was the merger of the Schroder Bank and the Wagg family to form the city based merchant bank, J. Henry Schroder Wagg & Co. Wackenhut Corporation, a corporation with deep ties to both the military and intelligence communities, was formed in 1954.
However, more significant was that 1954 was the year the U.S. had forecasted that the Soviet Union would have thermo nuclear weapons. With their greater numerical strength, a massive military build up had been launched, costing taxpayers billions, while the corporations reaped fat profits. It was also the year in which General James Doolittle concluded his study of the CIA and reached the conclusion that the agency was not as adept as the KGB. The MK-Ultra, the mind control program of the CIA, began in 1954.
Perhaps the most noteworthy of all events in 1954 was a strange audit of the gold supply in Fort Knox. Every bar, totaling almost three quarters of a million, was weighed singularly. Moreover, every hundredth bar was drilled and a small sample taken to be assayed. No single assayer was used so the extent of the audit could not be deduced. No reasonable explanation for such a detailed and secret audit has been uncovered.
A partial list of significant events of 1954 follows: After learning about the Japanese treasures in November 1953, Marcos starts digging for gold in the Philippines. Fred Meuser, Lockheed's European Director, transfers to Geneva to live, this event figures in later. The Four-Power Treaty is signed in Paris to terminate the occupation regime in Germany. Germany joins NATO. Geneva Accord reached regarding peace between France and Indochina. Additionally, 1954 was the year that Edward Landsdale arrived in Vietnam to take over the opium trade. The Israeli Mossad and US CIA formed an intelligence "partnership." Nazi gold was moved from Argentina to the Philippines in 1954 after the Mosad determined it was located in Argentina.
Guyatt provides a more extensive list of events revolving around 1954 than provided above. However, the essential events to support his theory have been covered and we can now begin to look more directly at the Golden Lily and its recovery. Research done by the Seagraves has found 172 treasure sites of the Golden Lily in the Philippines. One of those sites audited by Japanese accountants contained a staggering 777 billion yen or the equivalent of $194 billion.87 Estimates for all 172 sites comes to a staggering $100 trillion. Over the years, numerous right wing groups have aided and abetted the CIA by laundering plundered items from the Golden Lily.
One of the latest recoveries, which raised scandalous headlines in 1994 involving former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, was part of an operation involving the CIA and former General John Singlaub. The operation, dubbed Nippon Star, had recovered in excess of 500 metric tons of gold recovered from the Philippines. Singlaub, who is very active in right wing extremist groups and political intrigue in Central and South America, headed the team. Singlaub was part of the military/CIA intelligence complex before retiring. The team consisted of Gunther Russbacher, a CIA agent, five other Americans, and a handful of Filipinos. The recovered gold contained Nazi gold and gold stole from China by the Japanese. Kurt Waldheim served as the intermediary between the Austrian National Bank and Philippine President Ramos.
What is intriguing about this sale, besides the extraordinary size, is this operation was also known to the Knights of Malta. A document from the Knights of Malta entitled the Landsdale Project references 500 MT. Moreover, it refers to a meeting of Washington people to discuss the ramifications of another Landsdale project. While a number of former intelligence officials and military leaders are known members of the Knights of Malta, their knowledge of a secret CIA operation raises further questions. Who else was in on this operation? What were the ramifications of the second Landsdale Project? Was the Vatican a part of this operation? For now, those questions and others will have to go unanswered.
The stated reason for the transfer to Austria was to provide backing for the Euro dollar. However, the presence of Waldheim as an intermediary only raises questions of connections to Nazis and fascism. Even before Waldheim took his office in the UN, the CIA and military intelligence must have known about his former background as an SS officer. It is inconceivable that the US did not know of his background, since he was in an automatic arrest category following the war.
One of the earliest documents attesting to Marcos’s recovering the treasure of the Golden Lily is a gold certificate dated 1956. This was before Marcos had become a member of the senate. Swiss Bank Corporation (Schweizerische Bank GESELLSCHAFT M.H.C.) issued the certificate for a deposit of 7,120 metric tons of gold. Marcos collaborated with Japanese-American investigator Minoru Fukimatsu. Together they interviewed over 300 witnesses and somehow accessed secret Japanese government archives in determining the locations of the treasure.
Another gold certificate was issued on January 17, 1963 by Unions Bank of Switzerland. The certificate was issued to Adnan Kasogi. Adnan Kasogi was actually Adnan Khashoggi, a Marcos crony. Khashoggi's name was misspelled, but that is often the case in these certificates. Khashoggi was a Lockheed agent and partner of Yoshio Kodama. Kodama was a Japanese rear admiral during the war and also a member of the Japanese Yakuza crime clan. Kodama was charged with shipping the loot to the Philippines during the war. This gold certificate was issued just before Lockheed paid the first known bribe to Prince Bernhard. Lockheed was being used by the CIA to funnel money worldwide. Moreover, Lockheed’s European Sales Director, Dutchman Fred Meuser, had been a member of Prince Bernhard’s wartime air force squadron. An additional member of the Lockheed bribe team was CIA officer Nicholas Deak. Deak had founded a money brokering firm that was used to funnel money to Kodama. Deak’s company later merged with Lionel C. Perera, who founded the money firm of Perera, Manfra & Brookes. Perera was attached to the Chief of Military Government Finance Office at the Third Army’s headquarters in Germany at war's end, where he interviewed Colonel Rauch. Rauch was the SS colonel responsible for hiding the Reich Bank gold reserves.
With so many figures involved directly with both the Nazi and the Japanese treasures, such an event as the Lockheed bribery cannot be dismissed as mere happenstance. However, the intrigue does not stop there. Marcos, Kodama, and Singlaub were all members of the World Anti-Communist League, a right wing extremist group populated with known war criminals and fascists. Under the Reagan administration, the World Anti-Communist League was granted tax-exempt status. That raises the possibility that the World Anti-Communist League was being used as a front for the CIA. Moreover, the intrigue continues. Guyatt goes on to claim that a letter from Henry Kissinger was sent to Marcos on Trilateral notepaper. Kissinger demanded that Marcos sell "63,321 tons of gold to 2000 US and European banks admittedly controlled by the Trilateral." The letter was dated February 21, 1986. Marcos refused and was overthrown as a result of his refusal. Imelda Marcos, however, chose to sell the gold to avoid criminal charges, and the gold was transferred aboard the US Eisenhower to the United States.
Additional evidence of Marco’s recovering the Golden Lily treasure comes from the Filipino newspaper, The Inquirer. In 1998 the paper published an article entitled "Soldiers of Fortune." The article revealed that all members of the 16th Infantry Battalion had signed a joint affidavit declaring that, together with members of the 51st Engineering Brigade, they had recovered 60,000 metric tons of gold from thirty sites between 1973 and 1985. Both units operated in strict secrecy under Marcos’ henchman Fabian Ver.
Whether Guyatt’s theory of a secret gold treaty being reached in 1954 is correct or not, it is obvious from his findings and those of the Seagraves that considerable treasure has been recovered from the Golden Lily, ending up in the hands of those involved in intelligence and right wing causes. Was this gold put to private use or the use of the CIA? It’s most likely that a portion was skimmed for private use while the bulk of the remainder was used to fund clandestine CIA operations. It is interesting to note that those connected with the secret recoveries: Herbert Hoover, MacArthur, Allen Dulles, and others were the very ones that worked the hardest in derailing the reform of Japan and Nazi Germany. Their sole objective was to reestablish the cartels and get on with business as usual, and to hell with war crimes. Moreover, it seems certain that a large portion of the Nazi treasure and the Golden Lily was used in rebuilding Germany and Japan with the explicit approval of the right wing in America.
While the largest portions of the Nazi hoard and the Golden Lily remains shrouded under a curtain of mystery and controversy a good deal is known about smaller caches that have been recovered. Until recently, little was known about America’s acquisition of treasures from the war. Much mystery still remains and undoubtedly more caches will surface with additional time. Although Congress passed legislation requiring the return to Germany of much of this material, the bulk of it remains stored in the American archives and private collections. The legislation has been supported by court rulings. Only after Clinton authorized Eizenstat to reach a settlement on unclaimed assets has the New York Federal Reserve admitted to holding two tons of Nazi gold. There has been little effort to return the war booty.
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