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Any Filipino & American born on June 6, 1944, turns 66 today, well
into the zone
for full collection of Social Security benefits. So, the youngest of
those paratroopers who jumped in, infantrymen who waded ashore, sailors
who guided ships and landed boats, and airmen who laid on air support,
would be about 84 years old. More likely they are 86 or older
SOUTH COTABATO:
Tampakan, Southeast Asia's largest undeveloped
copper-gold
prospect
Estimated to contain 12.8 million
tonnes of Copper and 15.2
million ounces of Gold
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MUSIC
1
MUSIC
2
American Shogun MacArthur
Japanese Imperial Army Officer
Imelda Marcos with Pure Gold Finger
and Lucky Precious Jaded Buddha
In July 1978
After a trip to Russia,
Imelda arrived in New York and
immediately warmed up for a shopping spree. She started with paying
$193,320
for antiques, including $12,000 for a Ming Period side table; $24,000
for a
pair of Georgian mahogany Gainsborough armchairs; $6,240 for a Sheraton
double-sided writing desk; $11,600 for a George II wood side table with
marble
top - all in the name of the Philippine consulate to dodge New York
sales tax.
That was merely for starters.
A week later she spent $2,181,000.00 in one day! This included
$1,150,000 for a
platinum and emerald bracelet with diamonds from Bulgari; $330,000 for
a
necklace with a ruby, diamonds, and emeralds; $300,000 for a ring with
heart-shaped emeralds; $78,000 for 18-carat gold ear clips with
diamonds;
$300,000 for a pendant with canary diamonds, rubies and emeralds on a
gold
chain.
After New York, she dropped by Hong Kong where a Cartier representative
admitted it was this Filipina, Imelda, who had put together the world's
largest
collection of gems - in 1978.
Rest in Peace President Marcos
A U.S. Tank
Roaring Under The Gate Of The Once
Impregnable Fort Santiago On February 25th, 1945
Japanese Imperial Gas Mask Recovered
from a Recent Yamashita Treasures Diggings
in the Philippines
Wow So Much Marcos Gold Bars...!!!
One of the Many Sample of
Yamashita Treasures Maps
JAPS KEEP OUT in California & Texas
"The First Members Of The K-9 Corps" to go into
action on Luzon Island, "the dogs were especially trained
to smell out Japs". The soldiers pictured are
T/5 Paul Beancucci, Hartford, Conn./ T/5 EDW Smith,
Cross Plains, Indiana/ T/5 George Hertran, Cedar Ridge,
Colorado/ T/5 Milton Leavitt, Newburyport, Mass. and
T/5 Robert Robertson, Los Angeles, California
Five Japs to his Credit
probably the Youngest and Proudest Guerilla Fighter in the
philippines
Ponciano "Sabu" Arida of Santa Maria Laguna Province has 5 dead
Japs to his Credit, The 11 year old Patriot who fought the Japs
throughout
the 3 years of Japanese Occupation of the Philippine Islands is now
working
with a Unit of the 43rd Division
April 19 1945
San Miguel Brewery in 1945
US 38th Division Major General in the Philippine Islands 1945
End of the Line
Leyte - Japanese Medium Tank Stands wrecked where it was
Knocked Out
in a Duel with an American Tank in the Ormoc Area of Northern
Leyte
The Charred body of One of the Japanese Tank Crew lies In
Front of the
Tank. January 5 1945
Yanks Scurry for Cover
Leyte - American Fighters hurry for cover as a Jap Mortar Shell screams
over
their heads and strikes in the village of Limon, Leyte. 3 of the US
Soldiers in this photo were injured by Shell Fragments
Dec 25 1944
Captured Japanese Imperial Army Navy Flag Philippines 1945
Japanese SwitchBoard Captured 1945 Philippine Islands
1945 Panay Island American Liberation - Filipino Lend many Hand
Japanese Zero Fighter Plane Destroyed in Philippine Islands 1945
Quiapo Church in 1945
Manila City Hall Damage in1945
Pa and Son Duo Dig to their Dream of Yamashita Treasures
Gold somewhere in Mindanao Island - Philippines
Yamashita
Treasures Gold TOO HEAVY GOLD CARGO ??
Airbus 300
Dead Japanese Soldier
Victory Liner Bus in 1950's
1947 Roxie Bazar
Corregidor Island - Philippines
Lieut. Col.
Donald D. Blackburn,
U.S. Army Commanding Officer, 11th Infantry, USAFIP NL He later became
a Brigadier General". For those who don't know, "USAFIP NL" stands for
"United States Armed Forces in Philippines, Northern Luzon". The photo
shows Blackburn earlier in the war while a major.
Manila
American
Cemetery,
Taguig
City,
the
Philippines
-
It
contains
the
largest
number
of
graves
of
our
military
Dead
of
World
War
II,
a
total
of
17,206,
most
of
whom
gave
their
lives
in
the
operations
in
New
Guinea
and
the
Philippines.
US Army Air Force Cemetery
Dedication of
last surviving boxcar that was
used on the Death March at the Capas National Shrine on April 9, 2008.
Courtesy
of Jim Litton
A 60th Anniversary memorial ceremony in Tacloban, Philippines,
on
October 20, 2004
Admiral William F. 'Bill' Halsey - Commander US Third Fleet at Leyte
Gulf
The
headstone over
the mass grave for the men who were executed on Palawan Island by the
Japanese. The grave is at Jefferson Barracks National
Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.
More than 200 American POWs
are burned to death
in a Palawan
cave
American forces Liberate Cebu
American Forces Liberate Philippine Islands
B-25 Flown by US MARINE - Zamboanga Mindanao
Japanese Tank formation enters MANILA BANZAI BANZAI 1942
Filipinos Americans Bataan Defender inside the FOXHOLES
Maragondon,
Cavite
notable
landmarks:
Parish Church of the Assumption of Our Lady
Pico de Loro point
Mt. Marami
Mt. Buntis
Parish Church of the Assumption of Our Lady (Maragondon, Cavite). The
church was built in the early 18th century by the Jesuits, with later
additions by the seculars and the Augustinian Recollects. Much of the
church and belltower, and the lower portion of the convento is made of
irregular river stones, indicative of the early level of technology
operating at that time.
The intricately-carved retablos, pulpit and church doors (with galleons
and floral designs) date from Jesuit times, while the hugely carved
beams crossing the nave were installed by the seculars-- one of the
beams even carries the name of the indio priest who commissioned them.
The unusual horseshoe-shaped communion rail, with a flooring of inlaid
wood of various colors, recalls that of San Sebastian Church, Manila,
another Recollect construction.
This
place is almost 15deg NE, ideal bearing for the paranormal beliefs of
the japanese. pag nagtatago sila ng kanilang mga nakulimbat na yaman ng
mga bansa. Ayon ng mga matatanda dito ay di kayang bilangin ang mga
ssundalong hapon ang nangamatay sa dakong ito , meron silang mga
hospital at mga training grounds sa area na ito. Ngayon Ang JICA isang
grupo ng mga hapon , Bechtell isang american Firm at si Pangulong
Arroyo kasama na ang mga lokal na pamahalaan ang nagsusulong na gawing
lanfill ang area na ito. dati gwardyado ng grupo ni marcos ang dakong
ito.Ngayon sila naman. until now balikatan joint forces still
exercising in this area. ang world bank at si dating pangulong Ramos ay
lagi ring nakamonitor sa lugar na ito. Walang ganyanan!
Jet7
1921 Olongapo Fire
Large building or barracks engulfed in fire. Card is posted Jan 14 1921
Olongapo Zambales to Independence Missouri. Sender also notes writng
from Olongapo. Among the folks watching the blaze seems to be a US
sailor.
American
POW died at
a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp on Mindanao Island,
Philippines.
This photo shows the position in which a white man,
emaciated, died while trying to get a drink of water. this was
at the Davao Penal Colony Hospital.
1945 American Forces Bomb Corregidor Island
USS Flier (SS-250)
Lost on August 13 1944 with 78 US Navy Submariners killed
Sunk by Japanese Mine South of Palawan in Balabac Strait
(www.Balabac.COM)
USS Harder (SS-257)
Lost August 24 1944 with 74 US Navy Submariners killed.
Sunk by Japanese Luzon Coast Defense Vessel No.22
Off West Coast of Luzon - Philippine Islands
Real Sumatra Indonesian Gold Bars 999.99 Refine Gold
circa 1940s
Yamashita Treasures STONE MARKER
LOS BANOS RESCUE 1
Yamashita Treasures X Stone Marker
Sample Meaning of YamashitaTreasures X
10 nice things to say about Marcos
On his 20th death anniversary
By Benjamin Pimentel
CALIFORNIA, United States—Imelda Marcos reportedly expressed
hope
that someday her late husband also would be honored in the same way,
perhaps at a state funeral. Having grown up during, and survived, the
Marcos regime, Imelda’s wackiness no longer surprises me. But
her
wish left me with a jaw-dropping realization: They haven’t
buried
that dictator!?!
This month marks the 20th anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos’s
death. He died in exile in Hawaii in September 1989, three years after
being chased out of Malacanang. But the dictator’s remains
are
still lying in a refrigerated crypt somewhere up north. Someone should
tell the dictator’s handlers that what he said was,
“I do
not intend to die,” not “I do not intend to be
buried.” Still, in the spirit of reconciliation, and since we
have just relived the glorious days of the People Power Revolution, bid
farewell to Cory Aquino, and commemorated the martyrdom of Ninoy,
it’s perhaps time to also focus on the positive side of the
late
strongman.
Besides, it is also Marcos’s 92nd birthday (September 11) and
the
37th anniversary of the imposition of Martial law (September 21). What
can I say—September has really been an unlucky month for us.
So allow me to present my list—and, believe me, I tried real
hard
to come up with these—of the 10 nice things one can say about
Marcos.
1. Marcos taught us to disdain bullies. Ferdinand Marcos was
not
the first, or the last, president to abuse his power. But, certainly,
he set a seemingly unbreakable record. The nightmare of his 21 years in
power still haunts us today, a powerful, constant reminder of a chapter
in our history that must never be repeated.
2. Marcos taught us to disdain leaders who flaunt their wealth. Marcos
and Imelda did not invent wealth-flaunting. The elites have been doing
that for generations well before he came to power, and it’s
still
happening today, of course. But the Marcoses certainly took the brazen
display of extreme affluence, in the face of extreme poverty, to a new
low. I mean how can how one justify owning 3,000 pairs of shoes?
3. Marcos taught us to be suspicious of leaders who acquire wealth. The
current president just ran into this problem, of course. And the last
one too. Yes, politics is still widely-considered as an easy road to
easy money, but too much greed is now generally accepted as dangerous
to one’s political career. And we have to give credit to
Marcos
for this, for making Filipinos extremely suspicious of political
leaders who suddenly get rich.
4. Marcos taught us to disdain politicians who brazenly cheat in
elections. Now, I said “brazenly.” For yes,
election
Philippine-style is still dirty. But given our experience with Marcos,
there’s a line, especially in national races, that I suspect
candidates will not cross for fear of sparking a severe backlash. (Or
maybe not.)
5. Marcos taught us to be suspicious of leaders who warn the
nation that because of some unspeakable danger to the country they
simply must have more power. “Emergency powers” and
“martial law” are two phrases any Philippine
president must
use with extreme caution nowadays. If not, you run the risk of facing
ordinary Filipinos asking: “What was that again Mr./Madame
President? You say the communists, the rightists, the terrorists are
about to attack? Oh, and the Martians too, perhaps? And
that’s
why you need to throw all these people in jail, shut down all these
newspapers and TV stations and kill those who say you’re a
corrupt liar? Sir/Madame, I think we’ve seen this movie
before.
Napanood na ho ata naming ‘tong sineng ito.”
6. Marcos taught us that there is a big difference between discipline
and fear. “Sa Ikauunlad ng Bayan, Disiplina ang Kailangan
(For
our nation to develop, we need discipline).” That was the
regime’s slogan for Marcos’s New Society. It worked
for a
time, mainly because people knew that by discipline, the dictator
meant, “Shut up and submit, or else.” It got so bad
that
one US official observed that the Philippines in the 70s and 80s had
turned into a country of “40 million cowards and one
SOB.”
Well, Filipinos were willing to let that be the case only for so long.
7. Marcos showed that friendship with powerful world leaders is no
guarantee that one can hold on to power indefinitely. Oh, Marcos and
Imelda look so happy and proud in photographs with Ronald and Nancy
Reagan. They were friends after all. Reagan even sent his Vice
President George H.W. Bush to Manila to praise Marcos’
“adherence to democratic principles.” Well, a few
years
later, the dictator was gone after the Reagan White House finally
realized he had turned into a liability.
8. Marcos taught us to be wary of leaders who try to glorify themselves
in songs, slogans, or big, ugly monuments. I was actually thrilled when
Marcos imposed Martial Law in 1972. I was eight years old when it
happened, and for a few weeks I didn’t have to go to school
and
there was nothing on TV but cartoons. But then, once back in school, my
schoolmates and I had to learn these new weird songs about the new
order and how everything was great about the regime.
And then there’s that gigantic bust up north. I’m
glad
nobody blew it up as some groups reportedly planned to do. For it
stands as a powerful reminder of the twisted mind that once ruled our
country.
9. Marcos taught us to be creative—in fighting back. Only in
the
Philippines could yellow confetti become a symbol of protest. And nuns
praying the rosary in front of tanks—you just won’t
find
such an act of defiance in other places. But even before the People
Power Revolt, during the darkest days of dictatorship, Filipinos were
already coming up with creative ways to defy the regime. Students at
the University of the Philippines used to launch lightning rallies, in
which they march from one floor of Palma Hall to another, while yelling
slogans and waving banners, and then quickly putting the banners away
and dispersing before the cops showed up.
Even the artists dared try new things. Take my old boss and drinking
buddy, the poet Pete Lacaba, who wrote a seemingly harmless, apolitical
poem titled “Prometheus Unbound.” When read
vertically, the
first letter of every line said, “Marcos, Hitler, Diktador,
Tuta”—the famous anti-dictatorship slogan,
“Marcos,
Hitler, Dictator, Puppet.”
10. Marcos made us laugh and helped demonstrate that, even during dark
times, Filipinos can still maintain a healthy sense of humor. Marcos
and his crazy war medals. Imelda and her theory of a hole in the sky
above the Philippines through which cosmic rays pass to protect the
country from disaster. Admit it, Marcos and Imelda made us laugh. If it
weren’t for all the people who died and suffered during the
regime, we could look back to that time as funny and fun years.
Marcos and Imelda jokes kept us entertained even as we endured tyranny.
And we didn’t even have cell phones back then for speedy mass
distribution. I distinctly remember a classic during one of the rallies
after Ninoy’s assassination and Marcos’s face often
looked
swollen as he reportedly battled lupus. The protest poster read:
“Mamaga sana ang mukha ng nagpapatay kay Ninoy. (I hope
whoever
had Ninoy killed gets a swollen face).” Well, it’s
funnier
in Tagalog.
And without Marcos, what would have happened to Willie Nepomuceno, one
of the most talented Filipino humorists ever? He was so good with his
Marcos impersonation, that during the critical hours of the 1986 People
Power Revolt, when the dictator appeared on TV to prove he was still in
charge, there were those who believed it was a ploy—with the
popular comedian in the starring role.
Of course, Nepomuceno’s career faced a crisis when Marcos was
kicked out of the country, and later died. But he quickly bounced back,
doing other politicos, including former Presidents Fidel Ramos and
Joseph Estrada. Fortunately, like the late tyrant, Willie Nepomuceno
did not intend to die.
Not much of a list, but can you blame me? It’s tough to say
anything nice about a dictator in a freezer.
In any case, to Marcos supporters, let me say this: There may never be
a grand funeral for the late dictator, with big adoring crowds, a
military honor guard, 24/7 TV coverage, and flattering commentary in
media.
But don’t worry. We will never forget Marcos and what he did
to
our country. Ever.
ADDENDUM: I spoke too soon. Writer Krip Yuson informs me that someone
did blow up the Marcos bust which was heavily damaged by the blast
about seven years ago. Krip adds, "A Baguio friend rushed to the site
and picked up a bayong of the rubble. I was given two precious pieces,
which I keep."
* Jet was carrying eight crates
(one ton) of gold during take-off.
* Each crate weighed 250 pounds.
* Value over US$10,000,000.
* This gold was recovered from a Mindanao treasure site.
MINDANAO DAILY MIRROR
MINDANAO ISLAND (Philippines) - An overloaded eight-seater plane owned
by the Banco Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) crashed into a ravine at the
Davao International Airport after a failed takeoff yesterday noon,
injuring 12 passengers, two of them seriously.
The plane with body number RP C1980 was also carrying eight crates of
gold and an undetermined amount of cash.
Philippine National Police (PNP) 7th Aviation Security Command (Ascom)
chief Major Arturo Evangelista
said the plane was bound for Manila when it failed to take off at 11:55
a.m., forcing the pilot to manuever a
'break' and release the emergency brake.
But Evangelista said the emergency chute broke before it could stop the
plane which fell into a ravine at the end of the 2.5-kilometer airport
runway.
Seriously wounded were pilot Capt. Bienvenido Gorospe and co-pilot
Teofilo Balinghasay.Also injured were chief mechanic Aquilino Lugo and
passengers Victor Callejo; Cesar Callejo; Oscar Pimping, 50 and a
resident of Fabie Subdivision, Paco, Metro Manila; Alfred Bonilla, 46,
of Flores Subdivision, Moonwalk Village, Metro Manila; Leticia Fortun,
46; Andres Paulino, 34; Syvie Gorospe,
Dominic Gorospe, and one-year-old John Dominic Gorospe.
Evangelista said the rescue teams used a chainsaw to open the tail-end
of the plane to pull out the passengers who were trapped inside.
Because of their condition, he said a rescue helicopter of the
Composite Air Support Force (CASF) airlifted the passengers to the
Davao Medical Center but chose to be transferred to San San Pedro
Hospital. Except for one who was able to walk, all had to be carried in
stretchers.
A hospital nurse said the victims appeared to be out of danger, except
for the pilot and his co-pilot who are still being examined by doctors.
Meantime, Air Traffic Services chief Roland Vivar said an aircraft
investigator from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board in Manila
is expected to arrive anytime now to investigate the incident.
The jet broke in three places with its two landing gear some 10 meters
from the body.The nose of the plane was found just a few meters from
the residence of a certain Tiago Bacolcol.The twin-engined aircraft,
according to ATO, arrived in Davao City at about 11:30 a.m. and was
supposed to
leave Davao at 11:45 a.m.
Again, another POW story
This from my old friend, Ray Thompson Bataan survivor until 1999.
SUBJECT: PALAWAN-MEMOIRS
FROM: FVWW66A RAY THOMPSON
Palawan Memoirs of Ernest J. Koblos, who survived the Massacre when 139
POWs burned.
Ernest gave this account of the massacre to the press on Aug 28, 1944.
He was one of 11, WW II survivors who by law of averages should not be
enjoying the freedom and pleasures of their homeland, the love of home
and family. For Koblos, who formerly lived in Chicago, and his ten
living buddies, are the sole survivors of the infamous Palawan massacre
in which 139 out of a total of 150 American POWs were executed in one
of the most dastardly deeds ever to be conceived in the minds of
so-called civilized men, according to a special dispatch to the Daily
Calumet (a Chicago Paper), from General Hdqs. of the Supreme Commander
for the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Tokyo, Japan.
As if being watched over by some omnipotent power, these boys reached
safety in probably the most miraculous and spectacular escape yet
recorded in the history of WW II. Sixteen Japanese who are charged with
the responsibility for the massacre will face a Yokohama 8th Army
Military commission this month.
Alva C. Carpenter, Chief of SCAP's legal section, first learned of this
new
addition to the already overflowing volume of Pacific war crimes while
serving with the American forces that re-occupied Mindoro in the
Philippines. He knew that it was a major atrocity, that justice and
America demanded that the perpetrators be found and made to answer for
this diabolical crime,and so, during the past three years he has
concentrated his every effort on bringing to the bar of just ice those
responsible for the Palawan massacre. In a recent interview Carpenter
declared "at the close of the Pacific war I pledged myself to fulfill
the solemn promises made to the people of the United States and the
Allied Nations at Potsdam that stern justice shall be meted out to all
war criminals, especially those who have visited cruelties upon our
POWS".
To me these were no idle words spoken to appease outraged peoples; they
were a mandate which I determined to thoroughly discharge and three
years of investigative research have expended to this end".
ONLY 11 A mericans ESCAPED
Just two months prior to the occupation of Palawan Island by the
American
troops the mass destruction of American POWs had been perpetrated--with
the exception of the 11 escapees, a complete POW camp had been
"annihilated" when it became evident that the victorious forces would
make a landing in the vicinity of Palawan, possibly on the island
itself. Conceived in hate and born in an atmosphere of frustration, the
decision to kill the American prisoners was no instantaneous burst of
passion. It was a fulfillment of a premeditated plan to "DISPOSE" of
the gallant defenders of Bataan and Corregidor at the time of the enemy
landing. The method of disposition was the off-spring of moral
depravity unsurpassed in the annals of Pacific war crimes...the
individual acts of heroism displayed by the few survivors are unequaled.
HOPE:B-24s SHOW
In October 1944,there were remaining at Puerta Princesa POW camp at
Palawan Island in the P.I., 150 American POWs. They had been sent there
by the Japanese to build an airstrip--a military project designed to
further the Japanese war effort against the Allied Forces. Conditions
at this camp were similar to those existing in most Japanese POW
camps--too little of every necessity of life, too much of mistreatment,
abuse and manual labor. All the hardships that had been suffered during
two years and a half were of little consequence, however, to these
prisoners on 19 Oct, 1944.
They could not forget the past, but the future looked brighter as they
watched the first B-24 that they had ever seen raid the airstrip they
had laboriously built, for the most part with hand tools, during long,
arduous hours in the relentless tropical sun.
It was easy for them to be lighthearted now--it would only be a matter
of a short time before they would be liberated, and, as their morale
soared, so that of the Japanese forces dropped to a new low. From now
on, daily air raids became a part of "living" at Puerta Princesa, and
so it was not unusual to hear the air raid siren at noon on 15 Dec.
1944.
What was unusual, however, was the fact that the Japanese called all the
Americans back to the compound from the airfield on which they were
still
working, filling in bomb craters now, when heretofore their captors had
shown no concern for the prisoners' safety, compelling them to work on
the strip even during actual raids. "We knew something was the matter
but couldn't figure out what", stated Koblos.
PRISONERS CORRALLED
There were inside the POW compound, three large air raid shelters,
having a narrow entrance at each and a cover over the top. The Japanese
specifications had permitted only one entrance but after much
persuasion the Americans were allowed to make two entrances. These
shelter would accommodate, very uncomfortably, approximately 40--50 men
each, and in addition there were several small shelters with a capacity
of from one to four men each. The area was completely surrounded by a
double barb-wired fence and the camp was built on a cliff overlooking
the Puerta Princesa Bay.
On this fateful day of 14 Dec. l944, the Japanese herded every prisoner
into these shelters, saying that there were "hundreds" of American
planes coming. The only evidence of an air raid was a lone Japanese sea
plane which circled the camp area and the field a few times as if in
response to the call of the false air raid alarm for some showing. Many
of the boys were hesitant to go into the shelters--these were "helped"
by prodding with bayonets and threats of being killed if they did not
obey the orders to go underground. No sooner was the last man "safely"
hidden from the dangers of an American air raid then two companies of
Japanese soldiers, armed with buckets of gasoline,torches, rifles,
machine guns, fixed bayonets and hand grenades, entered the compound
and proceeded to carry into effect the plan for the annihilation of
every single POW.
IGNITE GASOLINE
The bestial savagery of the perpetrators was unleashed as the assault
began, running, screaming and laughing, they attacked each shelter,
wherein the unsuspecting and helpless prisoners were trapped throwing
in buckets of gasoline and igniting it with torches. Some of the men
did manage to get out of the raging infernos only to be beheaded,
bayoneted, clubbed to death, shot with rifles or dropped by machine gun
fire. In some cases men were slowly tortured with bayonets, then
gasoline was poured on first one foot and then the other, ignited, and
their whole bodies set aflame. Some few were able to escape into the
water by tearing barehanded through the barb-wire fences and jumping
down a 50-foot cliff only to be drowned in the water when they were
shot at either from the shore or from a small boat that patrolled the
foreshores of the bay watching out for escapees. Men walking walls of
flame, ran out of the shelters begging for mercy and for the Japanese
"to use some sense" only to be shot down...others, knowing fully their
fate, grabbed onto Japanese guards causing them to burn up together.
Still others, bodies afire, grappled with their assailants, and were
able to
wrest a bayonet from one or two of the Japanese and kill them before
they
themselves were bayoneted to death from behind.
The 11 prisoners who succeeded in escaping found temporary refuge in
the caves on the beach. It was not long, however, before roving parties
of Japanese began scanning every nook and corner for possible
survivors--the plan being to kill every single American and so forever
hide the truth of this murderous crime. Several times during the
ensuing four or five hours it seemed inevitable that the hiding places
of this small band would be discovered, but somehow, thorough as the
search was, they were overlooked. Their ordeal was not over, however.
Possibly they would find help and safety if they could reach the
opposite side of the bay--a distance of about five miles through
shark-infested waters, and two or three of the men could not swim...but
it was their only chance and they all took it. After dark that same
evening some of the escapees began to swim across--10 days later the
last one to reach the opposite side was found caught in a fish trap by
friendly Filipinos coming out in the early morning to gather in the
previous night's catch! They escorted him, as they had done the others,
to Brooke's Point where an American PBY (a US made two engine Amphibian
seaplane) evacuated them to the American lines.
All that remained of the 139 victims when the American forces landed
were
incomplete skeletons, scattered at random in the area of the camp,
piles of
bones in the air raid shelters, dog-tags and other identifying
data--mute
evidence of the sordid gruesomeness, the bestial depravity of the
perpetrators and sponsors of this outrageous crime.
During the past three years a staff of investigators have been tireless
in
their efforts to find those Japanese responsible for this atrocity. The
entire islands of Japan and the Philippines have been combed and
hundreds of interrogations conducted, as a result of which 16 Japanese
ranging in rank from former Lt. Generals to a Private First Class will
face a military commission in Yokohama to be judged for their part in
this planned and premeditated execution of innocent and helpless
American prisoners of war. "Unfortunately", stated Carpenter, "most of
the actual participants in this crime have never been captured despite
a maximum of effort to locate them, and there is every reason to
believe they were killed when Palawan island was taken by the American
forces. However, we do have those people who, by their acts of
commission or omission or both, allowed this heinous crime to be
perpetrated and we are determined that they shall answer for their
actions before the bar of justice".
This story published with permission from IRENE KOBLOS, the widow of Sgt
Koblos, who died 1990, he enlisted in the Regular Army 1939, served in
the 59th Coast Artillery in the Philippines. He returned home to
US-1945- spent considerable time in Letterman Gen. Hosp. and Garner
Gen. Hosp.in Chicago, as the result of his ordeal in Japanese hands. He
married Irene, August 1945, they have a son John; Irene now resides in
California." End"
Last September the barbed wire of Puerta Princesa prison camp at
Palawan held 150 prisoners of war, the remnants of a "volunteer" labor
battalion brought there from Luzon shortly after the surrender at
Corregidor, to build a Japanese airfield.
The original group of some 300 had volunteered because they thought
anything
would be better than the squalor, disease and death of Cabanatuan
prison camp on Luzon.
Yet, two months later, 141 of the 150 were to be slain in the worst mass
atrocity of the Pacific war.
In a Marine Corps office at San Francisco, twenty-six year old Marine
Corporal Rufus W. Smith of Hughes Springs, Texas, talked slowly and
carefully: "We had been at Puerta Princesa prison camp for a little
over twenty-eight months when the Japanese decided to kill us."
Arriving at the camp, Smith continued, the Americans were herded inside
the barbed wire, bedded down like ill-kept farm animals, and booted
awake by Japanese guards at four thirty the next morning.
Breakfast was one large spoonful of rice-Cambodian rice, wormy and full
of
rocks, which the Japanese serve in prison camps because they don't like
it
themselves. During the next two years the men were to eat it three
times a day, with now and then a dab of a Philippine vegetable--also
wormy--resembling potatoes. Even this planned ration was a starvation
diet designed to keep them too weak to make trouble or to get very far
if they escaped. But the Japanese reduced it even further by thieving
from the supply.
The Americans at Puerta Princesa, being a labor battalion were not to
be killed unnecessarily. But the Japanese were specialized in beating
them with pick handles--"just for nothing, "Smith said, "They'd just
come up jabbering and swinging with their clubs."
At various times in those next twenty-eight months, prisoners tried to
escape. Two Americans who were caught were tied up and thrown into the
brig, where the Japanese took turns beating them. Any Japanese who
cared to could beat them, night or day. Every morning the other
Americans had to pass the cage where they were lying. On July 4, 1944,
the two were finally shot. Japanese prison officials always pointedly
observe our national holidays.
Most of the Americans who did escape managed it by breaking an arm or a
leg, usually by a blow with a shovel. But if the Japanese decided it
was done intentionally, they might leave the man where he fell, or
throw him into a cage and leave him until he died.
Some of the prisoners got away with it, and were treated and shipped
back to Manila. Usually, however, someone was lying in the special cage
with an unset fracture, looking out with the eyes of an animal that has
spent many days in a steel trap.
Every prisoner worked if he possibly could, because if he couldn't get
to his
feet in the morning, his ration was cut at once by 30 per cent--a ball
of rice about the size of an orange.
One morning last September the Japanese loaded all but 150 of the men
on a ship bound back to the prison camp at Luzon.
After the Japanese told the remaining prisoners that the ship had been
torpedoed and all the men lost. Who could contradict them?
Then, about noon last October 19, a lone B-24 raided Puerta Princesa,
Palawan's capitol, sank two ships in the harbor, and strafed the town
and the new airfield. With their hearts rattling against their ribs,
the men looked silently at one another, and smiled when the guards
weren't looking.
Things were going to be all right. After that first one, raids came
almost
daily. And the treatment of the men by their Japanese guards went from
bad to unendurable.
Then they were ordered to build air-raid shelters. First they dug three
roofed trenches, each long enough to hold about fifty men and each with
a small entrance at each end. Smaller shelters were dug for the cooks,
officers, and drivers. Some of the men were allowed t o build
individual shelters; among them was Marine Sergeant Douglas. W. Bogue
of Los Angeles, California, one of the nine who eventually escaped. All
these shelters were inside the prison compound on a high bluff that
jutted out into turbulent shark-filled Puerta Princesa Bay. Outside the
double row of barbed wire a coral cliff slanted fifty feet down to the
water. And when torrential rains washed away part of the trenches,
repairs exposed tunnels that ran under the wire and out to the face of
the cliff. Several men quietly prepared escape hatches as they worked,
concealing their exits on the cliff with coral boulders or a thin
shoring of earth.
Then, on December 13, a Japanese patrol plane over the Sulu Sea sighted
our invasion convoy that landed later on Mindoro Island.
The Japanese thought it was headed for Palawan. "The Japanese guards
aroused us that night with their chattering, " Smith went on, "but they
finally quieted down. At four thirty we hiked off to the airfield to
work as usual." About noon the guards suddenly marched them back to
camp. The Americans kept looking questionably at one another and
shrugging their shoulders. They had never quit work at noon before.
Then the guards started beating on an old church bell they used for an
air-raid alarm., The word passed that hundreds of American planes were
headed for Palawan. The Japanese guards herded the men into the
air-raid shelters.
Sergeant Bogue took up the story. "We had been sitting in the shelters
some thirty minutes," he said,"when two P-38s began circling overhead.
Suddenly fifty or sixty Japanese soldiers with light machine guns,
rifles, and buckets of gasoline ran into the compound." These Japanese
soldiers ran directly to A company's shelter, where there were about
forty Americans. They opened the narrow door, threw in several buckets
of gasoline then tossed in lighted torches.
Massacre on Palawan of 139 POWs, by R. W. Smith.
"All of a sudden," said Marine Corporal Glen W. McDole of Des Moines,
Iowa, "I heard a dull explosion, men screaming, and machine guns. We
were in another hole with our heads down, waiting for the air raid, My
buddy (Smith) yelled, "They're murdering the men in A Company pit!" I
looked out and saw one man run out of A Company's pit in flames., He
was burning like a newspaper. A Japanese machine gunner, stationed on
the porch of the barracks, cut him in two."
The Japanese ran now from shelter to shelter with their buckets of
gasoline and their torches. As the crazed Americans came boiling up out
of the burning shelters, flaming from head to foot like men made of
pitch, other busy, little Japanese machine-gunned them and bayonetted
them., The horrible smell of burning flesh began drifting across the
compound.
Below, in the pits, the few men not actually burning fought to hold on
to their reason and somehow to get out.
Some did get out. Some crawled up into the flaming bullet-spattered
compound itself and clawed their way under the fence to reach and fall
down the cliff face. Navy Chief Radioman Fern J. Barta of San Diego,
California, made it this way.
So did Bogue. "When I came up out of my hole," said Bogue, "it was like
coming up a ladder into hell. Burning Americans were rushing the
Japanese and fighting them hand to hand, I saw one man, burning like a
haystack, grab a rifle a way from a Japanese and shoot him; another
guard bayoneted him from behind."
Maybe fifty or sixty men, maybe more got down the cliff face to the
beach. Many desperate and insentient leaped and tumbled down the cliff,
jumped into the bay and started swimming. They were shot to pieces by
the Japanese machine gunners on the top of the cliff.
The others hid in holes in the rocks,in the sewer outlet, anywhere.
Smith
jumped into a coral crevice next to him to wait for McDole, McDole had
been right on his heels, but now he didn't show up. As Smith watched, a
soldier in the crevice next to him suddenly jumped up and yelled. I'm
going to get my part of this over with, he ran down to the beach dived
into the water and started swimming.
"He was only out about twenty yards," Smith said, "when a bullet hit
him and he rolled over and shouted, they got me. Then he thumbed his
nose to the Japanese on the cliff-and went under."
Smith, still in control of himself, climbed unseen backup the hill and
hid in
the long grass almost touching the prison fence. He thought that would
be the last place the Japanese would look. He hid under a ledge covered
by long overhanging grass. He carefully covered himself with leaves and
dirt. He estimates that this was about one o'clock in the afternoon.
The whole thing had been going on only about thirty minutes.
All of them could hear the Japanese using dynamite on the burned men
who were still alive in the hilltop death trenches When they had
finished, the Japanese scrambled down the cliff with rifles and
bayonets and began combing the rocks and beach, dragging the hidden
Americans out of their holes and murdering them on the spot.
For the men lying panting and desperate in those holes, the afternoon
was
endless and terrible. A man hiding five feet away from you, a six-foot
American you'd been through three years of hell with, would be dragged
out and bayoneted to death by a dozen little yelling Japanese, and you
didn't dare move.
As the endless search went on, a lot of men who might have made it
cracked up. McDole and two others were hiding in a garbage dump,
completely covered by the rotting fly-crusted stuff. As a Japanese
patrol neared the dump, one of the men suddenly jumped up and ran for
the bay.
"The Japanese shot him," said McDole, "Then, when they got within five
meters of us, the second man with me raised up and said,'All right ,
you Japanese b------ds,'here I am and don't miss me. They shot him,
poured gasoline on him and burned his body.
"After the patrol went away, I made a small opening to get some air.
Down the beach I saw six Japanese jabbing a bleeding mud-covered
American with their bayonets. Another Japanese ran up with a bucket and
a torch. The American begged to be shot and not burned. The Japanese
poured gasoline on his hands and feet, and lighted it. Then the man
collapsed."
Smith, hidden in the tall grass up on the cliff, had a dozen narrow
escapes.
Twice searching Japanese grazed his ribs as they jabbed bayonets into
the
grass.
"Once I thought sure I was caught,"said Smith,"A Japanese pulled the
grass away from me and looked straight into my eyes. I felt his breath
panting down on me and smelled that awful Japanese sweat they all stink
of. Cold as death, I waited for the bayonet in my ribs. Three years of
hell--for this! I remember praying that he'd do it right the first
time."
Suddenly the Japanese dropped the grass over Smith and left, he hadn't
seen him. Smith stayed covered until past dark, finally everything got
quiet, and the Japanese guards no longer looked for the escapees. Smith
sneaked to the beach and began the long swim across Puerta Princesa Bay.
Bogue had been hiding in a hole in the rocks till the rising tide
forced him
out of it. Looking for a new hiding place, he found Fern Barta and three
others in the camp's sewer outlet. About nine 0'clock that night these
five
started out to swim the bay. Almost immediately they were swept apart
by the strong tide, and it was ten days before Bogue and Barta met. One
of the five, a Marine private, was never seen again. It was sunrise
when Barta dragged himself up on the far shore of the bay and crawled
into the jungle. McDole, exhausted and sick, lay in the fly-blanketed
garbage dump all night and all the next day. That night he tried to
swim, but the water was so rough he couldn't make it. He crawled back
to the garbage dump, and for another night and day in that mess of
flies and rot, praying for strength. That night he tried it again, and
again he was forced back. The following night he crawled down to the
shore for the third time, fell into the water, and started swimming; he
would get across or drown. All night he swam and floated and swam
again. He came very near dying. His mind had stopped. Like an engine
stalled on dead center.
His arms and legs were no longer even part of him; some strange tired
motor kept them going till finally his hands were clawing suddenly and
miraculously into sand. He was ashore. His head dropped into the sand.
He tried hard to think who he was and what he was supposed to be doing.
Finally, he crawled to the edge of the jungle and hid there all day.
That
night he tried swimming across a little inlet to a Filipino tuberculosis
colony, but he was too far gone. He realized he couldn't swim anymore.
And then in the wet heaving darkness, he bumped into the poles of a
fish trap. He crawled upon it and collapsed, somewhere between sleep
and death. In the morning Filipino fishermen from the Iwahig penal
colony found him there.
They hurried him back to their camp. There he was joined by Bogue, who
had been found by Filipino prisoners from the camp after being lost for
five days in the jungle. Rested and fed, Bogue and McDole were taken to
the leader of the Palawan underground, who gave them horses and a guide
and got them to a point where they were picked up by a Navy sea plane
and flown to Leyte.
At Aborlan, a town held by the guerrillas, a second party of horsemen
caught up with them. One of the riders was Barta He had stumbled into
Iwahig colony after spending ten days and nights in the jungle. Some
other survivors, including Smith, were picked up later and flown to
Moratai.
Up on the cliff some of the Japanese guards were only ten feet away
from Smith. Still, he had to try for a getaway when darkness came.
Slowly he eased out of his hiding place and inched his way down the
cliff, fearing each step that a coral landslide would bring a shower of
jabbering yells and bullets.
Luck was with him, Noiseless as a shadow, he moved steadily down to the
shore and into the water.
He had been in the water about an hour and a half when the little
Japanese patrol boat combing the bay for possible survivors bore down
on him. Its weak yellow light actually waved directly across him from
not more than fifty yards away. But the boat turned and went on.
"I started swimming again," said Smith in his slow tired drawl, "and
had been out about two hours, I guess, when I heard a swirl in the
water off to one side. I glanced around in time to see a six-foot shark
headed for me. He came right on in and bit my right arm.
Somehow--I don't know how--I reached around with my other arm and slung
him loose. Then I kicked and splashed, and I must have scared him off;
he didn't bother me after that."
The Marine Corps public relations officer whispered to Smith; he rolled
up his sleeve. There on his right forearm were the scars from the teeth
of the shark that he'd "slung loose."
After the Shark, Smith swam on for what seemed like years. He turned on
his back for the hundredth time to rest, and made out trees on a
mountain ahead of him. He turned over again and swam till his arms were
strips of leather which somebody kept splashing into the water ahead of
him, and he knew he couldn't swim much longer. He decided to try to hit
bottom. He held his nose and went down hard. The water was only up to
his armpits. Gratefully he started to walk, and that's when he almost
drowned. Because his legs wouldn't hold him. He fell and swallowed the
muddy water and almost drowned. He finally got to his feet and made it
to the beach.
It was still night, and the terrible clouds of Philippine mosquitos
started
swarming over him. If he lay there he'd be eaten alive. He crawled up
to the edge of a mangrove swamp and coated himself, face and all, with
mud. That kept the mosquitoes off. He rested a while, and then plunged
into the swamp.
He was naked, except for the mud. The thick growth clutched his body
with clammy hands. At each step his feet seemed to sink deeper into the
black ooze. He knew the alligators would get him before long. He
climbed a tree and stayed there the rest of the night. Dawn was the
most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
All that day Smith traveled through the jungle. When the growth became
impenetrable he climbed up above it and swung along on the long vines
from tree to tree. Occasionally he'd grip a brier vine; the hard spines
cut like barbed wire. "They cut me up pretty bad," he said.
But he went on, and he made it. Late that afternoon he found the
wonderful compassionate Philippine guerrillas. They gathered up his
skinny, bleeding, muddy body and carried him to their camp. They fed
him and put him to bed. And now he was in San Francisco, on his way
home to Hughes Springs, Texas--the kind of place that can help a man
forget jungles and JAPANESE! This story also furnished by Mrs.Koblos,
who also gave you the account of her husband in Chapters 1 through 4.
In appreciation I'm sending her all ten chapters printed as she among
many does not possess a computer.
TO: ALL DATE: 08/09
FROM: FVWW66A RAY THOMPSON TIME: 2:47 PM
PALAWAN PUSHOVER, Courtesy of Air Force Magazine, 1945.
When the time came to lock the door on Japanese troop
and supply movements in the South China Sea and provide a
springboard for airpower in subsequent Borneo invasions, the
key was the Philippine island of Palawan which points
southward like a finger to the rich East Indies. "I don't
want a single shot fired at the infantry when it goes ashore
at Palawan. "Maj. Gen.Paul B. Wurtsmith, CG of the 13th Air
Force, told his staff. And not a shot was fired. Infantrymen
of the 41st Division went ashore at Puerto Princesa almost
unopposed. No men were lost on D-day. The Japanese had fled
to the hills.
This easy invasion of strategically important Palawan was
accomplished by air attacks that started early in October
1944 when Army and Navy nuisance raiders paid occasional
visits. The tempo was stepped up sharply near the end of the
month when 37 heavies plastered Puerto Princesa airdrome,
destroying 23 parked aircraft and damaging 15 others. The
Japanese garrison never recovered from that raid and the
13th's bombers continued to give the area a once-over-lightly
every time repairmen began filling in the craters.
On November 29, Morotai-based P-38s of the 13th
Fighter Command flew their first escort mission to Puerto
Princesa, but there was no interception, nor was there any
on subsequent missions. The final phase of the softening-up
was staged from Mindoro with both fighters and bombers of
the 5th Air Force blasting the area with bomb and strafing
runs.
A sustained three-day attack preceded the February 28
landing.
The devastated facilities found by infantrymen--buildings,
runways, revetments, aircraft--were convincing proof of the
effectiveness of the pre-invasion attacks. The concrete runway
was spotted with 182 bomb craters. Eighteen other craters had
taken care of the overruns. The bombing results looked good
to everyone but the aviation engineers, who had to put the
strip back into service.
(Comments by Ray Thompson; I wonder what the Commanding
General, the fighter pilots, the bomber pilots, and the
infantrymen, who performed the above acts would have
felt, had they known that American POWs were the slaves
that were filling up these bomb craters after each raid.
We know from other testimony, how shocked military personnel
were when they found the massacred American POWs in the so
called bomb shelters at Palawan airfield;
NOTE- I flew off this runway for several days in the winter of '45. It
was coral based and pretty solid althougth muddy at times.
US Veterans Cemetery
http://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/jeffersonbarracks.asp
Less than 8 hours ago I watched a program
on BATAAN on the Military
History channel which briefly mentioned the Palawan Massacre. Since I
had not heard about this before, I told myself that I would follow-up
and see if I could find additional information. Your posting was truly
a serendipitous find. I appreciate you taking the time to bring this to
our attention. My father joined the Army in late 1939. Before he died
some months ago he started reminiscing about his military days. He told
me that almost all of the young men who joined the service and went to
Basic Training in Virginia with him were sent to the Phillipines. He
was the only one sent to Puerto Rico. To the best of his knowledge,
none of them survived.
|
|
BOOKS FOR SALE:
   
DECEMBER 10 1941
DECEMBER 07 1941
 
SHOUTING BANZAI BANZAI BANZAI -
VICTORIOUS JAPANESE FLASH
MANY SMILE - 1942
OCTOBER 26 1944 LOS ANGELES TIMES
OCTOBER 26 1944
US MACHINE GUNNERS COVERING A CAVE ON
OPPOSITE
HILL LUZON PHILIPPINES PHOTO c1945
Beautiful 1960's Marcos Family Photo.
Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur sentimental photo in the Philippines during the
1960’s with wives of Philippines Senators
| Determined
to
create
the
longest
runway
in
the
Pacific,
the
Japanese
required
the
men
to
hand
dig
and
remove
a
hill.
Known
by
the
POWS
as
"The
Cut",
the men dug away an entire hill under extremely brutal condiditions
while being deliberately starved. Day and night, hundreds of men worked
on the field. |
Illustrations
provided
by:
Al McGrew, H Company, 60th CAC, captured on Corregidor.
The Camp,
known as the Pasay School on Park
Avenue, was located about one mile from the actual digging site.
Nichols field lay approximately 10 miles south of Manila. (Nielson
Field was north of Nichols and lay on the south edge of Manila proper) Build a runway
expansion at
Nichols field by tearing through an entire mountain by hand.
EVERYONE LOVES A
TREASURE hunt and a good yarn.
Speculating on where the late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos
stashed millions in gold and cash provides both. The deposed dictator's
narrative on how he secured his booty seems straight out of an
adventure comic. During his lifetime, Marcos dismissed suggestions that
his riches came from plundering the nation's coffers.Philippine Central
Bank have 600+ tons of Gold Only... He claimed he
stumbled on a pot of gold in the jungle. The fortune, he maintained,
was actually part of the mythical Yamashita treasures buried by a
Japanese general during his hasty retreat from the Philippines at the
end of World War II.
Unlikely story, and perhaps irrelevant now. More important is tracking
down what happened to the money after Marcos's flight from the
Philippines in 1986. Some believe the fortune is deposited in Swiss
banks. His widow, Imelda, says it is buried in the Philippines. The
government has found only $356 million in accounts in two banks, Credit
Suisse and Swiss Bank Corp., but so far none has been recovered. The
rest, as much as $20 billion by one estimate, remains
elusive. letter documents the sale of 1.1 million ounces of
bullion and the laundering of the $466 million in proceeds through
Swiss ac-counts in the name of the Philippine National Oil Co. and of a
company called Marcan Inc - YamashitaTreasures gold
horde—much of
which still remains hidden, buried, in the Philippine islands and
elsewhere in the Pacific and which is still the subject of wide-ranging
treasure hunts
Retired
General
John
Singlaub,
a
vaunted
hero
of
both
World
War
II
and
Korea
who
finished
up
his
career
as
the
top
U.S.
military
commander
in
Korea,
dismissed
by
then-President
Jimmy
Carter.
Singlaub
actually
became
quite
active
in
the
covert
American
efforts
to
recover
the
“Yamashita
treasure”
and,
according
to
Singlaub,
“I
knew
from
past
experience
that
stories
of
buried
Japanese
gold
in
the
Philippines
were
Legitimate. Marcos’s
US$12
billion
fortunate
actually
came
from
[this]
treasure,
not
skimmed-off
U.S.
aid. But
Marcos
had
only
managed to rake off a dozen or so of the biggest sites.
That
left well over a hundred
untouched.”
This,
of course, means that Yamashita Treasures Gold—which amounts
to certainly hundreds of billions in value, probably
trillions—was a real source of power and influence for Marcos
and, in the end, proved not only to be a source of his rise to power,
but, ultimately, his undoing.
The
Seagraves relate—echoing The
Spotlight—that
when Marcos demanded a higher-than-usual commission for lending a
portion of his gold horde to the Reagan administration in order to prop
up a Reagan scheme to manipulate the world gold market, this was the
beginning of Marcos’ downfall. As
a consequence, then U.S. CIA-Director William Casey set in motion the
riots and protests that began creating trouble for Marcos in the
streets of Manila. Suddenly, Ninoy Aquino comes home
Philippines....All Hell Broke Loose...
Although
Casey
flew
to
Manila,
along
with
U.S.
Treasury
Secretary Donald
Regen,
CIA
economist
Professor
Higdon
and
an
attorney,
Lawrence
Kreager,
to
give
Marcos
a
“last
chance”,
the
Philippine
nationalist
would
not
buckle. Higdon
told
Marcos
that he
would be out of power “in two weeks” for not
appeasing the international banking houses and their agents in the
American administration.
The
Seagraves report that a source close to Marcos advised them that Marcos
was then approached by an emissary from David Rockefeller’s
Trilateral Commission asking Marcos to contribute $54 billion in gold
bullion to a so-called “global development fund”. Marcos’
response
was
to
consign
the
Trilateral
demand
into
a
waste
basket.
In
no short order, of course, Marcos was forced from office and flown to
Hawaii with his family where they were held effectively under house
arrest. Marcos and
his wife told many people—including reporters from The
Spotlight—that
they had never expected to be taken to Hawaii, that they had, instead,
expected to be flown to safety from Manila to Marco’s home
island of Ilocos Norte.
In
the meantime, billions of dollars worth of gold certificates that the
Marcos [couple] had taken with them were confiscated by the U.S.
government. But
when the Marcoses demanded the return of the certificates, the U.S.
said the certificates were “fake”.
In
other words, the Reagan administration casually and ruthlessly stole
billions from the Marcos, at the same time helping perpetuate the media
myth that the Marcos family had stolen billions from their own
nation’s treasury. By
Michael Collins Piper - Courtesy
of
Seagrave
Gold
Warrior
The Philipine government has some pretty strict, and well enforced
guidelines for would be treasure hunters operating in their
territories. Many expeditions have been escorted by the Philipino
Military, who stand guard night and day to make sure that the
government gets their fair share of the treasure - which is listed
below:
a) For Treasure
Hunting within Public Lands
– Seventy-five percent(75%) to the Government and twenty-five
(25%) to the Permit Holder.
b) For Treasure
Hunting in Private Lands
– Thirty Percent (30%) to the Government and Seventy Percent
(70%) to be shared by the Permit Holder and the landowner.
c) For
Shipwreck/Sunken Vessel Recovery
– Fifty percent (50%) to the Government and Fifty percent
(50%) to the Permit Holder.”
The
four main actions in the
battle of Leyte Gulf. 1 Battle of the
Sibuyan
Sea 2 Battle of
Surigao
Strait 3 Battle
of
(or
'off')
Cape
Engaño
4 Battle
off Samar
Battle
off Samar. Part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf
This
place is almost 15deg NE, ideal bearing for the paranormal beliefs of
the japanese. pag nagtatago sila ng kanilang mga nakulimbat na yaman ng
mga bansa. Ayon ng mga matatanda dito ay di kayang bilangin ang mga
ssundalong hapon ang nangamatay sa dakong ito , meron silang mga
hospital at mga training grounds sa area na ito. Ngayon Ang JICA isang
grupo ng mga hapon , Bechtell isang american Firm at si Pangulong
Arroyo kasama na ang mga lokal na pamahalaan ang nagsusulong na gawing
lanfill ang area na ito. dati gwardyado ng grupo ni marcos ang dakong
ito.Ngayon sila naman. until now balikatan joint forces still
exercising in this area. ang world bank at si dating pangulong Ramos ay
lagi ring nakamonitor sa lugar na ito. Walang ganyanan!
Jet7
Philippines
were declared an American Territory on January 4, 1899, and
fortification construction began soon after on the islands in the mouth
of Manila Bay. Among the sites built were Fort Mills (Corregidor), Fort
Frank, and the unique and formidable "concrete battleship" of Fort
Drum. War came in December 1941, and the defenses suffered constant
Japanese bombardment, leading to the surrender of American forces. In
1945 the forts were manned by Japanese soldiers determined to hold out
to the bitter end: bloody and brutal fighting ensued.
Received complaints
from readers who encountered
jewellers charging more than the market price.
A buyer who asked not to be named said: "The price of gold prompted me
to visit the Gold Souq in Sharjah. However, most retailers claimed they
were sold out. Outlets where gold was available were openly
overcharging. They said it was in short supply. The price of 24 carat
stood at Dh88.75 but they were openly charging Dh92.50. This is clearly
an unfair practice."
Shubash Golati, a
buyer, said: "It is a tradition
to buy gold during the four-day Indian festival of Diwali. I bought 22
carat jewellery worth Dh5,000. I wanted to buy a 100 gramme gold bar
but was told that it is out of stock."
American Forces Cannon fired...!! at Japanese Position in Philippine
Islands circa 1944- 1945 - LIBERATION OF PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
University of Santo Tomas American Civilians held
by Japanese in Manila
Iris turned her
attention to another subject connected
to Japanese atrocities from World War II—the Bataan Death
March.
Some of the American soldiers captured after the Japanese invasion of
the Philippines were forced to work as slave laborers for some of the
major Japanese corporations. As will be seen below, class action
lawsuits and other attempts at gaining belated compensation for these
unfortunate POWs was met with fierce opposition from the US State
Department!! Remember that Iris Chang was cutting across these same
lines of political power. “ . . . But soon she found herself
drawn to a subject just as dark. Iris Chang rang the doorbell on Ed
Martel’s front porch in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on December 4,
2003.
It’s a date he won’t forget. ‘She sat
down and
cross-examined me like a district attorney for five solid
hours,’
said Martel, 86, one of the last remaining survivors of the Bataan
Death March of World War II. His daughter, Maddy, remembered the day
well, too. ‘We set out a very big lunch—meat trays
and
sandwiches and desserts,’ she said. ‘My dad was so
excited
that she was doing this, and so honored.’” (Ibid.;
pp.
11-12.)
14.
“Months earlier, Iris had seized on a letter
in her ‘book ideas’ file about a Midwestern pocket
of
Bataan survivors, all members of two tank battalions. ‘They
drop
so fast,’ the letter had read. The correspondent was Sgt.
Anthony
Meldahl, a supply sergeant with the Ohio National Guard who had admired
Iris’ work. Meldahl was now urging Iris to join his
oral-history
project. She did, and, starting in November 2003, would make four trips
to meet with Bataan vets—in Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio and
Kentucky. Each time, Iris swept into town and conducted four or five
intensive interviews in as many days. ‘She was like a
battalion
commander,’ Meldahl said.” (Ibid.; p. `12.)
15. “
‘It’s amazing when you watch
Iris do research,’ Brett said. ‘She would go into a
town—and with Tony Meldahl’s help, it was even
better. She
would have a team of three vets and their children and their wives.
Iris would be interviewing them, somebody else would be filming them,
somebody else would be photocopying records, and somebody would be
sending documents down to UPS. And Iris would buy lunch and dinner for
everybody, and they all thought it was great.” (Idem.)
16. Again, note
that some of the Bataan Death Marchers
were shipped to Japan to work as slave laborers. This subject will be
taken up at greater length below. “ ‘These people
wanted
their story told for a long, long time, and they knew that because Iris
had success as an author, she’d be able to do a very good
job,’ Brett said. Ed Martel’s story began on Dec.
7, 1941.
Pearl Harbor was still smoldering when Japanese planes bombed the
Philippines’ Bataan Peninsula, where Martel was stationed
with a
National Guard tank battalion. With few rations, little ammunition and
no reinforcements, 70,000 American and Filipino troops held off the
Japanese for months. When the American general surrendered on April 9,
the Japanese forced the troops to walk 65 miles through sweltering
jungle. Some 8,000 died on the notorious ‘death
march.’
Those who survived spent the rest of the war in a bleak prison camp; some were shipped to
Japan as slave
laborers. [Italics are Mr.
Emory’s.] Once the Allies won
the war, the story was forgotten. It had been the largest U.S. Army
surrender in history.” (Idem.)
17. “
‘It’s baffling to me that the
U.S. today has so little knowledge of the four months we held
out,’ Martel told The Chronicle
by telephone from his home in Wisconsin. ‘We marvel at how
America turned their backs on us.’ Martel was slightly hard
of
hearing, but his memory was crisp. He recalled telling Iris about the
worst of his Bataan experiences. ‘Iris asked me to tell about
atrocities,’ he said. ‘Twice I broke down and had
to leave
the room.’” (Idem.)
18. As Ms. Chang
was investigating the story of the
Death Marchers, she made the acquaintance of a colonel, who elicited
fear in this otherwise dauntless individual. The colonel checked her
into a psychiatric hospital, where she was put on a cycle of
psychiatric drugs. Was she subjected to some sort of mind control? Did
that have something to do with her death? Was she programmed to commit
suicide? “ . . . ‘I knew Iris was not
right,’ her
mother said. ‘She couldn’t eat or drink. She was
very
depressed.’ She asked if Iris had any friends there she could
call for help. One of the veterans—a colonel she had planned
to
meet in Louisville—came to the hotel. Smith said the colonel
spent only a short time with her. ‘She was afraid of him when
he
showed up,’ Smith said. ‘But he spoke to her mother
on the
phone and told Iris, ‘Your mom is on the phone, so
it’s
OK.’’ That afternoon, she checked herself in to
Norton
Psychiatric Hospital in Louisville, with help from the colonel. Through
a third party, the colonel declined to be interviewed. ‘First
they gave her an antipsychotic, to stabilize her,’ her mother
said. ‘For three days they gave her medication, the first
time in
her life.’ (The family would not name specific drugs.) . . .
” (Ibid.; p. 14.)
19.
Iris’s suicide note betrayed fear of
retribution for her research. She felt that her internment in the
psychiatric hospital may have somehow been part of that retribution. As
noted below, she felt the CIA or some similar type of institution may
have been involved in the activities conducted against her. “
. .
. Then she wrote a suicide note—addressed to her parents,
Brett
and her brother—followed by a lengthy revision. The first
draft
said: ‘When
you believe you
have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do
not, you live not just by the day—but by the minute. [Italics
are Mr. Emory’s.] It is far better that you remember me as I
was—in my heyday as a best-selling author—than the
wild-eyed wreck who returned from Louisville . . . Each breath is
becoming difficult for me to take—the anxiety can be compared
to
drowning in an open sea. I know that my actions will transfer some of
this pain to others, indeed those who love me the most. Please forgive
me. Forgive me because I cannot forgive myself.’”
(Ibid.;
p. 18.)
20. “In
the final version, she added: ‘There
are aspects of my experience in Louisville that I will never
understand. Deep down I suspect that you may have more answers about
this than I do. I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited,
and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have
imagined. Whether it was the CIA or some other organization I will
never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop
hounding me. . . .” (Idem.)
21. Although those
around Iris (and the author of the
article excerpted here) felt that she was
“imagining”
things, there was very real danger for people involved in researching
the deep politics and clandestine goings on surrounding the
machinations of the Japanese corporations and national security
establishment, before, during and after World War II. As will be seen
below, the US government has actively participated in the cover-up of
these machinations. “‘Days before I left for
Louisville I
had a deep foreboding about my safety. I sensed suddenly threats to my
own life: an eerie feeling that I was being followed in the streets,
the white van parked outside my house, damaged mail arriving at my P.O.
Box. I believe my detention at Norton Hospital was the
government’s attempt to discredit me. ‘I had
considered
running away, but I will never be able to escape from myself and my
thoughts. I am doing this because I am too weak to withstand the years
of pain and agony ahead.’” (Idem.)
22.
“After Iris Chang’s Oldsmobile was found
off Highway 17 on Tuesday morning, Nov. 9, the California Highway
Patrol was called to the scene. The Highway Patrol then called the
Santa Clara Sheriff’s homicide unit and detective Sgt. Dean
Baker, a 33-year veteran, took over the investigation. ‘There
is
an aspect of paranoia in the majority of suicides,’ Baker
said.
‘ A lot of people—depending on how disturbed they
are—feel that people are plotting against
them.’”
(Idem.)
23. Despite the
dismissal of Iris’s fears as
“paranoia,” there is reason to believe her fears
were
justified. In a phone call to an old friend from college, Iris noted
that her family and friends thought her problems were “in her
head”—“internal”—but
that they were real,
i.e. “external.” “ . . . The months
passed, and I got
involved in my own projects. A few weeks ago, a mutual friend e-mailed
me that Iris was trying to reach me, and that she had been sick for the
past few months. Then, on Saturday, Nov. 6, my cellphone rang. When I
heard the tone of Iris’ voice, I excused myself from the
friends
I was visiting and stood outside in their yard for privacy. The bounce
in her voice was totally gone. Instead, it was sad and totally drained,
as if she were making a huge effort just to talk to me. I remembered
that she recently had been sick.”
(“How
‘Iris
Chang’
Became
a
Verb”
by
Paula
Kamen;
Salon.com.)
24. “She
said, ‘I just wanted to let you
know that in case something should happen to me, you should always know
that you’ve been a good friend.’ Over the next
hour, I
stumbled to ask her about what had happened. She talked about her
overwhelming fears and anxieties, including being unable to face the
magnitude—and the controversial nature—of the
stories that
she had uncovered. Her current vaguely described problems were
‘external,’ she kept repeating, a result of her
controversial research. They weren’t a result of the
‘internal,’ that is, they weren’t all in
her head.
[Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] I asked her about what others in
her
life thought about the cause of this apparent depression. She paused
and said, ‘They think it’s
internal.’” (Idem.)
25. Next, the
program reprises material from FTR#446,
concerning
the death threats received by the Seagraves, who had been researching
many of the same type of things as Iris Chang. The Seagraves’
problems were “external,” not
“internal.”
“Many people told us this book was historically important and
must be published—
then warned us that
if it were published, we would be
murdered. An Australian economist who read it said, ‘ I hope
they
let you live.’ He did not have to explain who
‘they’
were.”
Claire Phillips gathered information from Japanese military officers
patronizing her club in Manila, which she secretly passed to the Allied
forces during WWII. She was arrested and tortured, but survived the war
and wrote a book about her wartime experience.
James Murphy, who was Governor-General of the Philippines in 1933-1934
and the first U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippines (1934-1936). In
his remarks, Chargé Mussomeli noted that in 1940, President
Roosevelt appointed Murphy to the Supreme Court “where he
becam;
Nov. 2009 - My name
is George McDonald and I am a proud owner of a Gold Bug – 2. Within the
last 45 days I was using my Gold Bug to search a creek in North
Carolina and happened on the largest single gold item found in the
state in over one hundred years. It was a 5.2 oz nugget I call the
Golden Potato. It is roughly the size of a goose egg. Just wanted to
let you know that the Gold Bug has done its job again and this time it
has found a historic piece.
There are some memories that really affect how you feel at times, more
so if these memories actually change who you are.
The
time spent bonding with the people closest to you, individually or as a
group, is so intimate, so personal that it becomes so embedded in your
memory that it lives on through the years, through generations. The
bonding time doesn’t even have to involve any strenuous physical
activity; a simple fireside chat will suffice.
A
couple of years back a show on HBO gave me and my dad an opportunity to
bond. Band of Brothers was a series on the life of a group of men
fighting in the European front of World War II. It was this series that
made me and my dad sit quietly in the living room on a Saturday night
enthralled and glued at the spectacle and the drama of every battle
fought and every struggle that the men went through. During breaks in
the airing, my dad and I would exchange insights and relative
information about the war which we learned from books, old movies or
even stories handed down by the old folks. Once the airing resumed, we
immediately quieted down and absorbed every minute of the episode. We
would chat some more about it and on other topics after the show was
over. A week would pass and a new episode would be aired and the whole
cycle would repeat itself.
Around
November last year, I heard that Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg were
reuniting for a new HBO special miniseries, The Pacific, this time
focused on the Pacific side of World War II. This sent tingles to my
spine because these would be stories closer to home. Even with Band of
Brothers, I suspected it would be a struggle to find such a group of
men who served throughout the Pacific campaign simply because none, as
far as I know, survived intact. I’ve heard stories about a company of
200 to 250 men battling not only the Japanese but the diseases and the
elements as well, ending up with less than 50 of the original company.
The
campaigns here in the Pacific during the war consisted of taking not
only certain towns or cities like in the European front, but rather an
entire island or a set of islets. That said, it wasn’t a surprise to
learn that The Pacific tells the stories not of a particular company
but of three Pacific war veterans:
*
Private First Class Robert Leckie—He served with H Company, 2nd
Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, as a machine
gunner.
*
Sgt. John Basilone—A machine gunner with C Company, 1st Battalion, 7th
Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, and later with B Company, 1st
Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division.
*
Pfc. Eugene B. Sledge—Born to a privileged family in Mobile, Alabama,
served with K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine
Division, as a mortar man.
Unflinching
and
realistic,
The
Pacific
tracks
the
intertwined
odysseys
of
these
three
US
Marines—Leckie
(James
Badge
Dale),
Sledge
(Joe
Mazzello)
and
Basilone
(Jon
Seda)—across
the
vast
canvas
of
the
Pacific Theater
during World War II. The extraordinary experiences of these men and
their fellow Marines take them from the first clash with the Japanese
in the haunted jungles of Guadalcanal, through the impenetrable rain
forests of Cape Gloucester, across the blasted coral strongholds of
Peleliu, up the bloody sand terraces of Iwo Jima, through the killing
fields of Okinawa, to the triumphant yet uneasy return home after V-J
Day.
The
Pacific
had a two-hour premiere on HBO on April 4, which will have an encore
today at 9 pm, and the series will premiere news episodes every
Saturday of April up to May, also at 9 pm. Encores airs every Sunday at
7 pm, and Monday at 9 pm.
The
miniseries will surely provide new bonding opportunities for me. I’m
not really sure if my Hanna Montana bonding buddies would like this as
much, and my daughters are not into war stories. I think I’ll just ask
my war-movie buddy, my dad, to come over my house for more bonding
moments while The Pacific plays out.
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines - Police on
Tuesday claimed to have thwarted the Abu Sayyaf group's planned
abduction of a Korean treasure hunter in the remote village of Lanzones.
Village chief Cesar Samson said treasure hunter Young
Oh, 55 arrived
in their village 3 months ago and applied for permits to dig up a
private land.
Samson said Oh was informed last week by local police authorities of an
alleged plan to abduct him.
Acting Zamboanga City police chief, Senior
Superintendent Edwin de
Ocampo, said intelligence operatives and other units of the police
immediately positioned themselves around the village after receiving
information about the abduction plan.
De Ocampo said they advised the Korean national to fly
back to his
country to prevent the abduction. He said the treasure hunter has taken
their advise.
Samson, meanwhile, said that before Oh was informed of
the plan,
several villagers noticed the presence of 7 suspicious-looking armed
men going around the village.
The police chief said they have been tracking the
suspects, who are
believed to be led by Saddam Parad, a younger brother of slain Abu
Sayyaf sub-commander Albader Parad.
Police said the younger Parad could have already
succeeded his brother's position in the bandit group.
MEMORY LANE - World War II veteran Wally Rees
looks through a scrapbook of his service with the 82nd Airborne
Division.
The work day for June 6, 1944, D-Day, actually began the evening before
with a terse military announcement: "OK boys, pack up. It's time to go."
These battles took place in
Northern Luzon during the retaking of the Philippines by joint
USA/Filipino forces.
Luzon was invaded by US/Filipino forces on January 9th, 1945. Assults
against Japanese mountain defenses
on Luzon ended on August 15th, 1945, with the surrender of General
Tomoyuki Yamashita along with 50,000
of his troops.
Above battles areas are as follows;
1) SAN FERNANDO (La Union Province).
2) MANKAYAN (Northern Benguet Province).
3) BESSANG PASS (Ilocos Sur Province, approximately 7.5 miles
due-west of modern day town,
Cervantes).
4) TANGADAN (Ilocos Sur Province).
5) DUGO-APARRI (North Cagayan Province).
6) TUGUEGARAO (South Cagayan Province).
7) MAYAOYAO (North Ifugao Province).
8) LOO
VALLEY-TOCUCCAN (Benguet / Ifugao
Province border, approximately 7 miles due-east of
modern day town, Buguias).
9) PANUPDUPAN (Northwestern Nueva Vizcaya Province,
approximately 2.5 miles due-west of modern day
town, Ambaguio. Located on the eastern side of Mt. Pulog).
10) HAPID (Northern Nueva Vizcaya Province, possibly same
location as modern day town, Solana).
NOTE: The above map was printed in 1945 by the National
Geographic Society. Some towns or areas may
no longer exist or be known as different names on modern day maps (and
vise-versa).
If you are interested in
information concerning buried World War II treasure in
the Philippines - you have definitely come to the right place. You
will find plenty of good information here
regarding this subject as the Philippines is one particular Southeast
Asian country which has attracted the
interest of many individuals and Governments since the end of WWII and
when the late President F. Marcos
himself even 'confessed' that some of his wealth had come from
so-called "Yamashita's Gold".
During WWII, (according to several historians and researchers) the
Japanese Imperial Army systematically
looted all the Southeast Asian countries of all their national
treasures and shipped most of these looted
treasures back to the Philippines and buried it there. There were
"officially" over 172 sites throughout the
Philippine archipelago, of which 34 of these treasure sites were "sea"
sites.
Hope you enjoy and good hunting to all of you!
Concrete Square
The concrete square is roughly 14" x 14" x 3"
thick. We recovered it at a depth of 15' 6". We believe the target is
around 28' deep and we will encounter caving water sand formation about
25' at this site. The author of several books entitled "Learning the
Art - Yamashita Treasure - Code Breaking
Method" informs us that this is a Japanese
treasure marker with the following meaning. The three spikes embedded
in the concrete depicts three valuable targets nearby with one directly
below and one large vault in the direction of the spike pointing west
when unearthed. We can detect the .. target(s) ...
1) LUZON ISLAND (LAND PROJECT) (Est. Volume)
A) CAVE AND WATERFALLS TREASURE SITES
1. Dumagat Secret Treasure 1.............very large
2. Dumagat Secret Treasure 2.............very large
3. El Sombrero Treasure 1...................very
large
4. El Sombrero Treasure 2...................very
large
5. Secrets of
Digoyo.............................very large
6. Mt.
Billionaire................................... very large
7. Gen. Tamaso Cache.........................very
large
8. Gen. Tanaka and Tamaso Cache.....very large
9. Tabokno fals treasure.....................small
B) BURIED TREASURE SITES
1. Zapote Tree Secret.........................small
2. Mango Tree Secret..........................small
3. Santolan Tree Secret.......................small
4. Tamarind Tree Secret.......................small
5. Lamp light Treasure 1......................small
6. Lamp light Treasure 2......................small
7. Market/Crossing Treasure...............small
8. Peroz Road Treasure.......................small
9. Triangle bridge Treasure..................small
10. Japs flag
Treasure.........................small
11. Japs Exdcution Camp Treasure.......small
12. Fr. Terreno's Treasure....................small
13. Mango Hill Treasure........................small
14. Colocol Creek treasure...................small
15. Masoc Treasure..............................medium
16. Skull tunnel Treasure.....................medium
17. Egg cave Treasure.........................medium
18. Church Secret Treasure.................medium
19. School Secret Treasure..................medium
20. Callao Cave Secret........................large
21. Prado's Court................................large
22. Tokyo 2 Tunnel..............................very
large
2) MINDANAO ISLANF (LAND PROJECT)
A) CAVE/TUNNEL TREASURE SITES
1. Crown of Cambodia.......................medium
2. Nubos
Treasure.............................medium
3. 10th Buntai Treasure.....................medium
4. Treasure of Panabo.......................large
5. Gen. Yamada Treasure..................large
6. Treasure of Mundo Hill...................very
large
7. Takahashi Butai treasure..............very large
8. Kashibaora / Tanaka Treasure......very large
9. Djakarta Tunnel 1.........................very
large
10. Gen. Murakami Treasure..............very large
11. Seven General Treasure..............very large
When the Imperial Japanese forces were invading the Philippines at the
outset of WW II all the paper money on Corregidor Island had to be
destroyed to keep it out of enemy hands. Stacks and stacks of American
money was being burned and one young soldier on the burning
detail
filled a 50cal ammo box with 100 dollar bill's and buried it in a
tunnel wall close to the mouth. The soldier was captured and spend the
remainder of the war as a POW. After the war he returned home got
married and raised a family. In the 1970's he returned to recovered his
loot, only to find that the Japanese had reinforced the tunnel walls
with concrete. After several weeks of negotiations with the government
he returned home without his treasure, estimated at $500,000.00.
Is it still there?
With
a little research it should be easy to pin point the site that the
burning took place a little work with a good detector might put you on
a 50cal ammo box full of 100 dollar bills.
Seldom
Apart from tropical heat and humidity,
one of the most preventative aspects of treasure recovery in the Philippines is the ingenuity of the Japanese
engineering of these sites.
Outlined here are some of the hazards that
treasure-hunters have encountered while digging for Yamashita's gold.
WATER TRAPS
Sites
were often located near a water source such as a pond or river. The
burial site would be dug as deeply as possible. Often, this would
entail excavation of soil and rock beneath the water table in dryer
seasons. Pipes of terra cotta would then be routed into the site,
sealed, and filled with water from the source.
Extreme
caution must be observed during recovery. An unsuspecting digger can
easily break one of the pipes, flooding the chamber with water. Once a
pipe is broken, it is very difficult to reseal due to the weight and
velocity of the continual flow which can exceed 500 gallons per minute.
EGYPTIAN-STYLE
ROCKFALLS
We've
all seen the narrow escapes of Indiana Jones in the popular film
series. Yes, suspended rock and soil were used by the Japanese as well.
Unfortunately,
this type of booby-trap is very difficult to detect in advance. Not
only can they result in injury or death, but an excavation can severely
be penalized timewise.
SPRINGLOADED BOMB
DETONATORS
An
unwary digger may also meet his fate with a 1000- or 2000-pound (or
smaller yet still deadly) bomb which had been captured from the Allied
Forces. Such bombs were often sealed with cosmoline, the thick grease
still favored by gun owners for long-term storage and protection from
corrosion.
The
digger moves an object (sometimes the treasure itself) which activates
a spring mechanism. Acid is then leaked onto a copper plate which, when
dissolved, triggers a detonator. Or, the digger may not be afforded the
luxury of a time delay.
Fortunately, such bombs can be detected a
meter or more in advance with the use of modern electronics.
GLASS-ENCASED
CYANIDE
CAPSULES
Somewhere
en route to a treasure, one might encounter a glass cylinder about one
liter in volume which is divided into two chambers: one containing
liquid sulphuric acid, the other a powder of either potassium cyanide
or sodium cyanide. If broken, the resulting mixture yields a very
volitile and lightweight yet invisible cloud of hydrogen cyanide gas
(HCN) which will quickly interfere with his breathing. The odor is
almost imperceptible, but faintly resembles bitter almonds. Within
seconds, it becomes difficult to hold one's breath or to breathe
normally. Within one minute, respiration stops. Within five minutes,
heart failure occurs.
There
is no known way to detect these capsules. The most prudent diggers
insist on wearing a gas mask with a respirator impregnated with metal
salts at all times.
The
nature of the concrete seal built by the Japanese soldiers during their
occupation of the Philippines in WW2 is not just a plain mixture of
cement,
gravel, sand and water as usually applied in road building or
construction of highways. It is perhaps, the most hardened cement
concrete one can ever imagine. The presence of affirmative evidence
proves that the endurance and hardness of the same is comparable to
iron steel. Based on continuing studies and research, there is that
enormous amount of silica quartz and pyrites mixed together with undetermined amount of resin adhesive and
hardener. There is also an
authentic presence of
fly ash and intrusion aid. The process of mixture is dry pouring
method. The moisture of the soil served as a slowing catalyst.
The
concrete slab is the mortar seal of the treasure cache. Its thickness
varies from 0.5-5 meters depending on the volume of the treasures
buried. The bigger the volume, the thicker the seal is. On the
so-called major sites, the thickness would reach a phenomenal height of
8 meters from the ground surface of 20-30 meters deep. Down below,
series of rectangular chambers are built in such a manner that is free
from collapsing. This is supposedly the spot where the cache are seen
crated, stacked in cylinders and lined up in every chamber.
So
far, the most updated faster way of breaking the seal open is thru the
use of a burning rod. However, this process renders ineffective if the
pit is watery. The presence of water cannot be ruled out taking into
account a 20-30 meters depth
below the ground surface. During the wet season where the sites are
filled with water, diggers switch to manual operation using chisels and
sledge hammers rendering a slow pace of accomplishment. However, there are those who successfully
retrieved and very lucky enough after several years of painstakingly.
To this end, the "Vulcans,"
under George H. W. Bush, waged war against the Soviet
Union. [4] The Return of
the Vulcans In
their reincarnation in the administration of George W. Bush, the
Vulcans functioned as a supposedly benign group, led by Council of
Foreign Relations (CFR) member Condoleezza Rice, who
attempted to augment and compensate for the Bush's lack of experience
and education concerning foreign policy during his presidential
campaign. Rice had been President George H. W. Bush's Soviet and East
European Affairs Advisor in the National Security Council during the Soviet
Union's dissolution and during the German reunification
(July 1, 1990).
The resurrected Vulcan group included Richard
Armitage,
Robert
Blackwill,
Stephen
Hadley,
Richard
Perle,
Rabbi
Dov
S.
Zakheim,
Robert
Zoellick
and
Paul Wolfowitz. Other key
campaign figures included Dick Cheney, George P. Shultz and
Colin Powell,
all influential but not actually a part of the Vulcan Group. All of
these people, associated with the George H. W. Bush administration,
returned to powerful, strategic positions in George W. Bush's
administration. Richard Perle
and Paul Wolfowitz have been accused of being agents for the Israeli
government. Investigations by Congress and the
FBI have substantiated those allegations.
Zakheim and his family were heavily involved
in Yeshivat
Sha'alvim, an educational organization in which students are taught to
render absolute commitment to the State of Israel. [5] Many
of
these
individuals
were
also
members
of
the
Project for a
New American Century (PNAC) which was established in the
spring of 1997 with the intention of promoting
American Global leadership at any cost. The chairman and co-founder was
William Kristol, son of Irving Kristol
(CFR), considered the godfather of neo-conservatism which promotes the
ideas of Max Shachtman and Leo Strauss, a noted
Zionist and professor of political science at the University
of Chicago. Kristol's co-founder was
Robert
W.
Kagan
(CFR). Kristol is also the editor and
co-founder, along with John Podhoretz, of the Weekly
Standard Magazine, established September 17, 1995
and owned by Rupert Murdoch until August 2009. This
"conservative" magazine is edited by William Kristol and Fred
Barnes and promotes Middle East
warfare and a huge military budget, a mentality that infects the most
popular "conservative" talk show radio hosts. Kristol is a trustee for
the Manhattan Institute which was founded by CIA
Director William Casey and was staffed with former CIA officers.
The Vulcans had almost limitless financing from a
cache known by several names — the Black Eagle Trust, the
Marcos gold, Yamashita's Gold, the Golden Lily
Treasure, or the Durham
Trust. Japan, under
Emperor Hirohito, appointed a brother, Prince Chichibu, to head Golden
Lily, established in November 1937 before Japan's
infamous
Rape
of
Nanking,
to
accompany
and
follow
the
military.
The
Golden
Lily
operation
carried
out massive plunder throughout Asia
and included an army of jewelers, financial experts and smelters. [6]
While the Nazis also engaged in plundering the countries they invaded,
they were not as organized and methodical as the Japanese.
After the Allied blockade, Golden Lily
headquarters were moved from Singapore to Manila
where 175
storage sites were built by slave laborers and POWs. Billions of
dollars worth of gold and other plundered treasures were stockpiled in
these underground caverns, some of which were discovered by the
notorious Cold Warrior, Edward G. Lansdale who
directed the recovery of some of the vaults.
Truman and subsequent presidents, without congressional knowledge, have
used those resources to finance the CIA's chaotic clandestine
activities throughout the world.
Much of the Middle East
chaos is financed by those pillaged funds. A tiny portion of that
treasure was the source of Ferdinand Marcos' vast
wealth.
Marcos worked with the CIA for decades using Golden Lily funds to bribe
nations to support the Vietnam War. In return, Marcos was allowed to
sell over $1 trillion in gold through Australian brokers. [7] In
July
1944,
the
leaders
of
forty-four
nations
met
at
Bretton
Woods, New Hampshire to plan
the post-war economy and to discuss organizing a global political
action fund which would use the Black Eagle Trust
ostensibly to fight communism, bribe political leaders, enhance the
treasuries of U.S. allies, and manipulate
elections in foreign countries and other unconstitutional covert
operations. Certainly, those politicos who managed the funds also
received financial benefits. This trust was headed by Secretary of
War Henry Stimson, assisted by John J. McCloy
(later head of the World Bank) and Robert Lovett
(later Secretary of Defense) and consultant Robert B. Anderson
(later Secretary of the Treasury). [8] Anderson
later operated the Commercial Exchange Bank of Anguilla in the
British West Indies
and was convicted of running illegal offshore banking operations and
tax evasion. Investors lost about $4.4 million. Consequently, he was
sent to prison for a token amount of time, one month. He was also under
house arrest for five years. He could have received a ten-year sentence
but Judge Palmieri considered Anderson's
"distinguished service" to the country in the "top levels of
Government." [9]
Between 1945 and 1947
huge quantities of gold and platinum were deposited in prominent banks
throughout the world.
These deposits
came to be known as the Black Eagle Trust. Swiss
banks,
because of their neutrality, were pivotal in maintaining these funds.
These funds were allocated to fighting communism and paying bribes and
fixing elections in places like Italy, Greece,
and
Japan.
[10] Stimson and McCloy, both retired from government service,
continued their involvement in the management of the Black Eagle Trust.
Robert B. Anderson, who toured the treasure sites with Douglas
MacArthur, set up the Black Eagle Trust and later became a member of
Eisenhower's cabinet. [11] In order to maintain secrecy about the
Trust, Washington officials
insisted that the Japanese did not plunder the countries they invaded. Japanese
officials
who
wanted
to
divulge
the
facts
were
imprisoned or
murdered in a way that made it look like suicide, a common CIA
tactic. [12]
The Germans paid reparations to thousands of
victims while the
Japanese paid next to nothing. Military leaders who opposed foreign
policies that embraced exploitation of third world countries were suicided
or
died from mysterious causes, which includes individuals such as George
S.
Patton,
Smedley
D.
Butler
and James V. Forrestal. The
Vulcan's
effort
to
crush
Communism
and
end
the
Cold
War
was
largely
funded
by
that Japanese plunder.
Manila, Hiroshima, and the Bomb
By F. SIONIL JOSE
Published: August 13, 2010
MANILA — While channel surfing the other night, I came
across a news
report showing a Japanese woman, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic
bombing in August 1945, saying she would never go to America. To this
day, even though her country has become the world’s second richest
nation with U.S. assistance, she hates the Americans.
But while many Japanese understandably have bitter
memories of World
War II, many of us throughout Asia, whose countries the Japanese
occupied during that war, have our own searing memories.
When the Japanese call for an American apology for the
atomic bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it revives in me the anguish of the war —
the anguish I experienced as a young man, the anguish I want to forget,
but cannot. War is terrible, vengeance does nothing, but when the past
is taken out of context it doesn’t do anyone any good.
I was 17, a student in Manila, when the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor on
Dec. 8, 1941. That same day, the airfield in Manila and other military
installations in the Philippines were also bombed. Schools were
immediately closed and I returned to my hometown, Rosales, about 30
miles from Lingayen, where, within the same month, the Japanese landed.
Soon after they came to Rosales.
In the first month of occupation, the Japanese behaved
correctly — you
could say they were even cordial. Then, two months into the occupation,
the sentries started slapping people for no apparent reason. Soon
after, stories about the Death March following the U.S. surrender of
Bataan drifted to us.
In July 1942, I went to the prison camp at Capas to look
for a cousin,
Raymundo Alberto, who had not returned from Bataan. All of the horror
stories we had heard were confirmed on that trip — I saw hundreds of
Filipino prisoners sick and dying. My cousin was not there.
During the occupation, food, medicine, clothing, and
other basic
necessities like soap and matches, became very scarce. I sometimes went
to Manila to bring rice to my relatives there.
On one such trip I was stopped in Moncada, in Tarlac
Province. My half
sack of rice was confiscated by the Japanese and I was beaten up.
I was in Manila during the first American air raid in
September 1944.
By that November, people in the city were starving; some were forced to
eat rats.
My mother, a cousin and I returned to Rosales — we
walked all the way,
passing empty towns. In the daytime, the skies were full of American
planes flying so low we could see the pilots. At night, the Japanese
marched — we could hear them as we camped in the abandoned houses along
the highway.
We reached Rosales after a week and shortly after, the
Americans landed
in Lingayen. I immediately joined the U.S. Army as a civilian medical
technician.
Since our unit was with the combat engineers, we were
often the first
to reach liberated towns and villages. We would be met by grateful and
starving Filipinos as we offered gifts of fresh eggs and live chickens.
Manila was liberated in March 1945 and I received
permission to visit
the city to see relatives. There had been heavy fighting — the city was
devastated. It seems as if it were only yesterday that I beheld the
ruins and smelled the carrion in Ermita-Malate, where the Japanese
massacred thousands. It has been said that Manila, next to Warsaw, was
the most devastated city in World War II. I found my relatives; luckily
they were unharmed.
Being in the U.S. Army, I thought I would take part in
the coming
invasion of Japan — and I relished the thought. But that August, when
atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war came to an
end. There was much rejoicing all over the Philippines and, even more
so, among the GI’s.
When I first visited Japan in the early 1950s, the
country was still
poor. Streetcars still rumbled in the streets of Tokyo, and there were
no skyscrapers.
I was uneasy meeting with the Japanese and thought I
would never be
able to have a social relationship with them. Since then, however, I
have made Japanese friends, including the late novelist Hirabayashi
Taiko, who was imprisoned with her husband by the wartime government,
for their opposition to the war. I also made friends with my translator
Matsuyo Yamamoto, the late Yoshiko Wakayama of the Toyota Foundation,
the art gallery owners Reiko and Akira Kanda, and so many others.
Some 20 years ago, my wife and I were in Kawazaki near
Tokyo for a
writers’ conference. In the first plenary session, a delegate from
Calcutta started excoriating the U.S. for incinerating Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. I was incensed, I stood from the floor and shouted, “Mr.
Singh, your country was never occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army!”
That weekend, the entire foreign delegation was invited
to Kyoto; only my wife and I were excluded from the trip.
Five years ago, I visited the Yasukuni shrine honoring
Japan’s war
dead, including some who were war criminals. My wife and I drifted into
the shrine’s museum and came across exhibits that were blatant
propaganda.
Outside, six Japanese war veterans, wearing their old
uniforms, stood
together. As the facility closed for the day, they grouped in
formation, and the sound of their military commands hurtled me back to
the past.
Deep within me, I know I have forgiven the Japanese for
what they did
to my country. I pray, too, that the world is one day rid of atomic
weapons and that my grandchildren will never know the bone-deep pain,
fear, hunger and sorrow engendered by war.
F. Sionil Jose’s latest novel is “Sherds.”
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