Much in the following article is uncertain and remains–apart
from
a few reality-shreds - in the atmosphere of wobbling, inconsistent
presumptions and speculations. Only the life and career of general
Yamashita Actually is more clear. His alleged „gold-treasure"
is
still fifty years after his death igniting the fantasy of
treasure-seekers on the Philippines and gives rise to mysterious
treasure-hunting activities again and again. It is like the search for
the lost Rhine-gold or reminds to Hitler's alleged treasures of the
Reichsbank in the Toplitzsee. Further, the still existing gold-fever
was heated up by the film "Yamashita: The tiger's Treasure " that
appeared in 2002 in Philippine movie theatres.
After his officer-training Yamashita, 1885–1946, was
appointed to
the Japanese general staff. He visited Germany and Switzerland and
became a military-attaché in Vienna. Later in 1936 he is
slightly involved into a coup of military and is send as army-commander
on the border of the Manchuria. Later he gets the rank-highest position
of a general in the imperial air force. World War II breaks out in
Europe. For a short time he is as representative of the axis-power
Japan on a goodwill-mission in Germany and compares the military
potentials. He is not a friend of war declarations against Great
Britain and the United States and is nominated in 1941 as commander of
the 25 the Army. He conquers swiftltly the peninsula of Malacca. In
1942, he succeeds in capering Singapore after a siege of seventy days
in a surprise-attack despite the higher number of British soldiers. The
losses of the British are high. Now his myth as „Tiger of
Malaya
"begins to
establish. Until 1944, he remains in the Manchuria.
In 1941/42, the invasion of Japanese troops takes place in the
Philippines. Under the ideological umbrella „Asia the Asian "
the
Japanese establish a puppet government under Jose P. Laurel, which
doesn't find the wide support of the population despite initially
stronger collaboration. The despotism of the Japanese strikes soon fear
into the population of the Philippines.
At this time in the conquered areas of Asia a well-directed looting on
a large scale through the Japanese troops takes place, at which also
the princes of the Japanese emperor-house take part (Organization
„Golden Lily"). After an estimate approximately 4000 - 6000
tons
of gold well as precious metals, gems, coins, bills, works of art and
antiques are confiscated or rubbed. The value the treasures robbed in
twelve Asian countries is supposed to represent a sum of over 100
billion dollars („Treasure Quest Magazine "). A part of the
booty
is shipped on direct way to Japan. The war-luck begins however to turn
and the ship-passage to Japan becomes more and more dangerous by
American submarines. The Japanese government decides on hiding the
robbery-properties on the Philippines, still hoping that the
Philippines remain after end of war in the Japanese dominion.
Back to general Yamashita. It is not known whether the general was
concerned directly with looting and confiscations during his time in
Malaya and Singapore Due to the military pressures of the Americans he
is engaged in the defence of the Philippines relatively late in October
1944 . A big part of the treasures is already buried on the Philippines
already, that's the reason why the name „Yamashitas Treasure
"is
not quite correct. In the battles in Leyte and Luzon the general gets
defeated. Six times, he must transfer his headquarters, because Mac
Arthur's troops are approaching. He declares Manila as an open city,
that should not be defended and went back with the rest of his troops
to Baguio. But the subordinated Admiral Iwabuchi Sanji and his soldiers
decide to defend Manila however. They cause an extraordinary massacre
under the population and the partly destruction of Manila. More than
100.000 Filipinos lose in these days their life.
In September 1945, general Yamashita is seized and delivered up to a
war criminal process. It is controversial whether the hastily staged
process followed strict legality-principles. General Yamashita defends
himself with the argument that he did not have any part in person in
the accused war-crimes and that he could not influence anymore the
military actions in connection with the defence of Manila. He is
declared as guilty and hanged in February 1946 after an useless
mercy-attempt. The general does not make any statements with regard to
the buried robbery-treasures.
Let's now focus the assumed buried treasures. There are some experts,
who doubt fundamentally the existence of the treasure. The
archaeologist Eusebio Dizon of the Manila National museum is belonging
to this group. After a search for eighteen years, he comes to the
conclusion that there is not any evidence for the existence of the
treasure. Other authors are thinking that there was no reason for the
Japanese in 1943 to bury the treasures in the Philippines. These
authors however ignore the testified findings of treasures in the
Marcos-era.
Again and again, it is written in literature that 172 (175)
treasure-places on water- and countryside are "documented". These
„documents" are not accessible for the public and are square
maps
made of rice-paper wax and show characters of a two thousand year
language („Kungi"), which is nearly unknown today. The cards
refer to markers, that are in the environment of the treasure-places.
There are also surviving eyewitnesses, for example Ben Valmores, a
Philippine servant of a Japanese prince, who informed about the
construction of the treasure-tunnels. Mostly prisoners of war
(POW´s) were obliged to dig the caves or vaults. After
completion
they were shot and left behind in the vaults.
The vaults – so the legend - were safeguarded in different
manners. The descriptions of the protections are remembering at
specific computer-adventure-games like „Tomb Raider "or
„Indiana Jones ". There are warnings about water traps,
Egyptian-style rock falls, spring-loaded bomb detonators and
glass-encased cyanide capsules.
What happened to the treasures after the war? Sterling and Peggy
Seagrave claim in their book "Gold Warriors ", that the driver of
general Yamashita was tortured by the Americans and that he betrayed
more than twelve hiding places. The Americans would have lifted the
findings in cloak-and-dagger operations and transferred them to
America. President Truman - so this theory - declared the findings as a
„state-secret "in order to exclude rights for compensation of
other states and private-persons. The treasure would have been used
then for financing the fight against the communism in the phase of the
cold war. – Another book about Japans „Yamato
dynasty ",
which is classified as less credible, develops the thesis, that the
Japanese would have succeeded in transferring bigger parts of the
treasure. With help of the treasure they would have financed their
economic miracle in the post-war era. - It is known, that the Japanese
TVB Asahi found 1800 gold
barts in the value of 150 million dollars near Manila.
There are more numerous proofs, that Filipinos themselves have found
parts of the treasure. A Mr Roxas, who was a translator during the war
for the Japanese, found in 1970 a tunnel filled with gold and some
skeletons. He took at home a three feet high golden Buddha. A short
time later president Marcos was informed over the finding. After a
torture Mr. Roxas revealed the place of discovery, nevertheless he was
thrown into the prison. Mr Roxas took proceedings in 1986 - a short
time before his death - against Ferdinand Marcos. The complaint failed
however because of joint tenancy of the married couple Marcos.
There are some witnesses, (among others Mr Dominguez / Mr Caoile) that
soldiers from the 16th Infantry Battalion exploited over 13 years
altogether 30 treasure-positions on order of president Marcos and
General Ver. (died in Bangkok) the information, that 60.000
(!)
tons of gold bars, precious metals and gems would have been lifted. Mrs
Marcos herself conceded that parts of the treasure fell into the hands
of her husband. But she did not give any information about the places
and values. This statement of Mrs Marcos is also considered as a
protection-contention in order to cover other raids (development-funds
/ monopolies). If the Ex-CIA-Agent Reiner, hired by the government
Aquino, is telling the truth, than 1240 tons of gold are deposited in a
free warehouse in Zurich / Switzerland. The gold is told to be in the
property of the Marcos.
The treasure-search on the Philippines goes on. „Death
secure"
tips are sold, maps exchanged, war-veterans questioned, diviners are
called and .... foreigners considered to be rich are taken for a ride
by cheaters. Who nevertheless is "faithful" and does not shun a risk
'gold' Buddha allegedly returned to Rogelio Roxas by Ferdinand Marcos.
Roxas claimed that the Buddha he had found had been solid gold with a
cavity in the removable head that contained diamonds
Prince Tsuneyoshi Takeda
(竹
田宮恒徳王,
Takeda-no-miya Tsuneyoshi-ō
?)
of Japan (3
March 1909
– 11
May 1992)
was the second and last heir of the Takeda-no-miya
ōke
branch of the Japanese
Imperial
Family.
Gold of the Sun
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top military and government officials meet in Mukden, Manchukuo in late
1936 to discuss the forthcoming war with the Chinese, Americans,
Netherlands and French. The Emperor of Japan and others had developed a
plan to finance the expansion of their military and to construct the
ships, planes and other military hardware that would be required in
ordered to implement their plans. In December 1937 Japan had openly
declared war on China and had surrounded the Chinese Capitol of
Nanking. Prince Chichibu, the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito had
been selected to head the ultra secret treasure recovery team. The
Prime Minister, Prince Asaka had come from the Emperor with
instructions to fully implement the plan. This led to the Rape of
Nanking and the death of 300,000 Chinese civilians and military. Many
had been tortured to reveal the locations of treasures and summarily
executed. This secret team was given a code name of the Golden Lily
after a poem the Emperor had once written. 6000 metric tons of gold
were recovered from Nanking alone plus silver and precious stones. It
was a good beginning and acted as a training ground for the secret
team. Emperor Hirohito was pleased.
Chapters 3 - 4
Winston Churchill, the wartime Prime Minister of Great Britain, met
with Lord Beaverbrook in July 1940. France had just fallen to Hitler's
blitzkreig. The Germans had amassed their troops in the ports of France
ready to cross the English Channel and invade Britain. Churchill had
learned that the French had transferred their national treasures to
French Indochina just before they had signed an armistice with the
Germans. He had also learned from the Queen of The Netherlands that
they had moved their treasures to the Dutch East Indies. He and the
King of England decided to move the British treasures to the supposedly
safe island fortress of Singapore off the southern tip of the Malay
peninsula.
A year later Japan had sunk most of the American Pacific fleet with a
sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. By early January 1942 Japan's victories
had been nothing short of miraculous. Guam and Wake lands had fallen.
Japan had assimilated Thailand and the northern part of French
Indochina. The Japanese had launched a vigorous invasion of the
Philippine Islands and were pushing the Americans into a final
defensive position on Bataan. Her armies were fighting their way down
the Malay Peninsula approaching Singapore. Although the Japanese were
encountering little resistance they were greatly outnumbered by the
British and Indian troops. In China, Japan had taken most of the major
port cities and on Christmas Day 1941, had forced the British into
surrendering Hong Kong. The Golden Lily team had been greatly expanded
to handle these rapidly changing situations. It is fair to say that
they were actually overwhelmed.
Emperor Hirohito had requested Prince Chichibu to fly to Hanoi in
French Indochina to meet with his younger brother Prince Mikasa. The
Japanese secret police had learned that France had sent their National
Treasures there.
But, where were they hidden? Prince Chichibu had ordered the torture of
the Bankers and former Diplomats in order to find out. They learned the
treasure had been sent to Saigon by rail just before the Japanese
troops had moved into Hanoi. The treasure had been hidden in the ruins
of an ancient temple at the en of track. The excitement of this
recovery was only overshadowed by later events.
Chapters 5 - 6
The fortress of Singapore fell to General Yamashita and with General
MacArthur being ordered out of the Philippines, the last American and
Filipino troops on Bataan and Corregidor surrendered to General Homma.
The infamous Death March began. The Japanese victories on all fronts
were extremely heady. They began to believe in their own invincibility.
Burma was now in Japanese hands and invasion plans had been drawn up
for a move into Northern Australia. Asia and Southeast Asia and most of
the Islands in the Pacific were as good as theirs.
Prince Chichibu in Singapore was elated when his team found the
treasures of Britain stored in the banks. The collection of wealth
throughout the conquered lands continued. With over 5000 years of
Asia's antiquity to pillage, the amounts collected were astronomical.
Far surpassing what was thought to be the total amount of gold ever
mined throughout history. With Shanghai in their hands the Golden Lily
team found themselves stretched to the limit in keeping up with the
collection and melting down of the precious metals.
Another surprise experienced by Prince Chichibu was the discovery that
the Dutch had moved their treasures to Batavia in the Netherlands East
Indies. Now, not only did Japan have the wealth of the Asian continent,
but they were rewarded with much of the European treasures as well.
Hitler's loss was Japan's gain.
Japan's luck had begun to run out by May 1942. Their first setback was
the Battle of the Coral Sea where the Allies had forced Japan to turn
back her invasion fleet which they had planned to land in New Guinea.
The following month they suffered a further major setback with the
Battle of Midway where Japan lost four of her front line fleet carriers
and the cream of her trained aviators. These were the same ships and
pilots that had attacked Pearl Harbor five months earlier. In August
1942 the Americans landed an invasion force on Guadalcanal. Japan tried
for months to dislodge the stubborn American Marines but eventually had
to concede this unknown but important island base. After that Japan
could never again launch another major offensive anywhere. The war
would continue for another three years while the Japanese slowly lost
the lands that they had conquered. Japan's dream was over and their
nightmare had begun.
By mid-1942 American submarines and aircraft had begun to take a
serious toll on Japanese shipping. Prince Chichibu could no longer send
the many tons of treasure back to Japan with any guarantee that it
would get there and not end up on the bottom of the ocean floor.
Actually he had to revise his thinking about where to send the
treasures after the Midway fiasco. Following a meeting with his
brother, the Emperor, it was decided that the treasures should be
hidden in the Philippine Islands. Why the Philippines? Because Japan
was certain that they would end up with these islands during surrender
negotiations with the Allies. Also, it was the shortest distance from
Hong Kong and Singapore where the material was being processed. Prince
Chichibu had begun shipping material to the Philippines even before
this decision was made. It was originally intended to be sent on to
Japan in returning war ships. The Prince was still nervous about these
shipments even after the decision was made. He commandeered four large
freighters and had them painted all white with a red cross on their
sides. These were "hospital" ships which he loaded with the many
treasures. To be absolutely sure that even these ships were not
molested he announced their movement on a clear radio channel so that
the Americans would know their times of departure and their courses.
Prince Chichibu had moved his Headquarters to Manila in the
Philippines. He had entrusted his younger brother Prince Mikasa and his
cousin Prince Asaka to continue the collection of the treasures. Before
he left he had begun to cut up the many golden pagodas and Buddhas
which were being melted down and poured into 75 kilo bars. This
amassing of the treasures would continue until Japan ultimately
surrendered.
after Japan's full-scale invasion of China on 7 July 1937, Emperor
Hirohito appointed one of his brothers, Prince Chichibu, to head a
secret organisation called kin no yuri ('Golden Lily') whose function
was to ensure that contraband was properly accounted for and not
diverted by military officers or other insiders, such as Kodama, for
their own enrichment. Putting an Imperial prince in charge was a
guarantee that everyone, even the most senior commanders, would follow
orders and that the Emperor personally would become immensely rich.
Golden Lily's overall boss is Prince Chichibu, one of Emperor
Hirohito's three brothers. The Kempeitai were Golden Lily's first
agents, moving 6000 metric tons of gold from Nanking to Japan in 1938.
But most of the Golden Lily treasure was buried in the Philippines by
General Yamashita, and it is in the Philippines that most of the action
in the book takes place.
Prince Chichibu was now faced with new challenges. Where and how to
hide the treasures so that they could not be accidentally discovered
after the war. The Prince was not as certain as his brother, the
Emperor, that Japan would end up with the Philippine Islands following
their defeat. He decided that these treasures would have to be hidden
in deep, well engineered tunnel systems. He had no experience in mining
and basically that was what was going to be required.
Major Nakasone was the only member of the Golden Lily team who had any
mining background. He had studied mining engineering but never had any
on the job training. He sent for him anyway. In the meantime he
askedThe Emperor for help and he responded by having someone locate
twenty experience men in underground excavation in Japan who were
quickly sent to the Philippines. If the Prince needed more workers, he
would have to get them from the Filipinos. In addition the Emperor had
remindedChichibu that the POWs of the Americans and the British
contained a lot of engineering experts especially those who served in
the constructionbattalions.
Manpower was the least of his problems. There were thousands of POWs
who the Japanese considered expendable. If that wasn't enough then
there were millions of Filipino males that could be used. As soon as
hereceived his experts he immediately began work in a dozen locations.
While this was going on the treasure ships were arriving weekly and
their precious cargo had been added to the other treasure already
stored in heavily guarded warehouses. There were other problems; the
movementof the cargo from the ships to the warehouses attracted a lot
of attention. Chichibu decided to construct an underground tunnel
system from the piers to the warehouses which were in the capture
American base named Fort McKinley in TAGUIG. Eventually this tunnel
would branch out under Manila and run for 35 miles. The entrance was in
Intramuros, the ancient walled city of the Spaniards, which was near
the docks. It terminated at MacArthur's headquarters in Fort McKinley
in TAGUIG
Prince Chichibu had to make some other major decisions. Why not hide
all the treasure in one large location? The Emperor had answered that
question. Security!!! Too many people who had worked on the location
would know where it was, also if someone should accidentally find the
location all would be lost. Early on the Prince had made the decision
that except for a few foreign engineers the entire work force would
have to be exterminated. The next question was where could this work be
done where the local population would not be aware of what was going on
there. Japanese military bases were perfect. Only the military had
access to them and most bases had POW camps nearby. Prince Chichibu
visualized that when the Americans returned to recapture the
Philippines that there would be massive bombings. The map makers needed
permanent landmarks in order to relocate these sites after the war. The
Americans had shown in Europe that they would avoid bombing historical
buildings. The four hundred year old historical Spanish Churches and
fortifications were perfect. But just to make sure he would house
American POWs in them. Mainly women and children. He would then arrange
for clear radio communications to announce this fact. It worked, the
Americans spared these sites.
Major Nakasone was at Fort Santiago, a 16th century Spanish
fortification, collecting slave labors from the Kempeitai Headquarter's
dungeons and torture chambers. One of the physically strong Filipino's
he selected was Leopoldo Giga. Nakasone knew a Colonel Kantaro Giga who
was one of his instructors at the military academy. Out of curiosity he
decided to personally interview Giga. He found him an intelligent, 28
year old, who spoke fluent Japanese. He also learned he was a nephew of
his academy instructor. Giga's father was the brother of the instructor
who was a minor diplomat who had been attached to the Japanese Embassy
in the Philippines 1913. Giga's mother had met the Diplomat and had
become his common-law wife. Another advantage that Nakasone found in
Giga was that he spoke two of the main dialects of the Filipino people.
Instead of making him a slave laborer he assigned him to his staff.
Giga came to the attention of Prince Chichibu who had him commissioned
as a sub-lieutenant in the Imperial Army. He was sent to Japan to
attend schooling on tunneling and inventorying the treasure. He
returned a Captain and worked on most of the treasure sites.
Prince Chichibu was in Nueva Vizcaya in early 1942. He was examining a
major excavation outside of the town of Bambang. He and his staff had a
young Filipino boy who had come down with a fever and had died. He had
been a houseboy who did the laundry of the Prince and his staff as well
as kept their boots and other equipment cleaned and polished. He sent
his aide out to locate a replacement. The Aide came back with a 14 year
old uneducated farm boy whose name was Benjamin Valmores. During the
next three and a half years Valmores traveled with the Prince to many
of the sites. He learned Japanese and a smattering of English. He was
never allowed to go down into the tunnels, but he watched them being
constructed and filled with the treasures. He and Giga would survive
the war.
As the war reached its inevitable climax in early 1945 the Japanese
were receiving more treasure than they could prepare sites for in which
to hide it. Their warships became useless due to the American air-
superiority, so they loaded them with these newly arrived treasures and
pretended they were being sent back to Japan. Instead the Japanese
deliberately sank or scuttled these ships and machine-gunned their own
men so that the ships would go down in predetermined locations and no
witnesses would be alive to to tell the tale. There were thirteen of
these planned sinkings. Some of these went down in Manila Bay; others
were sunk in not to deep Philippine Waters throughout the archipelago.
The bloody war was over. The hopes of Emperor Hirohito and others to
force the Americans to agree to a treaty that would allow Japan to keep
some of the lands they had taken by conquest had been shattered.
Theyhad planned the final battle that they were certain would cause the
Americans over a million casualties when they invaded the Japanese home
islands. The two atomic bombs and Russia's invasion of Manchuria in an
attempt to annex some of Japan's conquered lands had cause the Emperor
to agree to an unconditional surrender. Now the conquerors wanted to
bring to justice those who were responsible for the many atrocities.
Over 4000 war criminals were charged. Of these 2400 received a prison
sentence of three years or more and 809 were ultimately hung.
General Yamashita was put on trial for war crimes on October 29, 1945.
General MacArthur organized this "trial" if anyone could call it a
trial. It was a kangaroo court and the verdict to hang Yamashita was
the worst American travesty of justice. Yamashita was not guilty of any
of the charges brought against him. This was widely known at the time
of the trail and history has since vindicated the General who was known
as The Tiger of Malaya. In spite of this he was hung on February 23,
1946. The U.S. Supreme Court had reviewed the case and shamelessly
approved the kangaroo's court verdict.
Historians have excused MacArthur's actions by saying that Yamashita
had embarrassed him by putting up a vigorous defense of the Philippines
and didn't surrender until the Emperor had ordered him to do so. They
also justify his action as trying to rejuvenate the image of Emperor
Hirohito who he felt was needed in order to put through the reforms he
had envisioned for Japan. Both of these reasons were probably true, but
MacArthur learned after the trial that the Yamashita verdict was a
mistake.
The OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of today's CIA)
had been interviewing all of the Japanese Pows. One of the operatives
was Severino Santa Romana. A Filipino who spoke Japanese. He had
interrogated Major Kijomi Kashii who had been General Yamashita's
personal driver. In tracing Yamashita's movements, the Major recounted
having taken him to several locations where massive underground
excavations were taking place. While the General was touring the site
he learned from a Captain of the security force that the excavation was
not a fortification but a secret depository for treasures collected in
other conquered lands. This was the first time the Americans had any
hint of these secret locations.
Santa Romana had the Major carefully draw the exact locations of these
two sites. He also arranged to keep the Major from other POW's so he
could extract further information. He notified his superior who thought
the information was important enough to send a written report to OSS
Headquarters in Washington, DC. The report crossed the desk of William
Donavan, known as "Wild Bill" who was the Director of the OSS. Donavan
found the report intriguing and cabled Santa Romana's superior
requesting that he be sent out to the two sites and personally inspect
them. Santa Romana did as ordered only to find out that the maps were
not accurate. There were no signs of any excavations. Had the Major
lied? He rushed back to confront him, but when he got to the prison he
found that the Major had committed suicide with a butter knife he had
stolen from the prisoners mess hall. He quickly notified Washington.
Donavan was not prepared to dismiss the report as false. There was
another witness, General Yamashita who was awaiting the review of the
Supreme Court. He had discussed this with the President, Harry Truman,
and had been ordered to send the information to General MacArthur with
a suggestion that the General look into it. MacArthur didn't believe
the report and ordered one of his aides to pick up Santa Romana and go
interview Yamashita personally. When confronted with the question the
wily General just smiled. When MacArthur learned this he changed his
mind. Perhaps there was something to this after all. But, how to get
Yamashita to talk? He was about to be hung and MacArthur wasn't one of
his favorite people.
MacArthur knew that the only way Yamashita would talk would be if he
was ordered to do so by his Emperor. MacArthur's headquarters was now
in Tokyo so the General decided to put the question to Hirohito. At
first Hirohito pretended he didn't know what MacArthur was talking
about. Then he thought about it and decided that Yamashita knew very
little about the activities of the Golden Lily team, and if he did know
about two sites, why not tell MacArthur. With the loss of two sites he
might gain some concessions. He might be able to save Yamashita and at
the same time negotiate some of the wealth for Japan. He wrote a letter
which was hand-delivered to the imprisoned General asking him to
cooperate. The more the Emperor thought about it, the better the plan
looked. For one thing it would signify that there were only two sites
where this treasure was stored should that question ever come up. He
knew there were 172 major sites in the Philippines. He rationalized
that the loss of two of these sites would be insignificant, especially
if he could gain some other advantages.
General Yamashita received the personal letter from the Emperor. He was
torn between duty and using this situation to obtain a reprieve of his
death sentence. He advised Santa Romana and MacArthur's aide that
washis decision. The aide lied to Yamashita by saying that MacArthur
did not have the authority to commute the sentence, but that he might
agree to sharing some of this wealth with Yamashita's family so that
they would live comfortably after he was gone. Sensing that was all he
wasgoing to get he said he would cooperate only if the Emperor assured
him he had that agreement in writing.
While this was going on MacArthur was getting pressure from the Emperor
who was now asking for 50% of the treasure. Japan's cities were in
ruins and this money would help rebuild them. MacArthur sent both
requests to Donovan who discussed it with the President. At this point
no one knew if the treasures even existed or how much was in the two
sites, if it were true. Truman was deeply involved with many problems
in Europe caused by the Russians. He flipped the matter back to Donovan
and told him: "You handle it." With Truman's seemingly indifference,
Donovan rejected the Emperor's request and cut his percentage to 20%.
He told MacArthur to have the OSS take possession of the remaining 80%
and they would decided what to do with it later. Donovan promptly
forgot about it. MacArthur did not forget and these chapters will
explain how it was finally divided. Under Santa Romana's direction both
treasure sites were found and after two years of digging, billions of
dollars in gold were removed. The sites were real all right. This would
greatly affect future events.
Ferdinand Marcos was born on September 9, 1917 in Sarrat, Illocos
Norte. His father, Mariano Marcos, had been a provincial Congressman
since the 1920's. Ferdinand entered law school in 1935. That same year
a bitter political rival of his father was murdered. The young Marcos
and his uncle Pio Marcos were the prime suspects. Three years after the
murder Ferdy as he was called and his uncle were arrested and charged
with the murder. Pio got off, but Ferdinand was convicted for the
murder. Because of his young age he was only given a 10 year prison
term. After a year in prison where he finished his studies he passed
the bar examination. He was an attorney. For some unexplained reason
President Quezon issued a pardon for Marcos. Also, for some unknown
reason Marcos refused it. Instead he wrote his own appeal to the
Supreme Court. He admitted that he did shoot the political foe of his
father but now claimed it was self-defense.
The dead politician had been shot in the back through a window in his
house late at night. He was hardly a threat to Ferdinand. Still in late
1940 the Philippine Supreme Court reversed the conviction
supportingMarcos's claim that it was self-defense. Marcos was released
from prison. Obviously the fix was in at the highest level. He then
opened his law practice in Laoag near his home. In April 1945 with
General Yamashita and his troops retreating to the northern highlands
of Luzon, Mariano Marcos, Ferdinand's father was arrested by
American-ledGuerrillas. He was convicted as a Japanese collaborator and
executed in a bizarre manner. He was tied to four carabaos (large water
buffaloes) which literally tore him limb from limb. The pieces were
hung in a tree to rot.
In later years Marcos would cause various writers to portray him as the
greatest Philippine war hero. In reality there is ample evidence to
prove that he, like his father, was a "makapili", a collaborator
workingfor Colonel Arika, the Kempeitai Commander in Manila. He was
also a black marketeer. Just before the war was over Ferdinand was
arrested for operating a black market. He talked his way out of jail by
claiming he was raising money for the Guerrillas. After his release the
Guerrilla headquarters claimed he was not working for them and ordered
his execution. By then he was hiding out up north and was never brought
to justice.
One of the stories that Marcos liked to tell was that while he was on a
one man patrol for the Americans he ran across a Japanese patrol which
he attacked and singlehanded killed with his rifle and bolo. He was
supposedly shot in the leg and pried the bullet out with his knife.
While looking in the Japanese pack mule for something to bandage his
wound with he found three gold bars. The bars were too heavy to carry
with his wounded leg so he buried them by a tree and clearly marked the
tree so he could return to claim them. Was this true? There was no
evidence of this new found wealth immediately following the war. He
became a struggling attorney.
Marcos, like his father, won a seat in Congress from the same district
in 1950. He had kept his law office in Ilocos Norte and when not in
Manila he would take a few cases to keep in touch with his voters. In
the spring of 1952 two laborers came to him and asked his help in
collecting their pay from two ex-Imperial Army veterans. They claimed
they were hired to dig a deep pit near the old military base and had
uncovered a lot of gold bars. Instead of paying them the Japanese had
run them off at gun point. Marcos went with them and they sneaked up on
the excavation. Marcos saw the two Japanese hauling gold bars up from
the pit and struggling to load them on the back of a truck. Marcos
toldthe laborers to wait there while he went to get help. Marcos
returned within an hour with two men. All three were armed with rifles
and hand guns. Without fanfare the three armed men took up positions
and on command shot and killed the two Japanese and two other Filipinos
who were in their camp. Then without flinching they shot the two
laborers.
Marcos and his two friends removed the rest of the gold bars from the
pit and finished loading them on the truck. The total weight of the
bars was over two tons. The truck sagged on its springs. He then had
his friends collect the bodies and drop them down the pit. The rest of
the day was spent by the three men filling the pit in order to hide
bodies. When it was about a meter from the top Marcos dispatched his
two friends with a hand gun and rolled them into the pit. He finished
filling the pit and cut down branches which he spread around to hide
the activity. Marcos now knew these treasure rumors were true. It was
the beginning of his nearly forty-year quest for the rest of the
treasure. A year laterMarcos married Imelda Romualdez and thus was
formed the beginning of the conjugal dictatorship.
During the next five years Marcos would discreetly ask Japanese
businessmen and politicians about the treasure "rumors". They all
denied having any knowledge. President Quirino had fanned these rumors
byemploying an American-born Japanese whose name was Minoru
Fukumitsu.Fukumitsu who had interviewed many of the war criminals after
the war claimed he had obtained a map which showed a major treasure
site. Quirino had him dig a number of sites but he came up with
nothing. Yearslater the truth of these digs would come out. The
Philippine newspapers at the time made a big joke out of the whole
thing. Marcos befriended Fukumitsu. It was the beginning of a long
relationship.
In 1965 Marcos using gold, guns, and goons won the election and
becamethe President of the Philippines. Now he had the resources of the
entire Country that he could use in his quest for more of the treasure.
Another event that greatly affected him was to learn that Imelda's
biological father was supposed to be Severino Santa Romana, the same
OSS operative who worked with Yamashita. Santa Romana would later share
the information of the earlier successes with him and eventually
disclose where that treasure was still being stored.
In 1969, having sent one of his military officers to Tokyo he learned
there was a large treasure site under the main flag pole of Camp
Aquinaldo. The Camp had been a headquarters of the Kempeitai during
theoccupation. Using his Presidential Security force and other soldiers
heexcavated the site. Before the end of the year he was able to recover
over two thousand metric tons of gold and a lot of precious stones. He
was a very wealthy man. He and Imelda flaunted that fact and in 1970
Cosmopolitan Magazine wrote an article saying he was the wealthiest man
in Asia. The outcry that followed caused him to admit to the press that
he was a very wealthy man because he had recovered "Yamashita's"
treasure. In truth Yamashita had nothing to do with it.
Marcos would later regret that admission. He immediately suppressed the
newspaper stories and stopped the story from going out on the news
services. Even so it was leaked and he was beset with the claims of
many countries that were the victims of the Japanese. The World Court
in 1945 had passed a law that any stolen war treasures would be
returned to the countries they were stolen from. This moratorium would
not expire until 1985. Turning this gold into cash became a tremendous
problem. It would haunt him for the next twenty years.
In late 1974 Marcos was in Cancun, Mexico attending a Developing
Nations meeting. During a break he was talking to the President of
Costa Rica, Jose Figueroa, about the development of mining in their
countries. Figueroa told Marcos that he had been trying to get a Nevada
miner to set up a refinery in his country, but the miner refused all of
his offers. He gave Marcos the name of Jack Carter and told him if he
could convince Carter to come to the Philippines he could help
rejuvenate his moribund mining industry. Carter, from Reno, Nevada, had
developed some refining techniques that could get more gold out of a
ton of ore than the present technology. This news set off bells in
Marcos' head. Perhaps Carter would be the answer to his gold problem.
By December 1974, Jack Carter had had a varied background. He was
headstrong and at the age of thirteen had run away from a wealthy uncle
who had become his guardian after his mother's death. He appeared older
than he was. He hitchhiked to San Francisco from Ohio. Flat broke and
in a strange town, he enrolled himself in high school and found a job
as a soda jerk for a candy company. During the next 20 years he
graduated from high school where he had risen to the rank of full
colonel in the Junior ROTC, and had joined the California National
Guard where he was a sergeant in the 159th Infantry. He joined the
regular army and won his parachute and glider wings in the 82nd
Airborne Division. He was honorably discharged in 1950 a few months
before the outbreak of the Korean war.
Carter went to work for a San Francisco bank as a teller trainee and
rapidly earned promotion. He had a brilliant banking career but
resigned after 10-1/2 years. He went to work for Kaiser Aluminum where
he rose to President of their consumer finance division. He became
disenchanted with the gray flannel suit world and resigned. During his
16 years in the banking field he spent all of his spare time on
weekends and vacations in the Mother Lode mining towns in California
and Arizona. He was fascinated with the history and with mining. He
gained most of his mining experience from books and from befriending
old time miners. He had recently married and decided to move to Reno
where he could be closer to the mines. Instead of going back into
banking he sold cars so that he would have more free time to wander
around the many ghost towns in the west.
During a deer hunt he discovered a rich outcrop of ore which he
recognized as gold and platinum. Since there was not supposed to be any
platinum in the US, he was forced to set up his own mining and refining
facilities. This required him to become an expert on the chemistry of
platinum and ultimately he developed new processes that greatly
enhanced the yield of the extraction of all of these precious metals.
By December 1974 he had constructed four plants for the refining of the
metals from his mines. He was in the process of building the fifth and
final plant to complete his process. When Marcos had a representative
contact Carter he was really busy. He rejected the offers from Marcos's
representative and from a personal phone call from the President. He
was flattered bythe attention of the President of the Philippines who
wanted him to come there as his guest and make him a business proposal,
but that did not sway him.
Marcos would not take no for an answer and sent his representative to
make an unannounced visit to Carter in his offices in Sparks outside of
Reno. At first the offer was to have Carter remelt a number of gold
bars that Marcos had, but when the quantities reached 500 tons per
week, Carter became suspicious. Why not do that in the Philippines?
Eventually he was told the source of the gold and the reasons Marcos
needed Carterto do it. Carter didn't believe the story, but after three
trips from the Marcos representative and dozens of phone calls he
agreed to go to the Philippines if for no other reason than to get rid
of the pest. It was supposed to be a three day trip. It lasted much
longer.
When Carter arrived at the airport in Manila he was met by an entourage
of a dozen members of Marcos's treasure team. This group consisted of
an ambassador, a retired general, two full colonels, a doctor, and two
Filipinos who were introduced to him as the eyewitnesses. The rest of
the group was made up of members of the Presidential Security Force.
Carter was given the VIP treatment and was shuffled past customs and
passport stations. One of the colonels was in charge of Imelda Marcos's
personal security and was an aide to General Ver. While waiting for his
baggage he was told that we was expected to stay at the Presidential
Palace. Carter did not like this because he knew that he would need to
be in constant contact with his companies in the states and felt that
the Palace would be too confining. He chose a hotel that was near the
palace. The colonel got clearance for this change and arranged for the
hotel.
During the next four weeks Carter was given a dog and pony show which
was unprecedented. There were daily meetings and he was taken to over
thirty sites. He reviewed the maps and had many hours of conversations
with the eyewitnesses. Every minute of his day and most of his
eveningswere taken up with these activities. He had many meetings with
General Ver and lengthily meetings at the Palace with Marcos. He went
fishing and water skiing with the President. He was invited for an
overnight cruise with Marcos and was taken to the Summer Palace
opposite Corregidor. There he was shown a golden buddha and a room full
of gold bars which were stacked floor to ceiling in a large room under
the summer palace. He was looking at billions of dollars worth of gold
which convinced Carter that the treasure stories were true.
These weeks for Carter were very heady. They were, he thought, the
greatest adventure of his life. He was wrong, it was only the beginning
of a 21 year nightmare. Marcos had made three requests of Carter: 1)
His treasure team had recently acquired the Japanese treasure maps. He
wanted to check their authenticity. He had already agreed to allow the
team to recover the treasure buried in the old air-vent of Fort
Santiago, but first he wanted to check a water site. He supplied Carter
with a PT boat and the necessary underwater divers and equipment and
wanted him to locate one of the sunken ships. This would prove not only
the maps, but also the memory of the eyewitnesses. Carter complied and
on the first day out on the boat he found the sunken heavy cruiser
Nachi. The divers came up with the ships' bell and a handful of silver
coins that were in a barge that the ship was towing. With hundreds of
sunken ships in the area to choose from this was positive proof that
both were accurate. 2) He had a problem with the Ambassador being in
the group and asked Carter to take over the leadership of his treasure
team which he had named the LEBER group. 3) He also nsisted that Carter
build a refinery on land that he would provide to handle the processing
of the gold he already possessed as well as the new gold that the group
would recover. This last request was a problem for Carter.
Before Carter had left the sunken cruiser Nachi he had attached a buoy
to the ship with a cable. When he returned the next day he found the
buoy had been removed. He had to find the ship a second time. The
second buoy was cut again. Marcos claimed that Japanese salvage
companies were in the area and must be responsible. He later learned
that Marcos had ordered the buoys cut to keep the Leber group from
making an immediate recovery. Marcos suggested that Carter find another
land site that he guaranteed him he could start after he returned from
the States. Marcos wanted the refractory furnaces in Carter's plants to
be shipped to the Philippines immediately. Before Carter left the
Philippines President Marcos had the eleven Leber group members sign an
agreement dividing all future recoveries with no Philippine taxes. This
meant that each member was to receive a 1/11th share. Carter was elated
when he returned to make those and other necessary arrangements.
Carter had a lot to do while he was home. He had to dismantle his
refractory plant and crate it to be sent by steamship to the
Philippines. This effectively put him out of business in Nevada since
he needed those furnaces to make a saleable product. He had over a
hundred employees and the payroll would continue. He needed money and
expenses for his return trip. He also needed financing for the new
plant that Marcos insisted he construct there. He was required to hold
a board meeting to get their approval for all of this. He also was
faced with some morality problems with this project. He no longer had
any doubts about the reality of this treasure . He also knew that it
was covered with the blood of so many innocent victims.
During his many meetings with General Ver and Marcos he was questioned
repeatedly for his opinion on how to turn this gold into cash without
upsetting the world gold market. The very fact that this gold existed
was enough to drop the price of gold in the market with substantial
side-effects. With China's population numbering a billion people who
were economically depressed he was positive that the possibility of
China invading the Philippines to take this treasure was a reality.
Look what they did in Korea for far less a motive. In his mind it could
cause World War III. Marcos had told Carter that the gold he had
already recovered was more than he could ever spend even if he lavishly
showered it on the Filipino population. He didn't want to recover any
more of these sites until this distribution problem was solved. Carter
was given that problem to solve.
Carter knew that Marcos was serious about this problem and he agreed
with his assessment of the danger. Carter had to have a viable solution
before he returned to the Philippines and he had less than a month to
solve it. He sought the advice of a powerful, somewhat right-wing,
organization. This included some extremely wealthy members and American
politicians. They provided the capital he needed to dismantle his plant
and to keep the company alive while he was overseas. They also
guaranteed to advance the money required to build the refinery in the
Philippines that Marcos had insisted upon. In a meeting with a
U.S.Senator and other top members of this organization Carter explained
the world-wide disposition problem. They had a solution. The
organization controlled a number of banks in the US and Canada with
affiliates in Europe. They guaranteed Carter that they could legally
handle 1000 metric tons of gold a month and none of it would go into
the world market. For all of these services Carter had to sign a
contract that gave the organization 25% of any profits he would receive
under the Marcos agreement. Carter had no choice for without this plan
he knew Marcos would be hesitant to allow any further recoveries.
Carter's return to the Philippines was full of great expectations. He
had located the Nachi and could now recover the treasure from the ship
and the barge. He had engineered the recovery of the treasure in the
hidden air vent in Fort Santiago. Both of these were short term
projects. He would have unlimited wealth within the month. He was
embarking on a great adventure. This anticipated wealth was not
important to him personally, but it would give him the means to
accomplish all of the things that he had planned. He was met at the
airport by all the members of the Leber Group. Like his first trip he
chose the hotel over the palace. President Marcos and General Ver were
in China and Carter had to wait their return for the first meeting
where he had expected to tell the President about the fool-proof
program he had negotiated. He used this time to prepare security plans
and make arrangements for the necessary men and equipment to be able to
do the projects.
It was two weeks before he met with General Ver at the Palace.
President Marcos was tied up with accepting a new Ambassador from
Romania. Ver said that he had met with the President earlier and had
prepared a number of questions for Carter. There was also some major
changes.Carter's furnaces and other plant equipment were scheduled to
arrive aboard the ship in ten days. Ver said Marcos didn't want to wait
for the new plant to be built in order to start using them. There were
some empty buildings next to the Malacanang Palace. He wanted Carter to
set the furnaces up there. it was a safe place because the Presidential
Security barracks were right next door. Carter agreed and said he would
bring over his partner and chief engineer to help set it up. Marcos
also wanted Carter to submit the plans to construct the new refinery
and to coordinate that with Jose Campos, the Chairman of United Drug
Companywhich was the largest pharmaceutical firm in Asia. United would
providethe land in the Free Trade Zone at Bataan.
The General was elated with the sale plan that Carter outlined for him.
He said it was perfect and that Marcos would be pleased. He emphasized
the need to start re-melting the bars immediately. Ver told Carter that
there was a basement vault under the Palace which was full of gold
bars. More than he had shown Carter on his first trip. The General
could see that Carter found this hard to believe so he offered to take
him downstairs when the meeting was over. Ver continued by asking
Carter what he planned to do with the errant Ambassador. He repeated
that the President wanted him liminated. Carter remembered the first
meeting with Marcos where it was clear that Marcos wanted the
ambassador killed. Carter had told the President that there must be
another way. Ver gave Carter a way to save the Ambassador, but if he
failed, the matter was no longer in his hands. Carter agreed to try,
but if he did fail, he made up his mind that he would have to give up
this dream and leave the Philippines. He was not going to be a part of
murder, even indirectly. The whole incident made him nervous.
This meeting with Ver was very long. The General had saved the bad news
for last. He announced that the Leber group was not going to be able to
work on the cruiser Nachi until later. The excuse offered by Ver was
that the Japanese Ambassador had recently visited the Philippines and
asked Marcos for permission to remove their war dead from the many
sunken ships so that they could be properly buried in Japan. Marcos
knew that wasn't the real reason; they were after the gold. If Carter
was seen out in the bay removing things from the Nachi, then Marcos
would be in trouble with the Japanese. Ver asked Carter to understand
and promised him that the President would let him recover that at a
later date..
That bad news wasn't all. Ver told Carter that the Leber group could
not do the Fort Santiago site either until the President had time to
meet with the head of the National Historical Society. The ancient
Spanish fort was a major tourist attraction and they objected to its'
temporary closing for this "restoration" project. This was devastating
to Carter. He had planned on both of these sites being recovered within
thirty days of his arrival. He let Ver know of his displeasure and said
that if he had known that he never would have dismantled his refractory
plant. He couldn't tell Ver that he only had a limited amount of money
and that these delays would create major problems for him in the States.
He did tell Ver that this was going to require him to go home. The
General said that the President didn't want that. Ver said he should
set up the furnaces when they arrived and start processing Marcos's
gold. Carter was to receive $5 for every ounce he re-melted. The
President also told the General to request Carter to find another site
which he could start excavating immediately. There was one condition.
This new site had to be out in the jungle somewhere, away from any
towns or buildings. This eliminated all of the easy to recover sites in
and around Manila. The meeting over, Carter returned to his hotel to
tell the Leber group members, who were waiting to learn what was
happening, but first Ver took him to the large room in the basement.
What Carter saw was mind boggling.
The Leber group members were understandably disappointed, but quickly
showed enthusiasm over the green light which was to start another site
right away. Carter pretended the same enthusiasm, but later he and his
partner discussed the realities of their problem. They would have to
lay off most of their employees stateside and cut back on all expenses.
Even that could only buy them a few weeks.
Well that could turn around if they could get the furnaces set up and
working. In the meantime they had to locate the new site. The next ten
days they travelled all over Northern Luzon, rejecting most of the
sites they looked at for one reason or the other. There was one site in
the four hundred year old San Augustin Church. It was easy to do and
the Catholic Fathers were anxious for it to be done. President Marcos
rejected it. Too many people would know about it and he didn't trust
the Fathers.
The site that Carter selected was 38 miles south of Manila. It was
three miles from the nearest small town of Teresa. During the war the
area had been a major Japanese encampment and a POW camp. It was a tent
city and no buildings remained. The Japanese had constructed a huge
underground tunnel system. The openings to the tunnels were well hidden
and the jungle had reclaimed the area. Some of the markers had been
destroyed by stone cutters, but enough remained to pinpoint the site.
It had several drawbacks. It was a long way from Manila and was a
logistical nightmare which caused many delays. By using an exposed
airvent Carter was able to locate the center of the tunnel. According
to the map the top of the tunnel was 90 feet from the surface. Digging
started as soon as Carter could mobilize the equipment and the
manpower. Marcos provided the laborers who had all been screened by the
Presidential Security force. They were experienced and worked for a
construction firm owned by a golf partner of Marcos. The President
insisted that once exposed to the site the workers could not leave
until the project was completed. Temporary shelters and cooking
facilities had to be erected.
Marcos had assigned only one sergeant from the Presidential Security to
guard the site. He was heavily armed but General Ver required that he
not wear his uniform. The idea was to not draw attention to their
activities. The cover story was that the Americans were conducting soil
tests for a proposed sub-division. There were farmers passing near the
site who could see the digging. The lone guard kept them from getting
too inquisitive. The Americans with their white skins had to keep
hidden behind a bamboo fence.
The digging was agonizingly slow. What impressed the Americans was the
accuracy of the maps. At different depths they were to reach a layer of
glass, charcoal, and crossed bamboo. At the lower depths they were to
find finger bones and human skulls. They did, and it was very
disquieting. It even shocked the workers who were very superstitious.
it took two months to reach the top of the concrete and steel tunnel.
This was 85 feet down from the surface. The Americans were very
excited. Using jackhammers they cut through three feet of concrete.
Once they broke through they expected to be able to drop into the
tunnel and walk to the treasure which was loaded onto 23 large military
trucks sealed in the tunnel with the gold. Disaster struck the minute
they broke through the concrete ceiling. The workmen began dropping
like flies and the odor coming from the tunnel closed for over forty
years pole-axed the Americans on the surface. In the tunnel the workers
couldn't smell it, but once it mixed with air the stench of decayed
flesh was overwhelming. There were 1200 POW's and Filipino's buried
alive by the Japanese with this treasure. The entombed bodies as they
decayed created methane gas. Half the crew were hospitalized. It took a
week for the gases to dissipate and even then the workers in the shaft
needed to wear gas masks.
The tunnels were not open. The Japanese had back filled them by
bulldozing dirt and bodies into them. The bones removed created a large
mound. It was grisly work. On July 4, 1975 the foreman came running up
to Carter and very excitingly told him the workers had hit metal.
Carter ordered all the workers out of the tunnel and had himself
lowered into the shaft. Using a flashlight he saw the nose of a 1000
pound aerial bomb standing on end. The workers using a jackhammer had
just missed the detonator by two inches. He also saw a large curved
piece of rusty metal which he further exposed with a shovel to reveal
the fender of a truck. Eureka!!! He had found it.
The 1000 pound bombs were clearly shown on the map. There were eight of
them scattered throughout the tunnels and rigged to the trucks. They
were packed in cosmolene grease and were very much "live". Carter had
known they were there and had arranged with General Ver to have a
demolition team come in to defuse them. There was no telephone anywhere
near the site and he had been instructed to notify the Area Commander
the minute they had reached the target. The Americans were very
excited, but did as they were ordered. They drove to the nearest
military base. It was early in the morning and the Colonel had not yet
gotten out of bed. Once awake he radioed the General and was ordered to
bring the Americans to his house. In the meantime he said he had
deployed a full company to secure the site and make sure that no
workers were allowed to leave.
General Cannu was the Area Commander and his house was 45 miles away
from the base. When Carter and his partner arrived they were greeted
with the same excitement that they had brought with them. The General
immediately got on the phone and called General Ver. Carter told Ver
what he had found and requested the demolition team be sent
immediately. Ver was equally excited and told the Americans to go back
to their hotel and he would send a car for them. He assured Carter that
the demolition team was on the way and that the site was secure. It was
still before noon and they did as requested and returned to their hotel
to wait. It was a long day. With adrenaline pumping they paced their
rooms until late in the afternoon when Colonel Luchica, the Generals
aide, called and said to be downstairs in an hour and a car would be
waiting for them to be bring them to the palace. Carter was a little
surprised that the Colonel was somewhat sedate on the phone, but
decided he may not have been told by Ver that they had reached the
target.
General Ver's big dark blue Mercedes was waiting for them. The driver
and Lieutenant Saprosantos were in civilian clothes. Carter and his
partner settled in the back seat eagerly awaiting their reception at
the Palace. The driver was taking a different route and Carter
mentioned that this wasn't the way to the Palace. Saprosantos said that
the plans had been changed, the meeting was to take place at a secret
spot. Carter watched the driver turn into Fort Bonafacio and drive up
to the iron gates of the American cemetary where there were acres of
white crosses of the war dead. The guards at the gate opened it to
admit the Mercedes. Carter looked at his partner and they both
whispered that something was wrong. When the car stopped near the
circular memorial Carter saw Colonel Lachica and his aide Major Olivas.
He was still nervous, but he decided that Ver and the President were in
another car and planned to meet them there. But, why such an eerie
setting?
The two Americans were not long in finding out. As the Colonel
approached the car he drew a US Army .45 Colt from his belt. He took
Carter by the arm and led him from the driveway to a clump of
rhododendron bushes. Carter could see his partner being led to other
bushes 50 yards away by the Major, who also had his gun drawn. Once
inside the bushes he was taken to a freshly dug four foot hole. The
Colonel put the gun behind his ear and said that he was sorry, but his
orders must be carried out. Carter thought the Colonel was his friend,
but he could tell that this was no joke. Trying to regain his dignity
he calmly said that the Colonel could pull the trigger, but if he did
he would be laying next to Carter in a few days. The Colonel asked him
what he meant and Carter said that only he had the maps to the 172
treasure sites and if he was killed Marcos would never be able to
recover anyother sites. The Colonel lowered the gun and yelled to the
Major something in Tagalog. He was then led back to the monument and
seated on a marble bench. He couldn't see his partner, but he didn't
hear a shot.
Colonel Lachica called over two burly guards also in civilian clothes.
He spoke to them in tagalog and one of them drew a pistol. Carter saw
the Colonel walk over to a military jeep and get on the radio. He
couldn't hear what was being said. It was a long conversation and ended
with the Colonel saying, "yes sir," in English. He came back to Carter
and sat down on the bench. He told Carter that they would have to wait.
Carter knew why, they were checking with Colonel Villacrusis to see if
he had the maps and they were going to search all of their rooms at the
hotel. If they found the maps he would be back at that hole fertilizing
the bushes. Carter asked about his partner and the Colonel said he was
all right. It was a long wait. An eternity to Carter under the
circumstances. The Colonel would get up from time to time and talk on
the radio.
At one point the Colonel returned and asked Carter if he he knew about
an article that appeared in the Washington Post written by Jack
Anderson which said that Marcos and several Americans were digging
Japanese war treasures in the Santa Maria mountains. He accused Carter
or his people of leaking the story. Carter denied any knowledge and
assured him that his people were not at fault. In his heart he knew
this was true since his people would not have put them at risk. It was
well after dark when the Colonel was called to the jeep to answer a
radio call. He had a long conversation and finally returned and said he
was very sorry for all of this. Carter could return to the hotel and
General Ver would meet with him tomorrow. His partner joined him and
they were driven back to the hotel. It wasn't until they were safe in
his room that he and his partner were able to relax somewhat. Their
rooms had been thoroughly searched and all papers and pictures that
were in them had been taken. Carter ran to his hiding place and
breathed a sigh of relief. The maps were still there. Had they found
them he and his partner wouldn't be. They had to get rid of them.
Later that evening Carter and his partner burned the wax coated maps in
a hibachi that they had on the outside balcony of their conference
room. They scattered the ashes in the breeze from the 10th floor during
thedark hours of the morning. They could not relax even when this was
done. Carter had sent a coded telex to his office asking that they
telex him right back requesting he come home for an annual
stockholder's meeting. He never mentioned the cemetery incident for
fear that Marcos was monitoring his communications and might have
broken his code. Coming back to his room he was followed by a military
type wearing civilian clothes who had gotten on the elevator with him.
Carter saw the handle of a gun in his waist band. The man got off first
and opened a door near Carter's room. Carter looked in and saw a dozen
men and several rifles leaning against the bed. He scurried to his room
and closed the door. He called his partner to warn him. There was no
sleep for Carter or his partner that night.
The requested telex from his office was delivered to his room in the
morning. He placed a call to General Ver. His aide said he was out of
town and transferred the call to Colonel Lachica. Carter told the
Colonel that he and his partner had to go home for a week and read the
phoney telex to him. Carter assured the Colonel he would be back and to
prove it he was going to keep his rooms and leave all of his clothes
and equipment behind. There was no mention of the night before, but
Carter sensed that the Colonel was hesitant. He finally said that the
General was with the President in Baguio and he would have to radio
them for permission. Carter didn't wait, he called the airport and made
reservations with United Airlines, an American carrier, for the evening
flight. He and his partner packed some light bags leaving everything
else behind.
The Colonel called back and said the General had said it was okay
providing that Carter kept his hotel rooms and promised to be back in a
week. Carter and his partner rushed to the airport hours ahead of the
scheduled flight. While packing Carter had told his partner to pack
only one small bag that could be carried on board the airplane. He was
afraid that someone might slip some drug, guns, or other contraband
into them and that would give them an excuse to detain them. At the
airport they stood over their bags for the same reason. Once on board
the airplane they were still tense until the plane began making speed
down the runway. Just before takeoff, the pilot cut back the power and
taxied back to the gate. Carter and his partner were sure it was
because of them. The cabin door opened and two uniformed Majors and a
Colonel entered. The stewardess paged Jack Carter to the open door.
Carter approached and the Colonel said he was required to search his
baggage.
Carter, who was in First Class, summoned false courage and made a
scene. He refused to let them search his on board luggage stating that
customs had already examined it. He also said he was an American
citizen on an American plane with legal exit permits. The Colonel
hesitated and finally called someone on the hand held radio he was
carrying. The conversation was in Tagalog and ended with a "yes, Sir".
He then told Carter he could return to his seat. Carter and his partner
did not breathe again until the plane was airborne and then not until
they were well over the Pacific.
President Marcos remained the dictator of the Philippines for another
eleven years. By all rights Carter's role in this treasure should have
ended with his escaping from the Islands with his life. It would have,
except months earlier Carter and his partner had photographed all of
the maps with both a polaroid and a 35mm camera. These pictures were
sent home along with hundreds of crucial documents. There was no threat
to Carter at the time but he wanted to have the pictures to work with
whenhe returned home, and anyway they were taking up too much space in
his room. Now, having burned the originals, these photographs were the
only copies of the maps that existed. He carefully hid them when he
finally arrived back in Nevada.
Carter and his partner came home to a living hell. They had gambled
everything on the promises of Marcos. They were broke and their
business was destroyed. Later they would learn that Marcos had a lot to
do with this even while they were still digging at the Teresa site.
Marcos made many attempts to entice Carter to return to the Philippines
saying that "all is well". From the Ambassador he learned that Marcos
had recovered $6 billion from the cruiser Nachi and had already brought
up $8 billion in gold from the Teresa site. This was when gold was
selling for $38 an ounce. Carter knew from the maps that there was a
lot more in both sites. Still 1/11th of $14 billion was tempting, but
he remembered the .45 pressed behind his ear. He didn't have enough
money for food, but he resisted the temptation. Carter did send a
letter to the President demanding his share. There was no reply. In
late 1976 Carter read in the newspaper that the Ambassador who was a
member of the Leber group was giving a speech in Nevada. He decided to
confront him and had prepared another letter for the President this
time threatening to go to the press unless Marcos honored his
agreement. The Ambassador refused to talk to him, but he took the
letter.
Carter and his partner's woes mounted. They had lost everything
including their homes. Marcos agitated their stockholders and they had
lost a civil suit because they did not have the money to put up a
defense. They were indicted for fraud because of the loans they had
obtained from the powerful right wing organization. With no money for a
defense and with all of their company records stolen they were forced
to plead nolo contendere to wire fraud. The loans were arranged by
telephone. There were other reasons for this plea, his partner was
dying and the court appointed attorney had done nothing to prepare a
defense. They were given probation by a Federal Court. Now, as
non-convicted felons their careers were over. They moved to Las Vegas
hoping to start over. Carter went back to selling cars and his partner
went on welfare until he died from a broken heart within two years.
Carter kept track of what was happening in the Philippines as best he
could. One day he received a tape of a phone conversation of two Leber
group members discussing a contract that General Ver had made with the
Chicago Mafia for Carter's assassination. Carter took this threat
seriously and sought the advice of U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt. He knew
Laxalt since he had been the second in command of his honor guard when
Laxalt was the Governor of Nevada. He had prepared 32 hours of audio
tapes including many of the phone conversations of the various players.
He also provided the Senator with over a thousand copies of the
documents that would support the tapes. Laxalt's advice was to go
public with the story. He also took the tapes and documents to the U.S.
State Department who told him they knew all about the Carter
involvement with Marcos. The tapes and documents would be later turned
over to a Senate subcommittee.
Meanwhile Carter had gone to see Hank Greenspun, the owner of the Las
Vegas Sun newspaper. He brought in Jack Anderson, the
syndicatecolumnist of the Washington Post, to investigate the story.
After verifying the tapes and having the signatures on the documents
authenticated, both Anderson and the Sun coordinated in writing a
lengthy series of articles which were published on the same day that
became a media frenzy throughout the world. This was in 1978. Marcos
was in trouble and denied everything. He launched a media campaign of
his own to counter Carter's story. He also called off the hit squad,
but for how long?
The stories had revealed that Carter had escaped with copies of the
maps. Marcos was livid. Colonel Villacrusis had lied to him in assuring
him that he still possessed the maps. When Marcos finally learned the
truth he made many attempts to get Carter to "kiss and make-up". At one
point he agreed to send Carter $5 billion worth of gold to Nevada in
747s which would represent Carter's 1/11th share. The planes were
loaded and sent, but at the last minute Marcos diverted them to Zurich.
Carter would later learn that Marcos had sent Carter's share to Hong
Kong and had planned to pay him on the same day these stories were
printed. Years later Carter was thankful that he didn't know about this
Hong Kong gold for he might have gone to get it and conveniently been
killed in the British Colony. During the next eight years there were
other attempts to enlist Carter. Carter remained steadfast; he insisted
on being paid his share first and then he would give Marcos one map at
a time. It never happened. If Carter were to suddenly become very
wealthy, the world would know that the treasure stories were real.
These stories deluged Carter with all of the kooks and wannabes in the
world. They were coming out of the woodwork. He resisted all of their
grandiose schemes. There were two incidents that he took seriously. One
involved a son of a famed American aviator and an equally famous
astronaut. They had found what they thought was the location of a
sunken Japanese hospital ship, the Awa Maru, which was one of the
treasure ships that was sunk by an American submarine at the end of the
war while on its' way to Manila. One Japanese sailor who had survived
the sharks had been rescued and he told of the treasure on board. The
second offer involved the Australian government and a well planned
removal of treasures from the Island of Corregidor. Carter succumbed to
this plan and the outcome was a comedy of errors. With his partner
dead, Carter waited patiently until after Marcos was removed from power
and was spirited out of the country during the "People's Revolution" in
February 1986.
Gold of the Sun continued...
Marcos was gone and forced to live in Hawaii. By all rights Carter
should have been out of the treasure business. Carter knew that Marcos
had left behind a strong group of loyalist and politicians. This was
true even after Aquino became President. Carter was keeping informed of
what was happening in the Philippines through the Movement for the Free
Philippines who were a strong anti-Marcos faction. Carter had the
treasure maps but had no plans to use them. At the time he considered
personally going back to the Islands impossible. Suicidal was a better
word. Carter was also being informed of events through Jack Anderson
and his reporters. There was a major American historical event which
changed all of that.
The US Congress had passed the Boland Agreement which required the CIA
to seek their approval for funding of their covert operations. With so
many Congressmen knowledgeable about their operations they knew that
secrecy was impossible. They chose to get their funds from other
sources. The result was the Iran-Contra scandal that led to extensive
Congressional hearings. Among those who were required to testify was
Marine Lt. Colonel Oliver North, retired Major General John Singlaub,
and Lieutenant General Robert Schweitzer. The media was having a field
day about the illegal sale of arms to Iran. During the second world war
Singlaub had been with the OSS and later was a Section Head of the CIA
station in Mukden, Manchuria. During the Vietnam war he commanded the
assassination team known as Operation Phoenix. Schweitzer was a Deputy
Director of the National Security Council and a senior military advisor
to President Reagan. Both of these men had offices in the Pentagon and
were members of a high level think-tank made up of other senior
military officers and top politicians known as the Geo-Military Tech.
Prior to Marcos's ouster Jack Anderson had reported to Carter that the
CIA had made a deal with the President and were in the Philippines
digging for Japanese buried treasurer A CIA front corporation called
Nippon Star was headed by General Singlaub and was made up of many
senior officers, some still on active duty. Anderson had gone to the
Philippines and confirmed that this information was true. The
Philippine press had a media circus over this and Anderson broke the
news in the US in his articles. Anderson told Carter that they were
digging at four sites. Carter knew that only one of those sites was
real and that was at Mount Makiling, near the town of Los Banos and the
campus of the University of the Philippines. Anderson correctly assumed
that the CIA was going to use these unlimited funds to get around the
Boland Agreement. Anderson also reported that they had an eyewitness
and another member of the Leber Group on their payroll. But they only
had the eyewitness memory and not the treasure maps. Carter was
confused about the three sites that were not real.
By January 15, 1987 Carter had become a general manager of a new car
dealership in Las Vegas. He received a phone call in his office from a
man who identified himself as Alan Foringer who said he was calling
from an attorney's office in Seattle, Washington. He asked if Carter
would meet with him later that day. Carter asked him what he wanted to
talk about and Foringer said he was digging for treasure in the
Philippines and knew that Carter was the key to the success of their
venture. Carter wanted more details and when Foringer said that he was
the President of Nippon Star and that General Singlaub was with his
group, Carter said that was a CIA operation and he wanted nothing to do
with it. He refused the meeting and hung up. The next morning just
before 9:00 AM two men entered his office. The tall one introduced
himself as Alan Foringer. Carter was angry and told him he that must
not hear too good. He was about to throw them out of his office when
Foringer looked at his watch and said that Carter was going to receive
a phone call in a few minutes from a representative of President
Reagan. Carter decided to wait.
At exactly 9:00 AM his phone rang and a man identified himself as Lt.
General Robert Schweitzer. He said he was calling at the request of the
President. Carter interrupted him and asked where he was calling from.
The General said from his office in the Pentagon. Carter told him he
would call him back. He did not ask for the phone number, instead he
called the information operator and got the main number to the
Pentagon. He dialed the number and asked the operator for the office of
General Schweitzer. The secretary answered and when he gave her his
name she said the General was expecting his call. The man who answered
the phone was the same voice he had spoken to earlier. The conversation
lasted over an hour with the General trying to convince Carter to join
them. Perhaps Carter had seen too many movies about the CIA and he
wanted no part of a CIA operation. The General used every persuasion.
It wasn't until the General asked him if he wasn't a loyal American and
if he would not want to help his country that Carter agreed to talk to
Foringer and later with General Singlaub. Schweitzer ended the
conversation by saying President Reagan would be pleased with his
decision.
After five days of meetings Foringer and several phone calls with
General Singlaub in Manila Carter signed an agreement with Nippon Star.
The computer disk had been prepared by attorneys for the Geo-Military
Tech. Under the agreement Carter was to receive one third of the
treasure and he was one of five members of the management team along
with Foringer, Singlaub, and Schweitzer. Nippon Star was also to
receive one third. The remaining third was to go to a secret foundation
controlled by the management team that was to be used "in the interest
of promoting and maintaining freedom in other parts of the world." All
in all it was somewhat of a scary document. Singlaub did not attend
these meetings since he was busy running the sites in the Philippines
and meeting with Ray Cline, a previous Assistant Director of the CIA
and at the time the head of the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence, who was in Manila touring the sites and working out the
security. After signing, Singlaub wanted Carter to come to the
Philippines to meet with him. Carter refused, but did agree to meet
with all of the management team in Hong Kong. It turned out to be a
four day marathon. Carter recorded the meetings and they were
unbelievable. All of a sudden he found himself discussing the future of
the world with people who could influence it. Nothing in his life had
prepared him for this. He liked Singlaub and considered him an American
hero, but was concerned with some of the direction that the meeting had
taken.
Those concerns became alarm when, a few days after the Hong Kong
meeting, he received a handwritten letter from Alan Foringer describing
a CIA takeover and the establishment of a new "Military-industrial
complex controlled by us and Daniel Graham of the SDI High Frontier,
George Keagan, Chief of U.S.A.F. Intelligence and Jack Nessey, recently
retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff." The matters that needed
to be discussed were:
Strategic Defense Initiatives, Other Space Programs, B-1 Bombers, MX
Missiles, etc. and Conventional Weaponry. This was all out of Carter's
league. What followed was right out of the comic books. There were
dozens of high paid military officers over the rank of Colonel, Navy
Seals, and politicians all staying in a "safe house" outside of Manila.
The CIA people and the Philippine workers were being harassed by the
Russian KGB who were offering large sums of money for information. They
descended on the Philippines in droves seeking some of this easy money.
Carter had to quit his job because keeping up with all of this was too
time consuming.
Three incidents occurred which dictated Carter's next action. First he
had provided Singlaub and Schweitzer with an easy-to-do site on
Corregidor. This was a real site but not a map site. It could be dug in
five days. Elaborate plans were made and a force of thirty men were
sent to the island including the armed security. Nippon Star had a
permit to do this site signed by the Office of the President. Digging
started and excitement was high. Singlaub was not present and
Schweitzer had gone to Manila to take his place. Singlaub was
testifying at the Iran-Contra Hearings in Washington. After mobilizing
this large force they started to dig. Before they got down four feet a
dozen helicopters landed and deployed troops of the Presidential
Security Force. Outnumbered, the guards surrendered and they were
driven off the island at gun point. It turned out that the permits they
had obtained were bogus, issued on Presidential stationery and signed
by someone who had no such authority. Carter couldn't believe it.
The second incident was worse. All their radio transmission were
scrambled through state of the art electronics. The descrambler was in
the back room of the safe house in Alabang. With no air conditioning
the windows were left open. It turned out that the CIA had rented this
house right next door to a KGB safe house. All the Russians had to do
was listen and they knew exactly what was going on. On top of this one
of the housekeepers was listening to the table conversations and
reporting to the Russians who were paying her. Carter would later
describe this as a "Katzenjammer Kids" operation. God help our country
if the rest of our country's intelligence was being run this same way.
He held back giving them any more information.
The third straw that broke the camel's back was when Carter learned
that one of the key motivaters behind Foringer seeking him out in the
first place was the same man who was responsible for his indictment
after he returned from the Philippines with his life. Foringer had
called him from his office in Seattle, Washington. This was that same
secret organization that Carter had borrowed money from. They had
agreed to finance the CIA operation, but only if they got Carter,
because only he had the maps. That did it, Carter sent General
Schweitzer a letter cancelling the agreement. But, how do you quit the
CIA and live? At this point Carter didn't really care. All of this
pressure put him in the hospital near death. He did recover after three
serious operations and the CIA continued to try to get him back. Events
quickly moved on.
Alan Foringer and the Nippon Star group continued working in the
Philippines for several years. In spite of Carters warnings that only
one site they were working on was real, they continued to throw away
time and money. On the real site they discounted Carters suggestions
and hired a so-called eyewitness who Carter had told them was a fraud.
They followed the advice of this "eyewitness" whose name was Peter Lim
and managed to miss the target, which was only a few yards away. With
Carter gone the Seattle attorney and his group withdrew their funding.
With no results and with the Geo-Military Tech exposed along with the
bad taste left after the Iran-Contra hearings, the CIA slowly removed
their support and tried, unsuccessfully, to resort to denying their
involvement. Foringer, who was a real healthy and robust individual
would die under the most mysterious circumstances. Even after his death
members of the group tried to again recruit Carter.
After Carter's cancellation of the Nippon Star agreement he decided to
explore the possibility of getting a legal permit to do a recovery on
his own. He went to San Francisco to meet with Alex Esclamado, the
owner-publisher of the Philippine News. Esclamado was the
brother-in-law of the Speaker of the House of the Philippine Congress.
Carter knew Esclamado and had met with him many times. He was a pioneer
in printing an anti-Marcos newspaper and had published a 23 part series
of the original Carter expose' which ran for nearly a year. Carter
supplied the information, photographs and documents. At the time it did
a lot of damage to Marcos who constantly put his foot in it everytime
he tried to deny his participation in the Leber Group. It was during
this meeting that Carter's lower colon exploded with severe pain.
Carter ignored the pain and even ate lunch. Esclamado wanted to take
him to a hospital, but he was determine to go home to see his own
doctor. Fortunately his plane was delayed at the airport; he passed out
before he boarded it.
He woke up two days later in a South San Francisco hospital. The doctor
who had operated on him said that when they opened him up on the table
two other doctors had suggested that they sew him back up. The
peritonitis was too far advanced. One doctor said he looks healthy
otherwise, let's clean him up and see how he responds to antibiotics.
It was touch and go. Esclamado and others thought he was dying and
arranged for his brother-in-law, Ramon Mitra, the Speaker of the House,
to visit him at the hospital to discuss the maps and the future benefit
they could have for the Philippines. He was also visited by an author
who had interviewed him earlier for a book he was writing about
Marcos's gold. The author, Charles McDougald, who had lived in the
Philippines, also thought Carter was dying. McDougald was at the
hospital every day trying to get as much information from Carter as
possible. Carter, who was heavily sedated with morphine, hardly
remembered that he was even there, but he must have revealed a lot.
After a month and a half Carter was finally home although bed-ridden
and under a nurse's care. He couldn't walk and was facing another
surgery when he was strong enough. McDougald who knew the purpose of
Carter's meeting with Esclamado continued to stay in daily contact by
telephone. He had told Carter that he had a friend who had been the
President of the University of the Philippines. He was now President
Aguino's Chairman of the National Security Council and Head of the
Crisis Committee. His name was Dr. Emmanuel Soriano. McDougald had told
him all about Carter and the fact that he had been talking to the
Speaker, Ramon Mitra. Mitra was a politically strong opposition
candidate for Aquino's presidency. Soriano told President Aquino about
Carter. She had met Carter before her husbands assassination. When
McDougald told Soriano that Carter was going back into surgery and that
the chances of his recovery were very slim, Soriano got the Presidents
permission to fly to Las Vegas to meet with him. He was hoping to get
Carter to agree to working with Aquino to recover a treasure site.
Soriano told Carter that the President was very serious about this and
had sent him during the height of a serious coup d'etat where he was
desperately needed. Carter was impressed with this and with Soriano.
What follows is too long for this outline. It involves a dig on
Corregidor which was aborted because of U.S. Seabee's; an excavation at
Fort Santiago (not the air-vent which Marcos had recovered); a cave-in
that killed two of Carter's workmen due to a Japanese booby-trap;
another media frenzy that caused Carter to appear before the Philippine
Senate and the Congress which almost cost Cory Aquino her Presidency;
and Soriano's and McDougald's successful takeover of the Fort Santiago
site and Carter's expulsion from the Philippines. It also includes the
theft of another of Carter's sites that he had started at the Bonafacio
Bridge and the successful recovery which was kept from the President
and the world. The latter site was financed by a Las Vegas major
illegal drug dealer who was also behind the takeover of Fort Santiago.
At this point Carter was beginning to believe that the ghosts of the
many dead had put a curse on this Philippine gold, ala the curse of
King Tut's tomb. In reality Carter knew that what he had been
experiencing, even during his first exposure to this treasure with
Marcos, was pure and simple greed. He would learn later that greed
certainly played a big part in it, but the real problem was a lot more
sinister and harder to detect.
Carter, knowing that gold fever was going to be a factor, decided that
his next hunt was not going to involve a lot of investors. He entered
into a partnership with an Arizona multi-millionaire who agreed to fund
the entire dig. He had two sons who were supposed to help Carter and
were willing to get their hands dirty. During Carter's last trip to the
Philippines he had renewed his friendship with Giga and Valmores. He
hadn't seen them in thirteen years. It was a warm reunion. Carter and
the two eyewitnesses set out to locate the site they wanted to do.
Carter had insisted that the site be on private land after the fiasco
he encountered with the Government when digging on Federal land. Aquino
was still in power. on private land he would not need a government
permit. The World Court's forty year moratorium had expired in 1986 so
the war loot would belong to the owner of the property under Philippine
law. Carter wanted to return to the old Teresa site where Marcos made a
recovery. Carter knew there was considerable treasure left in those
tunnels. He had examined them and they were only partially dug. He
tried to make a deal with the landowner but he insisted on 50% of the
treasure. Carter was thinking only 20% to the landowner. He decided to
keep looking.
Ben Valmores told Carter about a major site in the Santa Maria
Mountains. It was isolated and was on private land. Carter did not know
this site and in checking his maps he did not have one for that area.
Ben solved his dilemma by producing an original wax map. How could that
be? Carter had burned all 172 of the waxed maps. Valmores told Carter
that there had been really 175 maps and that he had kept three of them
for his own personal use. Valmores knew this site well and had been
checking on it every three months since the war to make sure it wasn't
being worked on. The map was genuine all right. The distinctive waxing
process and the ancient Japanese characters were drawn by the same
cartographer who had drawn the maps he possessed. More importantly six
of the nine landmarks still existed. This was a large site. There were
seven large deposits on the landowner's property. it had been a major
Japanese encampment during the war. The Japanese had called it Little
Tokyo. It was the scene of a major battle in 1945 since it controlled
all roads leading east of Manila. There had been only a few survivors
and those were not officers.
The commanding general Akira Tanaka had died there. Carter knew this
was going to be a major excavation. One that might take a year to reach
the first target, that is unless he could convince the landowner to
allow him to use a bulldozer and a clamshell crane.
Carter met the Santa Maria landowner. He was surprised to learn that he
knew there were major treasure sites on his property. He had good
reason. His father allowed a team of Japanese in 1948 to dig on his
property under the guise that they were building a shinto shrine and a
monument to General Tanaka and his command. The Japanese worked for
over a year and they secured the site with dozens of armed Japanese.
The owner's father was not allowed anywhere near the digging. They used
huge cranes and bulldozers. The Japanese did build the shrine and the
monument. Carter knew that could have been accomplished in less than a
month. They were digging for treasure. The shrine was over an actual
site so he assumed it was recovered. The monument was 100 feet away
from any site. He guessed that without the maps they didn't know where
else to dig. Carter negotiated a deal with the landowner that gave him
four years to recover all of the remaining sites. The landowner would
not let him use heavy equipment nor could he tear up the landscape. The
property was covered with mango, papaya and cashew trees.
By using the map, the landmarks, the foundations of the Japanese
buildings, and Valmores's incredible memory, Carter was able to locate
the original filled-in air vent. He confirmed this with electronic
instruments. Valmores had described sitting on the outer steps of a
long building with the Prince inside and watching over two weeks of
trucks coming in and the heavy cargos lowered down the shaft. The gold
was in iron boxes with aluminum straps. When they first arrived the
Prince had one of the boxes opened. Valmores saw the contents were
gold. He would later estimate that they were 75 kilo bars and that each
box contained six bars. No wonder the Japanese had used a large crane
to lower the boxes in the shaft. They weighed over a thousand pounds.
Carter started digging in October 1990 knowing that the monsoon season
was only three months away.
The map showed that the tunnel floor was 55 feet down from the surface.
Since the soil was all back-filled he would need to use heavy timber to
shore every inch of the shaft to avoid cave-ins. It was a major
construction project and very expensive. The uprights were 8" x 8" x
12". He used the hardest wood he could find. It had to be hauled 20
milles from Manila on single lane roads most of which were unpaved. The
digging progressed and artifacts were beginning to surface. A worker
found a Japanese whistle and a rusty helmet at the 35' level. They also
ran into tremendous ground water. During the war these tunnels opened
onto a rice patty some 80 feet lower than the tunnel floor. The water
had a natural flow, but now it was a problem. They had to purchase some
heavy submersible pumps. The deeper they went the more pumps had to be
added. When they reached the 45' mark the rainy season started and the
shaft was flooded right to the top. There was no way they could
continue until next season.
Just before the rainy season Carter experienced more gold fever. This
time it was the landowner. Carter had employed two security guards who
were in civilian clothes so as not to attract attention with the nearby
farmers. They were private guards and not military. They were armed
with handguns and were there to protect the Americans from roving
bandits and keep the equipment from disappearing. After Carter
recovered the whistle and helmet he showed them to the landowner. It
was a mistake. The landowner armed a dozen locals with heavy weapons
and jumped the guards. He ran off all of the workers and claimed all of
the equipment as his own. It was a touchy situation. Carter could hire
his own armed men and forcibly take the site back, but that would be a
blood bath. He was in a foreign land and even if he wasn't that type of
action was not in his nature. He hired an attorney and filed criminal
complaints against the landowner for illegal possession of firearms,
threatening his workers, and the theft of his equipment. It turned out
that the landowner was heavily into drugs and that his armed men were
supplied by the local police chief, who was also supplying him with his
drugs. Carter was happy that the rainy season had started. The tunnels
were flooded and the landowner had no idea where to go from there. It
would be three months before that problem was resolved and the
landowner was placed in a detox clinic by other family members to dry
out. Carter dropped the charges and would be allowed to resume work
after the rain stopped.
Carter was experiencing other problems. His new partner had a heavy
drinking problem. He seldom came to the site. Carter's problem with it
was when he had been drinking his personality changed completely. His
two sons who were there to help him also became a problem. The younger
one was stoned on drugs and couldn't function. Carter requested he be
sent home. His partner resented that. The other son was quite a help to
Carter. He would die within two years from lung cancer which probably
was caused by the bad air in the tunnels. He had passed a physical
before he came to the Philippines and was dead within months of being
diagnosed with cancer. Carter's partner problems got worse after they
were unable to work on the Santa Maria site. His partner had befriended
a Filipino who convinced him that he had a treasure site on his
property in Northern Mindinao. Carter met with him and advised his
partner that he didn't believe the story. His partner insisted that
they go and check it out. It was an interesting trip, but ended
abruptly when Carter was threatened with an Uzi machine pistol by this
new landowner and a number of guards who turned out to be military.
Carter vowed he would never again find himself looking down the barrel
of a gun.
Back in Manila Carter's partner problems exploded. The partner breached
his contract and cut off all funding. He tried to take over the Santa
Maria site. They both filed lawsuits against each other. Carter
retrieved the valuable equipment from the site and placed it in
storage. Using his own money he paid off all debts and left the
Philippines after securing the excavation by filling it in. It took a
year to settle the lawsuits with Carter being given possession of the
site. His partner was out, but Carter did not have the personal funds
to finance a continuation of the Santa Maria dig and that site was so
real and so close. Once again Carter was forced to admit that the
phrase "Gold Fever" was not just words but a dangerous phobia. He was
reminded of the Hollywood movie, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre".
During the next three years Carter would continue digging at the Santa
Maria site finally isolating the treasure chamber. Gold fever of his
associates and their many attempts to steal the site continued to
plague him. Carter was beginning to think that there really was a curse
on this treasure, or on him. He would later find out that it was a far
more earthly curse that he was dealing with and that it was controlled
by men, not ghosts.
THE GOLD OF THE SUN
The rest of the story in brief.
Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were indicted by the U.S. Federal Court.
Ferdinand would die before the trial and Imelda would win an acquittal
by releasing 72,000 metric tons of gold which were being stored in Fort
Knox.
Carter would file a lawsuit against the Marcos's claiming $79 Billion
as his 1/11th share of the treasure they owed him under the Leber Group
Agreement. He would obtain a default judgement.
Carter who had seen the golden buddha at the summer palace which was
recovered by Rogelio Roxas and stolen by Marcos gave a detailed
deposition to attorney's who had sued the Marcos's for its theft.
Carter's video deposition was shown to a Honolulu Federal Court jury
and that allowed Roxas's attorney to win a $22 Billion judgement. Roxas
had died mysteriously on his way to the trial.
Carter met a middle aged Filipina who had spent years trying to locate
him. Her name was Mary Salazar and she had been, and still was, a
trustee for Marcos's treasure. From Salazar Carter was to learn the
inside story of everything that had happened to him and a lot more.
Salazar had been present when the treasure was removed from the Cruiser
Nachi and from the Teresa site. She had inventoried it, took pictures
of it, and finally sold it. Salazar had brokered all of the Marcos
treasure. She eventually turned over to Carter all of her files and
more importantly the Marcos files. Over 60,000 documents including
detailed records of the sales. These documents would reveal every
transaction and the location of the many banks that still held Marcos
gold.
The documents also revealed the secret deals with
President Reagan, the
China Mandate with Mao Tse-tung where 5000 metric tons of gold were
sent to China which was negotiated by President Nixon in exchange for
no further Chinese aggression in Asia, the MacArthur agreement with
Yamashita and Emperor Hirohito, the CIA involvement in the sale of the
treasure and the use of U.S. aircraft carriers to transport the
tonnage, the Sicilian Mafia control of the 23 man Umbrella that
approved all sales and transfers, the Trilateral control on Marcos and
2000 foreign and US banks, and a whole lot more.
Salazar detailed how Marcos first wanted to kill Carter and later,
after learning he had the maps, to pay Carter. Marcos had even opened a
gold storage account in Carter's name in the Sanwa Bank in Hong Kong
and deposited 2000 metric tons of gold. Carter never knew this because
he had gone to the press and the story was published the same day he
was to be notified. Through Salazar, Carter met one of the other Marcos
trustees who added her documents to those Carter already possessed.
Carter also met other members of Marcos's secret gold team who helped
fill in the many blanks. The most important thing Carter would learn
was who and what was keeping him from making a recovery.
With this new information Carter had worked out a foolproof system on
how to finish his projects and more importantly how to keep it once it
had been recovered. One thing was certain, he could not have another
partner, nor could he have any investors. Carter decided to write a
book outlining his experiences and disclosing the entire Japanese gold
story. If he was lucky and the book sold he may have his own money to
go back to the Philippines and write the final chapter to this story.
Carter knew that there could not be any final chapter until all of the
sites were recovered. He also knew he wouldn't live long enough for
that to happen. By late 1996 he discovered that old members of the
CIA's Nippon Star and several of Marcos's Leber group members had
formed another recovery group, this time to go back to the Teresa site
and finish that recovery. Carter couldn't help but feel that he had
come full circle. Somehow he was going to generate the revenues he
needed to once again pursue The Gold of the Sun.
*
Secret Treaty signed
that concerns vast amounts of gold stashed in the Philippines. The
treaty remains virtually impenetrable - although it is rumoured to
involve bribery of national leaders of non-aligned nations attending
the Bandung conference in 1955.
* Marcos learns that Yamashita's gold is real in November 1953 and
begins digging in 1954.
Nor can this re-telling of
events be complete without
brief mention of the fastidious audit of US gold reserves conducted at
Fort Knox in utmost secrecy in 1954. This is curious, as meticulous
audits of gold reserves on the 1954 scale are uncommon. Each of the
almost three quarters of a million 400-ounce bars was counted and
weighed. Moreover, every hundredth bar was bored and a small quantity
of gold removed and assayed to determine purity. Extraordinarily, the
gold “plugs” removed from the bars were sent to
assay offices throughout the United States to ensure that no single
individual could learn how detailed the audit was
To this day, no one knows why
this comprehensive inventory
was conducted in such secrecy. Is it possible that someone in the
Eisenhower Administration learned of the gold hoards on the Philippines
and figured that Fort Knox had been plundered and its gold replaced
with ersatz bullion while the real gold had been shipped to the
Philippines and buried? Did someone conclude that General
Douglas MacArthur and his
mentor, former President Herbert
Hoover, might have been behind such a crooked scheme? We now know that
both MacArthur and Hoover had huge quantities of gold valued in excess
of $100 million stashed in hidden bank accounts set up by the
CIA’s Santa Romana.
Ten - year - old Gunther
Russbacher emigrates to the US to
later take up a career in ONI and CIA -- along, he says, with many
other Austrian nationals. They all become US citizens. Forty years
later, Russbacher peddles gold recovered from the Philippines to the
Austrian central bank.
Why she visited Avila is
not
known – at least by me. But there is an intriguing
possibility worth mentioning. The Appendices at the end of this Dossier
reveal a vast fortune in gold, gemstones and currency left as an
inheritance by Sr. Don Franco
Miguel de Avila and
Sra. Dona Trinidad Asis de Villarba de Avila of Spain. The heirs of
this vast estate were Francorito MC de Avila and Lolita Trinidad V. de
Avila of Manila, Philippines.
Of interest, Dona de Avila shared the same middle name
“Trinidad” as Imelda Marcos’s mother
– Remedios Trinidad
Romualdez, known to
intimates as “Medy.” Whether this is happenstance
or indicates that the heirs of this fortune are related to Imelda
Marcos, I do not know. I do know that both Marcos's preferred to use
close confidantes and family as “cut-outs” whenever
possible.
The so-called “Melmer” hoard of gold and other
blood money gathered by the SS at the death camps included 550,000
ounces of gold. [iii] This is a quite specific amount of gold
that converted totals just over 17 tonnes. It is, therefore, of more
than passing interest to note that I have in my possession an ownership
certificate dated 2 June 1980 in the name of Dra. Rosario Romualdez
Ramo. Romualdez is, of course, the family name of Imelda Marcos. The
certificate is too faded to reproduce, but it bears the account number
881-161426 together with the transaction code number RRR/51981-26. You
will, by now, have gathered that it represents ownership of 17 tonnes
of gold.
“The China
Mandate is
a real earth shaker. 200,000 metric tons, negotiated with Nixon and
Mao. The purpose: to keep China out of any Asian expansion for 50
years. The fear that America had over China's crossing the border in
Korea was that China would invade Formosa and the Philippines, leading
to a nuclear war. This document could get you killed, so could the
Trilateral document that I referred to earlier.”[xv]
Curtis also had some
notes
written by hand by Edward Lansdale, who he says typifies an
“early player and mover” and who was also involved
in the China deal. The
Trilateral Commission
reference, Curtis told me,
regards a letter (in the possession of Curtis) that was sent to
President Marcos on Trilateral notepaper – on the authority
of Dr. Henry Kissinger
– demanding that Marcos sell “63, 321 tons of gold
to 2000 US and European banks admittedly controlled by the
Trilateral.” This letter was dated 21 February 1986. Curtis
adds that the last sentence of the 12 page letter states:
“Release the
62,321
metric tons of gold now, while your are in a solid possession and right
and you alone can do it and alone can claim immortal glory as the
greatest man in Asia."
According to Curtis, it
was
Marcos's refusal that led to his loss of power three days later. The
gold that Marcos refused to sell – in exchange for US
Treasury certificates and some cash -- was eventually shipped to the US
aboard the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier “President
Eisenhower,” having been later “released”
by Imelda Marcos, who was avoiding pursuit for criminal charges when
she fled the Philippines with her husband. Curtis notes that President
Reagan wanted the gold for the “Rainbow Dollars”
that had already been printed and that Reagan planned to back with
gold. What is interesting here is a news article that appeared in the
Philippine Enquirer where 96 members of the 51st Army Engineering
Brigade operating in total secrecy under President Marcos state in an
affidavit that they recovered 60,000 tons of gold during the Marcos
years. This article is reproduced in the Appendices. Not
least Curtis states that other players involved in Marcos gold over the
years have included the Club of
Rome
and also the Tavistock
Institute
Seagrave’s intriguing and well researched book reveals the
true story of the origin of Marcos gold that resulted from immense
Japanese plunder throughout Southeast Asia World War II. The bulk of it
– totalling 172 treasure troves – was buried on and
around the Philippine islands prior to the war’s end. One
site referenced by Seagrave, and audited by Japanese accountants,
contained a staggering Yen777 billion. The dollar-yen exchange rate was
almost four yen to the dollar, giving an equivalent in 1945 US currency
of $194 billion. Nor can it be argued that Seagrave is exaggerating.
Documents in my own possession amply confirm what he says. The
foregoing facts corroborate Seagrave’s thesis that numerous
wealthy individuals possessing right-wing sympathies aided and abetted
the OSS/CIA by laundering plundered Japanese gold, gemstones and other
booty. In fact, the OSS began recovering the loot from one Philippine
777 site commencing in 1945 and efforts have continued, more or less,
up to the present.
Daet,
shared
some of the intriguing stories that swirled around buried Japanese
gold. This is the much-underrated side of traveling. You stumble into
nuggets of trivia that, to the eyes of an outsider, suddenly turn a
town or a city into more than just a cluster of tourist spots.
There’s history here. There are stories and beliefs that
shape the lives of its people. And there are riches to be made. Now
where did I place that rusty metal detector?
Ferdinand
Marcos, on the other hand, discovered hidden treasure with the aid of
an old marker, an unusual nail protruding from the belfry of the Saint
John the Baptist Church that pointed to a corner of the churchyard,
where a shrine now stands According to Santi, it took two helicopters
to airlift the bullions in 1983, a hefty loot that could probably rival
the alleged cache beneath the altar of the church itself.
The
story
goes
that an old Japanese soldier returned to the site in the
’90s, hoping to claim what is believed to be eight ammo cases
of gold ingots the size of small matchboxes. All he did achieve was to
draw treasure hunters out of the woodwork and virtually mark the spot
with a gigantic X. Gold fever spread, emboldening some to navigate the
dark tunnels below the church. Sometimes the banging underground would
disrupt the Mass, prompting the priest to stomp the floor in
retaliation. A watch committee was eventually tasked to guard the
church from pillagers. Is the treasure still there? No one can really
be certain
Japanese
Poisonous Gas Mask Circa 1940's Recovered in Cagayan Valley -
LUZON
ISLAND
175+ Japanese Treasure Tunnels all over Philippine Islands
CALAMBA CITY, Philippines -- Mrs. Erlinda Ballon recalls how they
discovered a 27-meter deep tunnel twenty years ago, where they found
artifacts such as broken porcelains and bottles, which she and her
companions believe were used by the Japanese as markers. Even local
elders have lost track of the tunnel's history. Click Here
Sons of war veterans direct war documentary
IN honor of those who simply didn’t give up during World War
II,
filmmakers Lucky Guillermo and Peter Parsons, with the support of the
Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), collaborated again for
their new video documentary titled, Unsurrendered:100 Voices.
“It
is about the spontaneous movement that sprung all over the archipelago
when the Japanese Imperial Army invaded the Philippines in 1941. This
resistance did not wait for defeat and surrender. There were both
Filipinos and Americans who went to the hills as early as December of
1941, when Douglas MacArthur declared Manila open city,”
Guillermo said. “There are 100 “talking
heads”
composed of Americans and Filipinos, men and women who escaped,
surrendered, unsurrendered and some were spontaneous
guerrillas,”
Parsons added. Among the prominent voices are those of Bob Lapham, Ed
Ramsey, Luis Taruc, Manuel Segura and Emmanuel de Ocampo, Gustavo
Ingles, Frisco San Juan, and Clyde Childress, Albert Montague and Bob
Wood; nearly all the major islands in the country are represented.
Parsons is the son of Cmdr. Chick Parsons, the American businessman who
decided to stay in the Philippines during the war and was very
instrumental in the escape of General MacArthur. The elder Parsons
organized the submarines that supplied the guerrillas with everything
they needed—this video also deals with the importance of
these
subs—but always from the point of view and in the voices of
the
guerrilla speakers. Guillermo, the artistic director, is a son of a
noted guerrilla leader in Northern Philippines, Antonio Guillermo,
alias “Lt. Silver.” Guillermo has collaborated with
Parsons
on several other documentaries from WWII in the Philippines: Secret War
in the Pacific; Ships From Hell; Voyage of Goodwill; Anchored in
Friendship, Enshrined in Freedom and Manila: 1945, The Forgotten
Atrocities. These video documentaries have been shown in festivals here
and abroad. Unsurrendered:100 Voices has been invited to have its world
premiere in the World Peace Forum Meeting to be held in November this
year in Vancouver, Canada. The filmmakers expressed their gratitude to
those who supported them, especially PCSO.
Mr
Tidwell Discovered I-52 (2 tons)
Gold Laden Japanese Imperial Submarine
great-great-great-great grandparents. Having seen and survived history
such as the invasion of the Japanese in World War II I could feel the
history as soon as I walked inside. With much of the original furniture
still in place, it was a trip into the past very different from any
other museum
Japanese Imperial Army Armaments
American Army dude with a Thompson Machine Gun
Malinta Tunnel in Corregidor Island - circa 1941
Dead Japanese Soldier
Holding a Trophy Japanese Head
IGOROT EXECUTE CHOP FILIPINO CRIMINAL
HEAD OFF Cica Before World War 2
Victim of a Headhunter - He is going tobe eaten - Philippine Cannibalism
PHILIPPINE LADY CHOP HEAD
RIVER STEAM BOAT in PHILIPPINE ISLANDS - Early 1900s
IGOROT LOVES DOG MEAT
US Army Air force Cemetery - AAF Cemetery
also known Manila American Cemetery - Philippine Islands
Department of
Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the
remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II,
have been identified and returned to their families for burial with
full military honors.
They are
First Lieuenant Robert H. Miller, of Providence, Rhode Island
Second Lieutenant Robert L.
Hale, of Newtonville, Massachusetts
Staff Sergeant Joseph A.
Berube, of Fall River, Massachusetts
Staff Sergeant Glendon E.
Harris, of North Monmouth, Maine
All served in the
U.S. Army Air Forces. Miller, Hale and Berube were buried last month
and Harris' burial is being set by his family.
On Oct. 24, 1943,
a B-25D-1 Mitchell bomber crewed by these airmen departed Oro Bay
Airfield in New Guinea on a bombing run of enemy targets in Rabaul. As
the aircraft neared its target, it was attacked by Japanese fighter
aircraft. Crewmen from other aircraft said they saw the B-25 crash near
a plantation at Kabanga Point. There were no survivors.
In 1946 and 1947,
Australian War Graves search teams recovered some of the crew's remains
from the crash site. Identifications were not possible at the time and
the remains were ultimately buried at the Manila American Military
Cemetery in the Philippines.
From 1999-2000,
the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) led a joint U.S. and Papua
New Guinea (P.N.G.) investigation and excavation of a WWII-era crash
site in East New Britain Province. One joint team interviewed
individuals having information on the crash, including an eyewitness
who said he saw the B-25 crash near his village. Another individual
found and buried human remains at the crash site in the mid 1990s. The
team surveyed the site and found aircraft wreckage, human remains and
personal effects. A second joint team excavated the site and recovered
additional human remains and crew-related artifacts from the wreckage
field.
In 2004, an
anthropologist from JPAC's Central Identification Laboratory (CIL)
exhumed the graves at the Manila American Military Cemetery (Now Taguig
City -Taguig.COM) where he recovered the remains buried there in the
1940s.
Among dental records, other forensic identification tools and
circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the
identification of the remains.
Beauford
Lavene Carman, Died: 3
June 1945,
Okinawa, Japan - "My
maternal
uncle, Beauford Lavene Carman, died on Okinawa when Okinawan's
hiding in caves were ordered to
surrender. Rather than surrender, they blew themselves up. My uncle was
hit by flying shrapnel or rock that came from the caves. A buddy who
had been with him through the war was nearby when it happened and
survived to come back and tell our grandparents."
- Deena Ladd
Philip
D. Carman,
Civilian, Died: February 8,
1945, buried at the Manila American Cemetery, Manila, Philippines
(listed as a War casualty) - "My
grandfather was a major in the army between the wars and was interned
by the Japanese as a civilian from 42-45. Upon MacArthur's
recapture of the islands, my grandfather was subsequently killed by
Japanese bombing of the city in 2/45. The same bomb amputated
my grandmother's left arm but she managed to drag him up the steps of
the university infirmary bldg. where he died in her
arms. I never knew him but he was a very handsome,
dashing-looking fellow." - personal noted from granddaughter Patricia
Carman Lane
O'Donnell,
Emmett b.
September 15, 1906 d. December 26, 1971
US Air Force General. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for
battling the Japanese over Clark Field in the Philippines in 1941. He
also led the first major air raid against Tokyo, Japan, in 1944. After
World War II, he served as Air Force Director of Information from 1946
to 1948, and as President of the USO after his retirement in 1964.
Known as 'Rosie' he died in 1971.
Burial:
United
States Air Force Academy Cemetery
Colorado Springs
El Paso County
Colorado, USA
Ulery,
Roy Levon
Machinist’s
Mate First Class Ulery, United States Navy, from the Elwood and
Frankton area in Indiana,
was killed October 24, 1944, as he served on the USS Birmingham at Leyte,
Philippines
in the South Pacific. His name appears on the "Tablets of the Missing"
at the Manila
American
Cemetery
in the Philippines.
Usealman,
Harold E
Seaman
Second Class Usealman, United States Navy, from Posey County,
Indiana,
was
lost at sea during World War II as he served on the submarine USS
Robalo SS-273. The sub did not return from a patrol near Palawan in the
Philippines.
His name appears on the "Tablets of the Missing" at the Manila
American
Cemetery
in the Philippines.
Vander
Heyden, Raymond A
PFC
Raymond A Vander Heyden of Mishawaka, Indiana and the United States
Army, and the 63rd Field Artillery Battalion, 24th Infantry Division,
was killed May 31, 1945 while serving in the Southwest Pacific during
World War II. He is buried in the Manila American Cemetery in the
Philippines.
Vander
Reyden, Roy
Electrician's
Mate Second Class Vander Reyden of Indiana and the United States Navy
was presumed killed in action after being missing in action for over a
year. His adjusted date of death is March 23, 1944. Seaman Vander
Reyden was serving on the submarine USS Grampus (SS-207) near New
Georgia in the Solomon Islands in the Southwest Pacific. He
remains missing or buried at sea and his name is honored on the Tablets
of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Vilberg,
Charles G.
Corporal
Vilberg, United States Army Air Corps, 823rd
Bomber Squadron, 38th
Bomber Group, was lost as
he was shot down on his first mission. He was on a B-25 Crew. They went
ashore on a life raft on Hainan
Island
and
were captured and beheaded by the Japanese March 8, 1945. Corporal
Vilberg served as a radio operator and gunner on the B-25 in the South
Pacific.
Volz,
Jack E.
First
Lieutenant Volz, United States Army Air Corps, 320th
Bomber Squadron, 90th
Bomber Group Heavy, of
Marion County, Indiana was killed October 28, 1944. He was a pilot of a
B-24 “Shack Rat” with a crew of twelve flying a
recon mission out of Port
Moresby
and seven hours into the mission they were directed to return to
Dobadura due to weather problems at Port Moresby.
Fighter Sector Command was tracking the aircraft in the Huron
Bay
area when it disappeared off the scope. Search was made but there was
no sign of the aircraft.
Walker,
Jack E.
Radioman
Second Class, Walker,
USNR, of Anderson,
Indiana
was killed July 30, 1945, while serving on the USS Indianapolis. His
name appears on the "Tablets of the Missing" at the Manila
American
Cemetery
in the Philippines.
His home was in Anderson,
Indiana.
The
Indianapolis
had just
delivered the world’s first atomic bomb to Tinian
to end the war in the
Pacific. The ship then reported to Guam and was directed to join the
USS Idaho at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines
to prepare for the invasion of Japan.
Midway between Guam and the Philippines
the ship was hit by two torpedoes, one blew away the ship’s
bow and the other struck near midship on the starboard side adjacent to
a fuel tank and a powder magazine. The resulting explosion split the
ship to the keel, knocking out all electric power. Within minutes she
went down rapidly by the bow, rolling to starboard. Of
the 1,196
aboard,
about 900 made it into the water in the twelve minutes before she sank.
Few life rafts were released. Most survivors wore the standard kapok
life jacket. Shark attacks began with sunrise of the first day and
continued until the men were physically removed from the water, almost
five days later. Shortly after 11:00 A.M. of the
fourth day,
the survivors were accidentally discovered by LT. Wilbur C. Gwinn,
piloting his PV-1 Ventura Bomber on routine antisubmarine patrol.
Radioing his base at Peleiu, he alerted, "many men in the water". A PBY
(seaplane) under the command of LT. R. Adrian Marks was dispatched to
lend assistance and report. Enroute to the scene, Marks overflew the
destroyer USS Cecil Doyle
(DD-368), and alerted her
captain, of the emergency. The captain of the Doyle,
on his own authority, decided to divert to the scene. Arriving hours
ahead of the Doyle,
Marks' crew began dropping
rubber rafts and supplies. While so engaged, they observed men being
attacked by sharks. Disregarding standing orders not to land at sea,
Marks landed and began taxiing to pick up the stragglers and lone
swimmers who were at greatest risk of shark attack. Learning the men
were the crew of the Indianapolis,
he radioed the news, requesting immediate assistance. The Doyle
responded she was enroute. Of
the 900 who made it into the water, only 317 remained alive.
Walsh, Patrick H
PVT Walsh,
United
States
Army, 60th
Coast Artillery Regiment from St. Croix,
Indiana
in Perry
County,
was died October 21, 1942, while serving in the South Pacific. American
authorities were notified that Patrick had fought at Bataan and
survived the Death March only to die of dysentery as a prisoner of war
at Camp
Cabanatuan, Philippines.
He is buried in the Manila American Cemetery, Philippines.
Weiss,
Victor John
Seaman
First Class Weiss, USNR, Haubstadt,
Indiana,
died
December 18, 1944, as the USS Hull was lost in the Philippine
Sea
due to a typhoon.
His name appears on the "Tablets of the Missing" at the Manila
American
Cemetery
in the Philippines.
Welch,
Charles O
Corporal
Welch of Connersville, Indiana and the United States Army Air Corps was
killed June 14, 1944 while serving in the Southwest Pacific during
WWII. His plane was lost some time after it departed Chabua, Indiana.
It is assumed the plane crashed into the Bay of Bengal or one of the
deep rivers. His name appears on the "Tablets of the Missing" at the Manila
American
Cemetery
in the Philippines.
Wildridge,
Marion J
Technician
5th Class Wildridge of Montgomery, Indiana in Daviess County and the
United States Army, 583rd Signal Air Warning Battalion, was killed May
19, 1944. He was serving in the Southwest Pacific during World War II.
He is buried in the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Wilson,
Jack E
Pfc
Wilson of Sullivan County and the United States Army Air Corps, 189th
Engineer Battalion, Aviation, was killed January 12, 1945 while serving
in the Southwest Pacific during World War II. His status remains
Missing in Action. His name is honored on the Tablets of the Missing at
Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Wilson,
Marvin
Fireman
First Class Wilson, United States Navy Reserve, of Vevay,
Indiana
served on the USS Cooper (DD-695) in the South Pacific. The destroyer
Cooper was sunk December 3, 1944, at Ormoc
Bay,
Leyte,
Philippines
with a crew of 191 killed or lost at sea. His name is honored on the
“Tablets of the Missing” at Manila American Cemetery,
Philippines.
Wolfe,
Glendon R.
Seaman
Second Class, Wolfe,
United
States
Navy, Kokomo,
Indiana,
served aboard the USS Houston (CA-30), killed in action on March 1,
1942, in the Battle of Sunda Strait. His name appears on the "Tablets
of the Missing" at the Manila
American
Cemetery
in the Philippines.
Wyatt,
Rufus H
Private
Rufus H Wyatt of Metamora, Indiana in Franklin County and the United
States Army Air Corps, enlisted September 18, 1940 at Fort Benjamin
Harrison in Indianapolis. His unit was Headquarters, 27th Bomber Group
Light. He was a native of Kentucky. Private Wyatt was a prisoner of war
and lost his life as he was on the Japanese hellship, Arisan Maru thay
was torpedoed by the USS Snook October 24, 1944. His name is honored on
the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery in the
Philippines.
Zimmerman,
Sammy R.
Seaman
Second Class Zimmerman of the United States Navy Reserve, from
Princeton, Indiana in Gobson Co died August 10, 1943 while
serving in the Southwest Pacific during World War II. He remains
missing in action or buried at sea and his name is honored on the
"Tablets of the Missing" at Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
The
last surviving boxcar
that was used on the death march being lifted for loading onto a
flatbed truck for its trip to the Camp O'Donnell Memorial.
The car could hold forty men or eight horses. The Japanese packed 100
men into each car.
boxcar
is seen as it is loaded onto the flatbed truck at the
Filipino Military Base at Tarlac for its trip to its new home at the
Camp O'Donnell Memorial.
Bataab
Death March Boxcar leaving the Filipino Army Base at Tarlac
The
boxcar being unloaded at the Camp O'Donnell Memorial.
section of track that the boxcar sat on being pulled up and moved to
the Camp O'Donnell Memorial.
Courtesy of
Fred Baldassarre
US
Task Force 38 aircraft attack the 
Japanese battleship HIJMS Musashi (foreground) and a destroyer in the
Sibuyan Sea (24 October 1944) Sunk in Sibuyan sea
In June 1937, executives from
the Mitsubishi
Nagasaki
Shipyard, including Director Kensuke Watanabe and yard engineer Kumao
Baba, were ordered to begin preparations for construction and fitting
out of one of the new series of battleships. Expansions of the Number 2
slipway had originally inspired naval executives to issue Nagasaki
Shipyard the lucrative contract. Floating cranes of 150 and 350 metric
tons
capacity were built for heavy lifts. Built under the strictest of
security, including the erection of large screens to hide the
construction from the U.S. consulate across the bay, the battleship was
launched 1 November 1940, and spent the better part of eighteen months
fitting out. The completion date was revised to accommodate the changes
requested by the Navy, including strengthening armor on the
15.5 cm turrets, and the installation of extra communications
gear.
BattleShip
Musashi leaving Brunei
in October 1944 for
the Battle
of Leyte Gulf
Commissioned on 5 August 1942, she proceeded to Truk
Lagoon, where Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto made Musashi
his flagship. After he was killed on 18 April 1943 (having been shot
down by a special U.S.
Army Air Forces operation) in
the Solomons
theater of operations, Musashi
returned to Japan carrying his ashes. Musashi
returned to Truk on 5 August 1943, and remained there until 10 February
1944. Her only activity during this time was a sortie toward the Marshall
Islands, which resulted in no
contact with American forces. On 29 March 1944, Musashi
was hit by one torpedo from the submarine USS
Tunny,
and had to return to Japan for repairs and modifications to her
anti-aircraft armament.
She formed part of Vice-Admiral Takeo
Kurita's Centre Force along with
Yamato
at the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
During this battle on 24 October 1944, she was attacked in the Sibuyan
Sea, just off the southeast tip
of Luzon,
by American carrier-based aircraft:
first at 10:27 AM by eight SB2C
Helldiver dive bombers from the
USS Intrepid
armed with 500-lb (227 kg) bombs. Wave after wave of American aircraft
from the USS Intrepid,
Essex,
Franklin,
and Lexington
scored 17 bomb and 20 torpedo hits on her, and 18 near misses. Most of
the ship's destruction was due to Air Group 15.[citation needed]
This battle was the only time that Musashi
had fired her guns in anger, using the San
Shiki ("Beehive") Model 13
anti-aircraft shell.[1]
The Musashi
capsized to port, and sank at 7:25 PM on 24 October, taking more than
1,000 of her 2,399 crew with her; 1376 of the crew were rescued by the
destroyers Kiyoshimo
and Shimakaze.
The wreck of Musashi
is believed to be at 13° 07' 01" North, 122° 31' 59"
East, off the Bondoc
Peninsula,
in 1,350 meters (4,429 ft) of water.
light
aircraft
carrier Princeton
afire, east of Luzon,
24 October
1944.
Loss of USS Princeton (CVL-23), 24 October 1944
The light carrier USS Princeton
burning soon after being hit by a Japanese bomb while operating off the
Philippines on 24 October 1944.
This view, taken from USS South Dakota (BB-57) at about 1001, shows the
large smoke column passing aft following a heavy explosion in the
carrier's hangar deck.
Japanese battleship Yamato is hit by a bomb near her forward 460mm gun
turret, during attacks by U.S. carrier planes as she transited the
Sibuyan Sea. This hit did not produce serious damage.
October 29, 1944, and titled Natives Flee from Path of War.
Leyte, P.I. - Natives of Dulag Village, near Leyte, hurry from their
homes as American troops invading Philippines move in to clean out Jap
snipers still infesting their villages.
US GI with thompson Machine gun
Anti
Aircraft with Mexicans
1935 Governor Murphy and the Famous guy who said Philippines is better
Run like Hell Speech Mr Manuel Quezon
Damortis
Japanese Marker
Located at road junction in Damortis,
La Union, Luzon. The marker reads: ""Kenju No He" (Dead Soldiers for
Country Monument) The white sign beneath it, placed by American forces
after liberation reads: "Damortis Liberated by the US Army 158th RCT"
Photograph by Carl
Thien, January 1945
Thanks to Yohji Sakaida for translation
2nd OBS. Squadron Nichols Field
Rizal P.L. 1929". The picture shows approximately 120 men with hats off
posing for a squadron photo. One soldier or airman is holding the
squadron flag on the picture left. I'm not sure is
this is an Army Air Service Observation Squadron that was
stationed in the Philippines at that time. The photo is very clear.
Only flaw would be four thumb tack holes in the white corner borders.
Please check the other listings I have of late 1920's aerial
black and white photos depicting views of buildings, British
and American Air Service Army airplanes, churches, hotels and
general views of the city of Manila, Philippines.
San Sebastian Catholic
Cathedral, Manila, P.L. (058-1595-N-6th) (3-2-26- ???) ( can't
read the rest)". The picture shows an aerial view of the church along
with other buildings and streets. The streets show 1920s autos and
trucks, horse drawn carriages, people, etc. The real photo is in
excellent condition. (disregard photo glare) Please
check the other listings I have of late 1920's aerial black
and white photos depicting views of buildings, British and
American Air Service Army airplanes, churches, hotels
and general views of the city of Manila, Philippines.
a small stolen valuable of
treasure by a scallawag japanese imperial soldier was
retrieve only six feet
deep, undisclosed property and location.
loose finish diamonds kept filled up in a green seven up like
bottle and one 12 kilo 22k goldbar
