While many naysayers and gainsayers damn the story of Yamashita's gold with faint praise or plausible doubts, the truth of the matter is that the gold hoard which Japan accumulated through 50 years of rape and murder in Asia is as true as the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The importance of the Yamashita story cannot be overstated because it provides the universal solvent which dissolves so many mysteries about World War 2 and the US government's post war policies of favoring the Hirohito crime family and its fabulously wealthy industrial conglomerates.
The people who broke the story in a big way were Sterling and Peggy Seagrave who pored over a mountain of evidence to establish the truth of the story and to explain how this legendary sized gold hoard intersected with US presidential decisions which in most cases were treason against the people and nation of the United States.
While we will incorporate these new findings in our analysis and narrative of American history in future postings, we want to establish the evidentiary basis for the story, the first order of business which is to explain the premise.
While some of this information is probably old hat to most readers of these Chronicles, it helps to recapitulate the important elements of the story for clarity. The most significant element of Yamashita's gold is that it represented the enormous and systematic theft of gold, silver, platinum, precious stones, and strategic metals by the Japanese of the Asian nations it invaded from 1895-1945. Not only were the Japanese ruthlessly systematic in stealing wealth and cultural treasures, but they were barbaric and cruel beyond words in doing so. It is hard to think of these Japanese people as humans.
The second important element of the story is that the amount of stolen property was so vast that it was nearly unmanageable, presenting an insuperable logistical nightmare for the Japanese royal family which personally oversaw the management of the plunder. The booty was so bounteous that at least 175 sites in the Philippines were required to store it, and even that was not enough. The storage vaults were often humungous, the size of football fields.
While good estimates of the amount of gold are nearly impossible to assess without interrogating the Japanese royal family who kept meticulous records of their thefts, it would be safe to assume that at least 40 - 60,000 metrics tons of gold alone were stored in the Philippines.
The third important aspect of the story is that lootings were wealth for the Japanese royal family and their cabalists. It was not for the nation or the ordinary Japanese citizen - but strictly for the royalty and the co-conspirators who needed to be bribed to help perpetrate the larcenies, murder people who knew too much, or help hide or launder the gold.
The fourth consideration of the story is that the gold still exists, much of which - if not most - is still hidden on the islands, and has created over the years a cottage industry of tourist attractions, traps, and frauds perpetrated against those seeking instant wealth. A significant amount of the gold has been taken to Japan since the end of the war, in many case with the help of the US government.
The fifth point of significance is that the gold has been appropriated by various organizations and governments, not the least of which is that of the US, Filipino, and underworld governments and agencies, and is still a profound factor in national and international conspiracies.
While we could add more detail to the story, these are enough to establish its importance and relevance to the present time. The gold did not evaporate, but was disbursed to various and sundry locations for payoffs, bribes, safe-keeping, and conspiracies.
Turning to the evidence, the Seagraves produced 3 CDs worth documenting their story and the movements of just a fraction of the gold, the substance of which is rich and varied.
Among the evidences are eye witnesses who personally witnessed the gold as it was taken into storage, such as Ben Valmores who was Prince Takeda's valet. Others such as Robert Curtis went on numerous excavations which resulted in substantial gold recoveries. One such witness, Japanese Major Kojima who was General Yamashita's driver, was tortured by Ed Lansdale but primarily by Santa Romana to reveal the hiding locations of the gold. These disclosures yielded enormous rewards which made the butcher Ferdinand Marcos a billionaire many times over.
Another source of evidence are official documents by the US government itself corroborating the existence of treasures such as those produced by Douglas MacArthur's command which reached President Truman, and which resulted in all kinds of treason and murder in the decades to follow.
Financial and transportation documents also substantiate the stories of Yamashita's gold with huge banks resorting to legal injustices and murder to hide their records and continue their posessions of the gold streaming from the Philippine islands and the Black Eagle Trust established by MacArthur.
Finally, there is an abundance of legal proceedings, not the least of which was the Golden Budha (sic) case tried in Hawaii in the 1990s which not only established the existence of this gold, but also granted damages to the plaintiffs who were victims of the murderer Ferdinand Marcos, as well as restitution of 22 billion USD for the gold Marcos stole.
Those who maintain that the Yamashita gold is at best an unsubstantiated rumor are liars. The evidence is overwhelming, and at time torrential, documenting the existence of this legendary gold hoard without whose consideration it is impossible to understand US foreign policy and the rise of para or shadow governments which rule the world.
The world owes the Seagraves a huge debt of gratitude for researching and writing this story which often resulted in threats against their lives by US government officials and their agents. In future postings we will fill in the details of the story adumbrated above.
Reference
Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, Gold Warriors, Verso, Brooklyn, 2005, 365pp
Copyright 2015 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.
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