World War II: A chronology
Yamashita's gold
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Websites
Trial of General Tomoyuki Yamashita
www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/Yamashita1.htm
From Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals: Selected and Prepared
by the United Nations War Crimes Commission. The accusations against
General Yamashita – formerly commanding general of the 14th Army Group
of the Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippine Islands – were that he
'knew or must have known of, and permitted, the widespread crimes committed
in the Philippines by troops under his command (which included murder,
plunder, devastation, rape, lack of provision for prisoners of war and
shooting of guerrillas without trial), and/or that he did not take the
steps required of him by international law to find out the state of discipline
maintained by his men and the conditions prevailing in the prisoner-of-war
and civilian internee camps under his command.' He was found guilty and
executed on 23 February 1946.
Desperate race for vast riches
www.geocities.com/filipinoculture/treasure.html
If you are tempted to take up the Yamashita challenge in the Philippines,
read this article from a San Francisco newspaper, which tells how one
74-year-old lost his life savings by investing in a scheme to dig up buried
Japanese treasure.
Yamashita-Gold
www.yamashita-gold.com/
Yamashita-Gold is a privately owned company that invests in facilitating
the recovery of portions of the Yamashita treasure. The site supposedly
relates the company's triumphs in finding treasure (i.e. gold bars) with
pictures to match.
Figure Eight
http://figure.8m.com
'A virtual company, existing in cyberspace, and based in the United
States.' Run as a one-man band by born-again Christian Zach Anderson (who
looks remarkably like a dark-haired Jon Voight), the company is involved
in excavating what purport to be treasure sites in the Philippines.
Books
It says much about this subject that perhaps the most reliable 'sources' are fictional ...
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (Arrow, 2000) £8.99
This SF novel zooms all over the world, careening back and forth between
two time periods – World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are
a brilliant mathematician and a gung-ho, morphine-addicted marine. They're
part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication
codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that
their codes have been broken. All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day
story line, in which the grandchildren of the World War II heroes team
up to help create an offshore data haven in South-east Asia and uncover
some of Yamashita's gold.
Yamashita's Gold by Tate Holt (Berkeley Hills Books, 1998). US
edition only; may be available from online bookshops.
'A trillion dollars in gold and precious artefacts – the greatest fortune
ever amassed in the history of mankind – this is the force that drives
this "business thriller", which blurs the line between fact and fiction.'
A quest for treasure plundered from Asia's temples and reportedly hidden
in the jungles of the Philippines by Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita
brings together an entrepreneur, a professional treasure hunter and a
Philippine business man in a story of greed and violence.
Old Soldiers Sometimes Lie: What happened to Hirohito's gold by Richard Hoyt (St Martin's Press, 2002). US edition only; may be available from online bookshops. On 14 November 1947, two years after the war, General Douglas MacArthur met in private with Emperor Hirohito. They spoke for 90 minutes. To this day, there is no official record of what was discussed. Over five decades ago, MacArthur permitted General Tomoyuki Yamashita to be executed for alleged war crimes. Now, in this novel, Yamashita's granddaughter is determined to clear his name, even if it means unravelling a web of deceit and corruption that may stretch back to the Emperor himself – and a secret pact between Hirohito and MacArthur.
The Yamato Dynasty: The secret history of Japan's imperial family
by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave (Corgi, 2000) £7.99
This book brings to light new evidence that points to the implicit involvement
of Hirohito and other members of the imperial family's inner circle in
the war crimes of World War II. It also reveals for the first time the
full scale of Golden Lily, the looting operation that removed many billions
of dollars' worth of gold, platinum, diamonds, art, religious artefacts
and other treasures from a dozen occupied countries during the war, and
the fate of these hidden assets after 1945.
Asian Loot: Unearthing the secrets of Marcos, Yamashita and the gold
by Charles C McDougald (San Francisco Publishers, 1993). US edition only;
may be available from online bookshops.
By the writer/treasure hunter interviewed in the documentary.
The Philippines under Japan: Occupation policy and reaction, co-edited by Ikehata Setsuho and Ricardo Trota Jose (Ateneo de Manila University Press/University of Hawaii Press, 2000). US edition only; may be available from online bookshops. This book about the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, written by Japanese scholars and a Filipino, attempts to provide the Japanese point of view, presenting new perspectives of the occupation based on Japanese and other hitherto unused primary sources.
