Looking for lost WWII Treasure

And such has been the sad history of mankind in ALL the past wars. Looting and sacking of each other's countries has gone on. And sure, sometimes those goodies are found 100s, or 1000's of years later. But to jump from that factoid, to somehow saying "there's a treasure in every cave", is a leap of logic.



This is up for dispute. It is an assumption that is only conjecture. And is, in fact, counter-intuitive. I mean, think about it: JAPAN was the conqueror in this case. The Philippines was only one of their conquered zones. And would have required shipping to this location. Why oh why oh why would they simply not have taken the looted goodies back to their own HOME country ?

Like if you got goodies and had a treasure, don't you take it back to YOUR OWN headquarters ? Rather than squirreling it away at someone else's remote location :?: This has been the bone of contention by those scholars who have challenged this whole notion. I'm sure the "Yamashita faithful" will come up with all sorts of colorful conspiracy theories of how "anything's possible". But just saying that when you ask yourself if there's a "more plausible explanation", you begin to see that the freighting of those plunders to some off-shore colony (as opposed to their own coffers and home-base) it starts to make little sense.



But I'll bet if portions of the material were supporting the alleged treasure, you would certainly subscribe to those portions of the article. Right ? Hence it's just a matter of picking and choosing.

I challenge you to read the portion of the article on the skeptic's view. And FORGET THAT IT'S "WIKI". Instead: Go to the footnotes of the VERY AUTHORS that they are citing for those statements. To get the source material in the bibliography that those statements are coming from. Because it's not "wiki" saying those things. It's drawn from the balanced comments from each side's proponents. And wiki is nothing more than an encyclopedia, where they are simply reporting what the different viewpoints are saying. The footnote sources are right there David.

Tom, why do you have to be such a Debby Downer. It's fun to think things like this might exist.
 
Good points of Japanese hidden treasure

I've been asked before why I thought the Japanese Imperial Army would have buried treasure in the Philippines, vice moving it back home to Japan. They did transport looted treasure back to Japan early in the war. But later, the U.S. controlled the sea lanes heading to Japan. They just couldn't move it home by ship or air. If you look at a map of Asia you'll see how centrally located the Philippines is. The Japanese occupied the Philippine early in the war and had plenty of time to construct the hidden treasure vaults.
 
Japanese treasure

I've been asked before why I thought the Japanese Imperial Army would have buried treasure in the Philippines, vice moving it back home to Japan. They did transport looted treasure back to Japan early in the war. But later, the U.S. controlled the sea lanes heading to Japan. They just couldn't move it home by ship or air. If you look at a map of Asia you'll see how centrally located the Philippines is. The Japanese occupied the Philippine early in the war and had plenty of time to construct the hidden treasure vaults.

The Japanese had no intention of giving up the Philippines , they wanted the 7000 islands as part of their new Japanes Empire. They needed the room to expand and the natural resources the Philippines had. A large number of Japanese fought to the death in the Philippines to prevent the Americans from attacking Japan.
 
My frustrating WWII treasure chest story

I spent four years looking for hidden WWII treasure, looted by the Japanese army and hidden in the Philippines. One of my most intriguing, and frustrating finds, was of a Japanese army steel strongbox that had been supposedly filled with papers or documents or possibly paper cash. I never got to see the contents of the box. Let me explain. When Norgot one of my best pygmy Negrito guides said he had found a new cave that had never been explored and was filled with "trash" I would like. (A primitive people-- the Negritos never quite shared my excitement of exploring the Japanese command posts). He said there was a big, heavy metal box inside filled with paper. That was enough to get me to hike the two days through thick jungle to visit the cave. When we arrived at the man-made Japanese tunnel complex, Norgot led me straight to the steel strong box. I rushed over to it and opened the lid hoping to find secret Japanese treasure maps. It was empty. I asked Norgot where the papers were and he shrugged and said in Aeta that they had used them to start their cooking fires. He thought the box was the big find. We dragged that stupid box home and to this day I wonder what the hell was in that box. (photos of Norgot and the box.

Nick Auclair
Author
www.steelstreasure.com

Set on and around Clark Air Base in the 1980s, Steel’s Treasure and its sequel Steel's Gold are thriller adventure, mystery, and works of military historical fiction that weave USAF Major Nick Auclair’s experiences as an intelligence officer with firsthand accounts of the war between the New People’s Army and the Marcos regime. Follow Steel as he risks his career, his freedom, and ultimately his life to uncover the legendary plunder of WWII General Yamashita, the Tiger of Malay.
 

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Treasure chest

That would of been so exciting to know there was a unexplored bunker waiting, then after the long hike through the jungle to find a strong box empty. The Japanese would have had to consider any thing they put in there of enoug importance to protect it from the elements. The possiblities are fun to think of military maps, comunications from headquarters , troop recorcds and locations, etc. Did you find any thing else good at the site ? I like the pictures you included.:workforgold:
 
Wow, that's a real bummer, like they say "hindsight is 20/20" and I'm sure if you had thought there was any such possible misunderstanding you would have made it clear to leave ANY finds untouched. I'm assuming you had him looking for such finds and it wasn't something he found and just happened to mention it to you later. :shock: :?:
 
Thats still a cool WW2 box though!...Even empty! Just the hike and backstory is a Life Treasure!...Sure tops kicking totlot chips for clad!:laughing: More! More! Nick!
 
Adventure beats tot lots and play grounds any day of the week

Thats still a cool WW2 box though!...Even empty! Just the hike and backstory is a Life Treasure!...Sure tops kicking totlot chips for clad!:laughing: More! More! Nick!

You sure got that right , Nick was living the Adventure most of us just read about. Love to hear about your other finds in the caves and bunkers and travel through the jungle to get there.
 
Treasure box

If that box could only talk!

Wonder if Nick still has that chest , it would be neat to have it all cleaned up to store your finds in. A nice relic from World war II . If Nick kept a lot of his finds i can imagine what some of them would be worth today to collectors. I imagine in the 1980's that in the Philippines World WarII stuff was still plentiful and cheep.
 
Philippines and WWII treasure hunt/rock map

Well the things you can accomplish when you're in your twenties are amazing. I had the opportunity to hunt for WWII lost Japanese treasure in the mountains of the Philippines. Part of General Yamashita's, "The Tiger of Malaysia's," stash. The jungle was vast and I was always looking for clues to help narrow my search to Japanese Imperial Army loot. First photos are of the terrain and of myself, friends and Negrito guides. Another of a rock which reportedly had a treasure map carved into it. According to old villagers, Japanese soldiers during the war had spent days camped near this rock/stream. Finally, me down in the mud digging out a deep pool in the stream. In those days my White's detector was primitive and certainly not water proof. I enjoyed writing about my adventures in two novels.
 

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well ? Did you find anything or not ? :cool:

Re.: "Japanese soldiers during the war had spent days camped...." You do realize that soldiers camped all over Europe and the far east during WWII, right ? So the mere fact of "camped soldiers" doesn't necessarily bode for "treasure", right ?

As for the rock: Might that just be random squiggles or graffiti , with nothing to do with "Yamashita" or "treasure" ?
 
1980'S Philippines was a very diffrent place than today

Great photo's ,would love to see that area some day. I havn't spent much time on Manila mostly just the central islands. Can you imagine if you had one of the Whites newer detectors back then , or google earth as tools. It must have been a real adrinilin rush to explore some of the caves and Japanese bunkers ,that no one had seen since the war.. Also it would be interesting to learn the culture of the mountain tribes there ,there is a lot that can be learned from them. I think the real treasure was the adventure you had there ,memories for a life time.
 
The frequency of your same story, and posts are starting to really smack of spam...

I was intrigued the first couple times..

But...

<°)))>{
 
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