Foreword

Foreword

“Japan did not aim to be a friend of Asians. It plundered Asia.”
(Prof. Takani Hiroshi.)

The essential theme of this work is treasure hunting. A systematic series of treasure hunts, to locate and retrieve stashes of the largest single hoard of plunder ever assembled in recorded history by a conquering army. The legendary, although erroneously named, “Yamashita’s Treasure.”

Nine sites, within the Philippines, successfully located and the treasures therein retrieved, between the years of 1976 to 1982 ; whose yield value in gold bullion alone exceeded U. S. $12 billion when gold was priced at under $300 per Troy ounce.

It is the story of a nation driven to insane political and military policies by ultra-nationalistic forces within its hierarchy. Of an isolationist Japan, at the turn of the current century, physically realising her need for “breathing space” and a guaranteed supply of external natural resources.

Of her conception of a “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere”, and the military means expedited to achieve this end. Of the clandestine and malevolent machinations by Japanese Imperial Military agents, and their cohorts within Japan’s dominant, metastasic secret societies; to penetrate, and suborn and subvert, the ruling governments and heads of state of Manchuria and Korea. By all and any means possible. By the vehicles of assassination, of bribery and blackmail; of creating political and diplomatic incidents whereby Japanese interests could be fortified and guarded by direct Japanese military intervention. The eventual desired outcome being a Japanese military occupation and administration, and thus total control of a puppet state and its inherent resources.

It is the story of a nation whose fervour of conquest drove them relentlessly onward: to invade and control the infinite resources of the Great Middle Kingdom: mainland China. Whose defiance of world opinion and military rejection of imposed sanctions drove her to attack Pearl Harbour and then continue her assaults and conquests of the colonial bastions of South-East Asia. Indochina, Siam, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East-Indies, Borneo, Hong Kong, the Philippines, New Guinea, and beyond, into the Pacific Islands.

It is the story of a ruling cadre of the Japanese Imperial Military and their secret societies, whose ultra-nationalism drove them on to commit the foulest record of war crimes against humanity; and whose greed and plundering accumulated the most colossal hoard of treasure ever assembled.

A cadre whose philosophy and power controlled the Chrysanthemum Throne and the government of Japan for decades. A cabal whose inspired and brilliant leadership developed a fiendish logistics format that systematically plundered their Greater East-Asia Co-prosperity Sphere of all valuable assets, and stored the majority of the high-value and precious commodities in over two hundred deep sub-surface sites around the Philippine archipelago.

A cadre whose executive, untouchable and irreproachable, members personally ordered and directed the most atrocious war crimes recorded during the protracted conflict of the Asian theatre of the Second World War; and escaped capture and punishment, to rise again as stalwart, respected members of the Japanese government, and the society they had led to devastation. Individually wealthy : beyond normal mortal means and comprehension.

This too is a story of a greater greed, of more modern times. Of a democracy exploited and raped by an abusive head of state; who established a harsh regime of martial law to disguise and conceal his excesses from a watching world. Who, under the pretext of Communist insurgency, declared martial law, cancelled free democratic elections, imprisoned or murdered political rivals and any form of opposition to his rule; then methodically enriched himself and his emerging dynasty, and political and business cronies, by systematically looting the national economy: to the point of civil penury.

A dictatorial leader who utilised martial law as a camouflage for a multitude of nefarious sins, primarily to stifle political opposition and extend his presidential mandate beyond the boundaries of the democratic process; but also to provide the unrestricted opportunity to commence full-scale operations of locating and retrieving the fabled Japanese “General Yamashita’s Treasure”.

Philippines’ President Ferdinand Marcos, superstitious and paranoid concerning all things, embarked on this project with a fervid determination after declaring martial law in 1972; and initially relied on the loyal, albeit incompetent, engineering branches of his own armed forces to expedite the location and recovery of the many burial sites of the Japanese war plunder.

But the cryptic inclusions on his cache of 172 Japanese Imperial Armed Forces treasure maps remained indecipherable. The indicated tunnels and buried vaults marked on the maps were rarely located or unearthed .
The army’s massive excavations went unshored and collapsed on them, or, at best, filled up with ground water seepage or rains, or a damning combination of both. Nothing went as planned. The location and recovery schedule was running far behind Marcos’ omnipotent forecasts.

It was around this time, the latter end of 1976, that an executive decision was reached. Marcos reluctantly decided to risk his cloak of ultimate secrecy enshrouding the project and bring in the underground engineering and treasure-hunting specialists.

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FOREWORD
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