WASHINGTON TIGER NEWS SERVICE

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The Black Gold

Perhaps the most bizarre legacy of WW II is the huge amount of gold and other valuables looted from East Asia by the Imperial Japanese Forces before, during and after WW II. The best known part of this horde is called Yamashita's Gold after General Yamashita, the last Imperial Army Commander in the Phillipines. Just that part of the loot discovered by Marcos et al is believed to range from $100 billion to $1 trillion in value and is mostly gold bullion. This does not include the huge amount of jewels, platinum, industrial diamonds and more looted from or produced in East Asia. The story of Yamashita's gold was popularized by Sterling Seagrave in his book, The Marcos Dynasty. A small fraction of the gold formed part of the basis for former President Marcos huge wealth. It has been reported by the engineer who located the gold for Marcos that the actual amount of gold bullion alone looted from East Asia is far in excess of 100,000 tons. This amount of gold was accumulated out of circulation over 5,000 years and a century of opium wars. Obviously it by far and away the largest treasure in history. The recent book “The Yamoto Dynasty” also by Sterling Seagrave adds more evidence.

Less well known is the role of Japan's last post WW II behind the scenes power broker and godfather of Japanese politics, Kodama Yoshio, in the looting. In his role as Chief of Imperial Japanese procurement in Shanghai he was also in charge of the "Black Gold" acquisition.. This meant all of the gold out of circulation for centuries ranging from Crown Jewels to gold Buddhas to the life savings of a family buried in their backyard. In addition to those "duties" Kodama also helped fund the Kempetei or secret police, reportedly ran a huge spy ring, was involved in the tungsten and opium trade and even had his own organization , Kodama Kikan or Agency for supplying materials to the Japanese military during WW II. Sterling Seagraves maintains that Kodama actually ran the entire looting operation for East Asia. He maintains the treasure should be called Kodama's gold!

A small part of Yamashita's Gold was recovered by right wing Americans and Marcos in a very challenging effort to locate the sites and to recover the booby-trapped .gold. POW leg and arm bones were used as markers for some of the sites. It is believed that thousands of POW's, civilians and Japanese military personnel were sacrificed in the collection, transport and burial of the loot. The laundered gold was enough to cause fluctuations in the world price! Who knows how many billionaires were created!! It is interesting to consider whether the whole story helped inspire the Ian Fleming film, Goldfinger, the classic 1970's spy thriller. Ian Fleming of course was a member of British intelligence during WW II serving in Southern Spain and other locations.

In addition to his other duties during WW II Kodama ran several tungsten operations in China, Japan and Korea. It is believed that the thorium derived from Monazite ore, a rich source of Tungsten, was used in Japan's desperate effort at the end of WW II to produce an atomic bomb using U 233 as the fissile isotope. It is believed that Kodama, the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Noguchi interests teamed up in a last ditch effort in Konan or Hungnam Korea. Kodama also supplied uranium oxide and possibly metallic uranium to the Navy program. Large payments were made at the end of WW II by the Navy to unknown persons probably Kodama.

The atomic and rocket cooperation between Germany and Japan is another poorly known but important aspect of WW II. Unknown amounts of the looted gold from East Asia were used to pay for atomic related materials, war supplies and hardware transported by submarine from Europe to Japan in the last years of WW II. The trade was substantial for that period of time at approx. 2000 tons/month. In addition Japan made an effort to obtain industrial diamonds for its industry. There may also have been an industrial diamond production operation at Konan run by the same scientist, Tamura, who reportedly was the manager of the secret atomic plant. Two truckloads of industrial diamonds and platinum were used to found the Liberal Party which later merged to become the Liberal Democratic Party in 1955.

In summary the Japanese gold and atomic programs were linked to Germany. This gold was used to pay for the atomic materials and much more which contributed to the Japanese program. There were a number of similarities between the German and Japanese atomic programs. We do know the full exchange of information and technology or materials. But gold played a central role in the process !!.