The Great Robbery (7)
Excerpts from
Unz Review by Larry Romanoff ~ November 21, 2022
(16) Japan’s Golden Lily
However, there is another matter of looting, this one involving Japan, that is a bit more sinister and in a league of its own in terms of victors claiming spoils of war. It seems that almost everyone is aware of the looting, mostly imaginary, committed by Germany, but almost no one seems aware of the vast catalogue of almost unbelievable looting committed by the Japanese.
Japan indeed looted not only the central banks but every possible source of treasure during their sweep through China and across Asia. Gold, silver, jewels, works of art, anything and everything of value was looted, including from private homes, and shipped to Japan during the early stages of the invasion. This knowledge has been totally suppressed, never having entered the mass public mind, except for brief comments made in passing.
Few today are aware of the terms of Japan’s surrender to the US at the end of World War II. It is not widely known that when the Americans drafted the documents of Japan’s surrender, they specifically prohibited war reparations claims against Japan. Article 14(b) of the treaty stated:
“The Allied Powers waive all reparations claims of the Allied Powers, other claims of the Allied Powers and their nationals (my italics) arising out of any actions taken by Japan and its nationals in the course of the prosecution of the war, and claims of the Allied Powers for direct military costs of occupation”.
Then-US Secretary of State Allen Dulles bullied and coerced the other allies and all Asian countries to sign this surrender agreement. Only China and Russia refused to be bullied into signing.
But why the prevention of reparations? The US and the Jews used war reparations to strip Germany to the bones, leaving only the skeleton of the country. Japan was far worse than Germany in every way, so why the astonishing generosity toward Japan?
The Japanese heavily looted all of Asia and shipped some of that loot home to Japan but, as the spoils of war were being looted increasingly farther from home, the Japanese began assembling and storing their loot in preparation for larger shipments later.
Unfortunately, as the war progressed, Japan began losing control of the shipping lanes and transfer to Japan was no longer a safe option. Operating under an incorrect assumption that the US would permit them to keep the Philippines in exchange for a cease-fire, the Japanese elected to bury most of that looted gold and other assets in the Philippines.
There exists today ample documentation that Japanese officers created dozens of deep storage depots in caves or excavated underground areas, filled them with the looted treasure and destroyed the entrances with explosives. It also appears to be true that all the individuals who worked on the transport, excavation and storage of all this loot were buried inside the caverns, apparently leaving only three or perhaps four people with knowledge of either the fact of storage or the locations.
This was Japan’s Golden Lily project.
There has emerged substantial and irrefutable evidence that the Americans had learned of Golden Lily and had captured and tortured one of those individuals, who revealed the existence and locations of at least some of the sites.
Since Japan could hardly make a claim to this loot after the war, and since the hidden billions were now essentially orphans, they were available for the Americans (and the Jews) to quietly spirit away. The problem was that this was a huge crime, even in American minds, since it was clearly a theft from friends rather than enemies, who would want their property returned.
The Americans found the perfect solution – the provision for forfeiture of reparations in the treaty of Japan’s surrender would in fact mean these nations – and their nationals – renounced their claims to all treasure looted by Japan, thus serving to make the Americans’ actions “legal”, provided only that all parties signed the treaty.
And all parties, save China and Russia were indeed bullied into signing.
General MacArthur, in charge of the occupation, reported finding “great hoards of gold, silver, precious stones, foreign postage stamps, engraving plates and . . . currency not legal in Japan”. There was also a US Army document containing a statement referring to “undeclared caches of these treasures [which are] known to exist”.
The American occupation forces had apparently discovered at least some of Japan’s Golden Lily sites, containing billions in gold and other valuables. This much is without question, and there is documentation that MacArthur actually toured some of these opened sites and evaluated the contents.
The Japanese looted every nation to the bones and, to the maximum extent possible, every citizen, and there is no question the value had to be in the trillions of dollars. Since we don’t know the number of sites discovered nor the proportion of precious metals in each site, I will use a conservative estimate of only $500 billion recovered.
And, since there is no evidence any of this loot ever entered the US, much less recorded in the US Treasury, we can safely assume it was collected on behalf of the FED. We can use one of two measures here.
The gold price at the time was about $35 an ounce, with current prices (2022) around $1,700, or about 50 times, for a present value of about $25 trillion. The other method is to compound the $500 billion at 5% for 72 years from the war’s end, giving us a present value of about $15 trillion.
I will use the lower figure. I must note here that the actual amount recovered is potentially many times greater than I have assumed here. Seagrave’s ‘Gold Warriors’ tells the entire story in exhaustive detail, and should be considered mandatory reading.
Leger Entry: $15 trillion in today’s dollars
(17) Treasure Island
In 1999, Edward Michaud produced an excellent historical essay titled, “Corregidor The Treasure Island of WWII”, in which he detailed the looting of the Philippines. It wasn’t called looting at the time, but that’s what it was.
When the Japanese invaded the Philippines, MacArthur was forced to evacuate and take refuge in the island of Corregidor, prior to which he did two things. He ordered all munitions and war materials destroyed so as not to leave them for the Japanese, and he collected and shipped off the entire wealth of the Philippines’ central bank and all personal wealth that could be collected from local citizens, “to be sent to the US for safe-keeping” and prevent the inevitable looting by the Japanese.
According to Michaud’s report, “The Government securities alone consisted of over 51 tons of gold bullion, 32 tons of silver bullion, 140 tons of silver pesos & centavos, and millions of paper Treasury Notes, bonds and corporate stocks. The civilian property … consisted of approximately two tons of gold bullion in various sized ingots, along with an unknown amount of precious stones and foreign currency.
When orders were received to evacuate the city the many paper inventories and records were still incomplete, with many private citizens not even being given receipts for their valuables. Much of it was stored in sections of the large underground complex known as Malinta Tunnel.
The remaining 51 tons of government gold bullion, consisting of 2,542 ingots of 42lbs each, (20 kilos), along with the balance of the paper currency & securities, were stowed in several of the interior laterals of the Navy Tunnel on the South side of the Malinta tunnel complex.”
Virtually all of this was loaded onto whatever vessels, large or small, were available, and the entire lot transferred to Corregidor, where it was eventually loaded onto US submarines and removed to the US. Anything not able to be shipped out in time was loaded onto surplus vessels which were towed out into deeper water and sunk, this amounting to hundreds of tonnes of precious metals, some of which may have been later recovered by the Japanese but which was also recovered by the Americans.
The submarines were loaded during the night when the Japanese aircraft could not attack, submerging during the daylight hours for safety. Michaud thought this Philippine treasure was transported to the US Mint, but it almost certainly ended up at the FED since the mint was almost a non-entity producing only cheap metal coins. He ended his essay by stating, “At the end of the war this securities shipment, “or at least its monetary equivalent”, was subsequently transferred back to the Philippine Government”, but the claim is nonsense.
I have seen no evidence to support it, and no one is in a position to make such a claim since no accurate inventory was done in the panic to evacuate before the Japanese arrived, and nobody actually knows what was taken. In any case, from the few facts available, I have seen nothing to support statements that this wealth was ever returned to the Philippines. This was by no means the only, or the last, such event during the Second World War.
In this calculation, I have made no allowance for the “hundreds of tonnes” of gold and silver not loaded into the submarines at the first effort, and have ignored the value of all treasure other than the 53 tonnes of gold and 175 tonnes of silver bullion. Again, a relatively paltry amount in relation to the other crimes.
Leger Entry: $3.3 billion in today’s dollars
What you did to others will be done unto you, the God of all mankind says:
“I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel; there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled,” Hosea 6:10
“Because thou hast despoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall despoil thee, because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein,” Habakkuk 2:8
“In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished,” Ezekiel 6:6
“Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,” Ezekiel 19:1 — so this chapter 19 is a lamentation; notice it started at the beginning with a lamentation and at the end it says: “This is a lamentation and shall be a lamentation,” for the princes of Israel; but who are the princes of Israel?
Joel Huan
The Mystery of Ephraim 