[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

Prospectors Still Hunt Japanese War



Subject: Prospectors Still Hunt Japanese War Gold at Thailand's River Kwai

NOTE: These stolen gold artifacts legally belong to Burma and the
temples it was plundered from.  Though the Thais shouldn't lagally get
the treasure, it would be a bain in the murderous SPDC/ SLORC got it as
well.

Prospectors Still Hunt Japanese War Gold at Thailand's River Kwai

            AP
            11-JAN-99

            KANCHANABURI, Thailand (AP) -- Legend has it that in the
            dying days of World War II, Imperial Japanese Army trains
            loaded with booty steamed into the jungle down the
            infamous "Death Railway," never to be seen again. 

            In the past two decades, the tale of lost Japanese gold has
            sparked at least six major treasure hunts in the dense bush
            along the Thai-Myanmar border where the line once ran.
            Each failure only added glitter to the tale. 

            Now, another search is being proposed -- by a former
            government deputy minister, Chaovarin Latthasaksiri, who
            says finding the treasure would be a boon for Thailand's
            shattered economy. 

            "It could pay off the country's massive debt," says
Chaovarin,
            who also led an unsuccessful search three years ago. 

            His latest proposal seems tangled in red tape. But it has
            given another boost to a story that refuses to die and keeps
            a number of people quietly digging even when the periodic
            gold fever dies down. 

            Like Chaovarin, they believe Japanese soldiers retreating in
            1945 buried 5,000 tons of gold in a cave in hopes of
            returning after the war to reclaim it. 

            A Japanese veteran who periodically visits the notorious
            "Bridge on the River Kwai," which was part of the Death
            Railway and inspired a Hollywood film about the torture,
            disease and death inflicted on the Allied prisoners of war
            who built it, insists the tales are true. 

            "But I'm certain the treasure is long gone by now," adds
            Takashi Nagase, 80, of Krushika City, Japan. "The veterans
            have had 50 years to retrieve it." 

            Nagase was an interpreter with the Japanese military police
            in the war. Their brutality during the construction of the
            railway constituted one of the worst war crimes of World War

            II. He has made his 100 pilgrimages to the bridge since 1977
            to atone for his past. 

            Some former Allied POWs have suggested Nagase may be a
            treasure hunter himself. Nagase denies it and is supported
            by a local member of Parliament whose father was the local
            police chief during the Japanese occupation. 

            Maj. Gen. Sornchai Montriwat calls the treasure legend
            "baloney," but says even if it is true, Nagase is simply
"too
            old to go into the jungle and carry out the gold rumored to
be
            buried in the Kwai valley." 

            Younger men are trying. None wants to be identified, fearing
            legal action by Thai authorities for what might be seen as
            stealing and trespassing on government land. 

            But their presence is evident. Kendall Forbes, a Canadian
            businessman based in Bangkok, says he has seen signs of
            heavy digging along sections of the railway, which was
            abandoned after the war and has largely been reclaimed by
            the jungle. 

            "Whether it's treasure hunters or collectors digging up old
            spikes is anyone's guess," he says. 

            The Thai government conducted a two-month official hunt
            starting in December 1995. It began with great expectations
            of finding tons of gold ingots loaded on hidden trains near
            the border. 

            The inspiration for the search was an old woman -- later
            declared mentally unstable -- who said her Japanese
            boyfriend had told her the secret location of the treasure
at
            war's end. 

            Hundreds of workers using excavation machines dug up
            branch lines leading from the railway to caves and air raid
            shelters. The government posted policemen with assault
            rifles along the line at night to prevent villagers from
digging
            on their own. The effort unearthed many war relics, but no
            gold. 

            The search was not the first. 

            In 1978, Australian treasure hunters using a Japanese map
            of the railway followed a secret branch line and discovered
a
            war-time steam locomotive hidden in a cave near a dam. 

            Though they found no gold, their discovery prompted
            Thailand's national railway authority to disclose that nine
of
            the 40 steam engines used by the Japanese on the railway
            had inexplicably vanished in 1945. 

            For treasure-seekers, that means eight locomotives and their
            trains could still be out there -- maybe loaded with gold. 

            In 1981, a former Japanese soldier on his death bed
            triggered a gold rush when he said he had helped bury five
            truckloads of war booty where the Death Railway crosses
            the border. 

            He said the bullion and gold statues plundered from banks
            and temples in Burma belonged to a Japanese general.
            Rather than surrender it, Japanese soldiers buried it and

            hoped to come back for it some day. 

            Based on his story, treasure hunters from a Japanese
            company that had salvaged platinum ingots from a Russian
            battleship sunk in the Sea of Japan in 1905 dug at the
            border for a week before hastily returning home. They
            released no information about their dig. 

            Like any good legend, this one has a curse. A dozen people
            are said to have died looking for gold ingots in the caves,
            including a Frenchman in the 1970s tortured to death by hill
            tribe people. 

            Local people believe the treasure is protected by the
            anguished spirits of the 16,000 Allied POWs and 100,000
            Asian slave laborers who died building the Death Railway.