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Prospectors Still Hunt Japanese War
- Subject: Prospectors Still Hunt Japanese War
- From: Rangoonp@xxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 22:32:00
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.