Yamashita's Gold: The Hunt For Japan's Buried WW2 Treasure | Myth Hunters | War Stories

[Music] [Music] y Master's gold is one of the greatest treasure hordes ever known in today's currency it represents over 00 billion doar in value according to the myth this incredible Fortune was the proceeds of Ruthless Japanese looting throughout Asia during World War II for one amate treasure hunter finding the gold became a lifelong Obsession if he had to get down on his hands and knees and dig with his fingers until they bled I see him being that kind of man but little did he know he had a mighty rival one of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century Marcos was unquestionably a thug he was a gangster just when this penous Filipino had es Beyond his Wildest Dreams within his grasp his quest turned into a nightmare he's put a Target on his back this is the extraordinary story of Roger roas he was willing to be David against Goliath Roger was a hero and the legend of your Master's gold [Music] in May 1970 amateur treasure hunter Roger roas was combing the jungles around his hometown of bagio in the northern Philippines for over a decade he'd spent every spare moment searching for a long-lost horde of treasure he'd put all his money into his quest unless he found it he faced [Music] ruin then after weeks of backbreaking work at last Roger spotted something had he finally found what he'd been looking for his entire [Music] life had he found yash's [Music] gold the legend of yam's gold is one of the greatest stories of War loot in history by 1942 the Japanese Imperial Army had successfully invaded all of Southeast Asia as they Advanced they mercilessly ransacked country after country they stole on a massive scale reportedly unrivaled in military history yamashita's gold is Wealth Beyond Belief people wouldn't believe how much it is1 trillion us worth so it's a mind-blowing amount The Mastermind heading this covert operation codenamed the Golden Lily was said to be Prince chichibu the emperor's brother this guy is brilliant Prince chichibu was a perfect choice to head up the Golden Lily because he wasn't just a military man he was an Oxford scholar and he brought an incredible amount of creativity and lateral thinking to How it Go about this complex process of looting the golden LLY operatives just completely took everything from all the countries they left them with nothing they invaded they took all their wealth and just left them penniless it wasn't just Banks and financial institutions but it also had museums temples art galleries rare books anything that was worth money they knew about it knew where it was how much it was worth and they took it the Golden Lily looting was so comprehensive they even targeted the Underworld the gangster world the black markets and they absolutely drained them of anything that was of value having amassed Treasures of all shapes and sizes the golden Lily's mission was far from over they needed to get it back home to Japan first they melted the gold into easy to move ingots but this smelting also served a shadier purpose when gold is made is stamped and you can tell where it came from but when it's been remelted you you don't know where it came from they wanted to stamp the little sign on the gold bars that the gold was actually made in Japan then it would look like the gold was Japanese gold of Japanese origin this stolen gold was then brought to the Philippines there it was invented and then sent on to Japan by ship the Philippines was chosen as a Golden Lily Transportation Hub because it was pretty much in the center of the vast Japanese empire for the first year of operations the golden L's Transportation network ran like clockwork but then the tide of the war turned in June 1942 Japanese and US forces met near the tiny Pacific island of [Music] Midway over just 4 days the US forces sank five Japanese ships they destroyed destroyed 270 aircraft and killed 3,500 men the Japanese had lost control of the Seas now it was too risky for them to ship the gold home they needed a new plan they turned to their finest fighting General tomay Yuki yamashta he has an incredible track record nobody has the reputation he does and if anyone can pull one out of the Hat it would be him yamashta made his name when he caused the greatest humiliation of the British Army in its history in December 1941 he invaded Mala sweeping down the peninsula in only a matter of weeks the mastera then captured the British military stronghold of Singapore hither to both Malaya and pinga Poore had been thought to be completely unassailable that the British were totally in charge military and he proved them wrong he made the British capitulate and it was the biggest capitulation of the British Army in British military history virtually overnight yamashta took nearly 100,000 Allied soldiers prisoner his victory sent shock waves across the world and earned yamashta his fearsome nickname The Tiger of Malaya [Music] with the gold now stuck in the Philippines yamashta was being asked to come up with another miracle The Story Goes he was told to hide the gold until it was safe to move it he identified 175 suitable burial sites across the Philippines they would hold the gold until the Japanese were once again Victorious [Music] and the Philippines proved the ideal place to hide this treasure they put it in very isolated Parts throughout the Philippines mostly covered by very mountainous terrain and a thick thick jungle once you got these tunnels built it would become virtually impossible to see that there had been anything ever buried there because of the of the growth rate of in the jungle it said yamasa ordered detailed maps to be made of the exact location of each treasure Vault and each map was carefully encoded these Maps were done in a old Japanese dialect called kji a language which is between 1500 and 2,000 years old and there were no topographical references on them they used the old characters to represent certain landmarks unless you knew the complex code these Maps were meaningless and there were even further layers of security bombs grenades decoy walls that would lead you into another trap the Golden Lily left nothing to chance and they had a vast system of booby traps that consisted of poisonous gas explosives complex use of the water table so if you don't know what you're doing you're going to drown in your pursuit of reaching the treasures but the maps that were drawn highlighted where all those traps were if you didn't have a map and you went into one of these treasure vaults it's very likely that you wouldn't come out [Music] alive and to ensure all the treasure Vault locations remain top secret the number of people in the know was ruthlessly kept to a minimum they use prisoner of war or local slave labor to build the actual treasure vaults and the people who are building it don't know why but that's irrelevant they're GNA die anyway so they're usually killed shot on the [Applause] spot discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and adree podcasts presented by world renowned historians all on History hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to watch everything from the gripping story of the Band of Brothers to operation Barbarosa and D-Day immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description but for all your Master's efforts the gold still wasn't safe in October 1944 the Americans landed in the Philippines the fighting that followed was the bloodiest of the Pacific War the fighting in the Philippines at the end of the war was extremely brutal Yamashita would fight to the very last man for the empire but even a master tactician like yamashta couldn't stop the Americans Advance the Philippines has 7,000 plus islands and is very very difficult to defend against an invading Force yamashi as a great General would have known that yamashta faced a [Music] crisis he knew he couldn't hold the Philippines all he could do was drag out the fight for as long as possible and it seemed there was one particular reason yamasa needed to buy himself time he still hadn't finished burying the gold gold and Lily are running out of time and desperate so they've got these ships in the harbor with gold that they need to get into the tunnels they have no time what do they do they Scuttle them and sink them April 1945 yamasa had been forced to retreat back to the mountains around the northern city of bagio their systematic hiding of their National Treasure becomes less systematic and more panicked they need to do it immediately cuz they're about to suffer defeat 174 treasure vaults done and dusted only one is left with time running out yamasa ordered the chief Engineers to seal the final treasure vault these Engineers knew everything they knew how the maps were made they knew where the burial sites were they knew how they were Ruby trapped what they didn't know was yamasa had one last move to protect the gold The Story Goes that while the engineers were carrying out his orders yamasa sealed the Vault himself the engineers were still inside now they would be its Guardians for [Music] eternity 3 months later World War II was over General yamasa was put on trial for war crimes did you at any time issue any orders directing the killing of non-competent citizens absolutely not anything the trial lasted just over 5 weeks the commission finds you guilty is charged and sentences you to death by hanging yasa took the secrets of the gold to to his grave there was only one other person who allegedly knew of the Gold's whereabouts Prince chichibu and in 1953 he died of TB anybody who knew anything about this treasure is now dead it seemed yash's gold was lost forever but in the Philippines after the horrors of war the legend of your Master's gold lived on there were lots and lots of rumors that the Japanese had buried treasure all over the Philippines it's almost a national Obsession everybody across the country is aware of it and and everyone's looking for it among those who'd grown up with stories about the gold was a young Filipino locksmith roio roas better known as Roger was born in 1943 just as yash's gold was being buried Roger's childhood was really difficult the Philippines are extremely impoverished his family is impoverished Roger was one of millions of Phil phinos growing up in the shadow of World War II the war had devastated the Philippines Manila was absolutely on its knees in a way that no other city in the whole of the second world war other than Warsaw it was Dreadful hundreds of thousands killed families broken up desperate poverty no real economy going um it was in a really bad state so there was no surprise that the legend of yamashta gold just took Roger by by heart at a very young age someone that poor with a possibility of obtaining Wealth Beyond Your Wildest Dreams of course you're going to go for it Roger the locksmith lived in bagio the northern city near to where yamasa made his last stand Roger surmises that they must have hid some of the treasure around his town so he looks around his town right from the start because he knows logically that's probably one of the best places to start Roger was a very diligent man every spare moment he was out there working seeing what he could find eliminating areas and continuing to move forward in a very logical Progressive manner to help him in his quest Roger scripton saved and bought himself a metal detector yet all Roger had ever managed to find were a few old coins and some Japanese ammunition but that didn't shake his faith one day he was sure he would come across the treasure he'd been dreaming of since he was a boy no matter how many disappointments a treasure hunter has they will always keep [Music] going then in 1961 after years of hunting the gold with just youthful optimism Roger had what seemed to be a breakthrough he got the kind of clue he'd been longing for a map of a tunnel complex there were lots of maps and sketches like this in treasure hunting circles at the time Roger had seen plenty of them before but all had been fakes this one was different this map had come from a Japanese soldier he's convinced that this is the real deal trouble was the map was in the golden Lily's fiendishly complex code it's a needle and a Hast stack and you don't even know where the Hast stack is cuz the map has no topographical features but Roger also knew that this Japanese soldier had been in bagio with a group of Engineers as they buried gold during the final days of y's Retreat the map allegedly related to one of those treasure vaults it was getting closer he could feel it Roger never gives up and the reason is he knows the treasure is there and he knows that year after year if nothing else he's eliminating where it isn't yet for all his High Hopes Roger just couldn't crack the map's code and so even after looking for several more years he was still no closer to finding yam's gold but at least the map confirmed to Roger his first instincts were right there had to be treasure somewhere around bagio he knows it's there this is not a myth this is historical fact then Roger met a man who seemed to offer him his next breakthrough usabo okubo akubo told Roger he had served under the Japanese As an interpreter during their occupation of the Philippines there were a lot of Filipinos who claimed to know where Japanese buried treasure was uh mainly because an awful lot of Filipinos had perforce worked with the Japanese not necessarily what we would call collaborators but simply because the Japanese needed Cooks drivers interpreters all that sort of thing when Roger met akubo he would have had mixed feelings here's somebody who colluded With the Enemy aubo confessed he had served none other than General yamashta while working for him akubo had witnessed yamasa taking a large quantity of gold to bagio towards the very end of the war and then akubo revealed The crucial piece of information Roger was after this gold was in wooden boxes stashed in a tunnel not far from bagio General Hospital so this was the final link this allowed him to to tie the bow together and have the perfect package now he knows where to go he knows where to dig he was elated because it now pinpointed the area for him to look at but little did Roger know he had a rival the most powerful man in the Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos in 1965 Marcos had been democratically elected but he rapidly became a pathologically greedy dictator money was extremely important to Ferdinand Marcos he loved it like nothing else and there was only one person who could match marcos's greed his shopaholic wife emelda Marcos Woody melder it is said by taking her down to the Vault beneath his bank and just showing her enormous great stacks of $100 bills whether or not this is true or not I don't know but it's extremely likely um and I should think almost certainly would have convinced her that she was onto a good thing but amala's lavish lifestyle wasn't the only reason Marcos needed money [Music] the Richer you were the more powerful you were it's that simple it's a very simple equation and nothing could make Marcos more powerful than finding your Master's gold it's not at all surprising that Marcos was interested in yash's Gold because he was a thug basically and the mere thought of the promise of gold and he would have been on to it like a shot compared to Roger Marcos had a serious advantage in the hunt for yash's gold power it was incredibly easy for Marcos to use his power to find the goal he has entire armies at his disposal armies ships experts on maps and deciphering all sorts of Clues despite all these resources Marcos hadn't found anything and so he devised a shrewd strategy he was a brilliant politician but he was also brilliantly corrupt on the surface he seemed to be a rational person going by the law by the books but in person he was quite ruthless Marcos passed a law demanding treasure Hunters apply for a permit detailing where they were going to start digging he comes up with the the permit system cuz this way he has all the enthusiastic treasure Hunters all across the country working for him cuz they've now told him where they think the treasure is he's just waiting to see if anyone finds it then he can move in cuz he has the resources to do that and you know that's very [Music] smart meanwhile back in bagio in 1970 Roger married with a new wife and child on the way he needed yam's gold now more than ever and so Roger dutifully applied for one of marcos's permits Roger did everything the right way he thought that if he followed the rules that had been put in place by the government he would be able to search he would be able to find and excavate and recover and it would all be done with the blessings of the government in Roger town the person who manages the application is none other than marcos's uncle in May 1970 armed with his permit his map and auo's information Roger decided to risk everything to find yash's gold he spent all his life savings hiring a team of laborers together they started hacking their way through the thick jungle vegetation near bagio General Hospital so it was really difficult for Roger to find the tunnel near the hospital because it was 25 years before that that it was blasted shut and every single year in the rainy season these jungles you know they changed their look and feel dramatically then after 2 weeks of almost nonstop searching Roger spotted the mouth of a cave could this be the entrance to the treasure Vault akubo told him [Music] about 100 m into the tunnel a collapse meant Roger couldn't go any further but for Roger this was a good sign he knew the Japanese had used Dynamite to blast their treasure vaults shut and so Roger and his crew began the arduous task of clearing the way the conditions for Roger and the team digging in the tunnel would have been horrific it was hot there were insects there were snakes it was very very hard work digging the tunnel was very very dangerous and Roger knew that if this really was a tunnel that the Japanese had built there may be booby traps but Roger was willing to risk his life to get to your Master's gold once you get that Gold Fever it is insatiable you just cannot quench that appetite he was becoming obsessed one more Spade one more rock I'm going to get it this is going to be the Treasure of a lifetime and everybody's going to say yes you found it finally after four long months of digging they broke through it was then he made a grim discovery skeletons dressed in rags but these weren't just any Rags they were Japanese military [Music] uniforms surely these were the remains of the engineers who had hidden yam's gold only to be buried alive by yamasa himself he thinks he's there and he knows now that he has all the pieces to the puzzle he is literally at the threshold of the gold recovery that he has sought now for 10 years it's there it's within his fingertips [Music] grasp stretching beyond the skeletons was a vast network of [Music] tunnels Roger and his team spent weeks exploring them day after day they found nothing the next day he was out there ready to go again he knew it was there he believed in his heart of hearts that that gold was there he was going to go after it no matter [Applause] what but a full 6 months on from finding the entrance to the tunnel Roger still hadn't found any treasure Roger had spent all the money that he had raised to start the dig to begin with and no one was going to give him any more money no money meant no crew it seemed the hunt was over Roger had squandered his life savings on a huge [Music] mistake just before Roger decided to give up once and for all he had one last go with his metal [Music] detector [Music] then he heard it's Telltale Buzz this Buzz that Roger got from his metal detector must have been the best sound he'd ever heard in his [Music] life [Music] [Music] Roger was stunned hiding behind the wall was a gold statue of Buddha this was that moment in life that you would look back on and you say yes I have achieved my goal for my entire life this is it this find is the most significant find of anything that anybody had discovered in the Philippines the Buddha was in the Burmese style according to the legend the Japanese had looted religious artifacts from temp temples right across Burma he really must have found one of yam's 175 treasure vaults and that wasn't all the area around the Buddha was stacked full of wooden boxes finally it was Payday the gold that Roger has just discovered is worth a fortune each of those bars is worth $11,000 and he estimated there were over a th000 boxes of the gold bars so you're talking an incredible amount of money more treasure than even he ever dreamed he would find I mean this has surpassed his wildest expectations Roger return returned home with the Buddha planning to go back for the gold with trucks and men but the more he looked at the Statue the more Curious Roger became there was something about it that wasn't quite right the Buddha was full of diamonds the value had just gone off the chart Roger I mean he's getting richer and richer by the minute he has a thousand boxes of gold bars he has a gold Buddha and now he has handfuls of [Music] diamonds that night Roger documented his lifechanging find news of Roger's miraculous Discovery soon spread to the presidential Palace I can just imagine him going crazy when the word had gotten to him Marcus was going to do anything to get that Buddha away from Rojas and it was going to eventually sit in Marco's Palace unfortunately for Roger Marcus's primary tactic was Brute Force on the 5th of April 1971 it said a group of mysterious men turned up at Roger's house roas didn't answer the door you have to ask yourself how would you feel if all of a sudden at 2:30 in the morning there's loud banging and knocking on the door I think you'd be panic-stricken and I'm sure he was they said you you have 3 minutes to open the door we're going to shoot you right [Music] here they took everything away from it can you imagine the feeling of violation his entire life he's looked for this he's found it and now it's been taken but if Marcos thought he could intimidate Roger and his family he was wrong Roger had risked everything to find this gold and he wasn't going to let it go so easily Roger reported the theft to the police by that time president Marcos had a considerable strangle hold on the police and the Army particularly but Marcos did not yet yet control the media within days the Press picked up Roger's story it was a huge Scandal you know there's stolen loot it's World War II is the Japanese it's Marcus being implicated the newspaper was full of articles that were nothing short of calling Marcos a common thief the Hostile press coverage came a critical time for Marcos he was widely known to have fixed his second term of office the elections which were ludicrously corrupt I mean he he allegedly won by two million votes it was just impossible he was widely lampooned on all sides for corruption and um he was beginning to feel himself quite [Music] insecure Marcos needed to silence this treasure hunter far P there was one obvious solution the Marcus regime was Notorious for extrajudicial executions you'd have that squads basically killing people who were seen as being very critical of the regime but this time Marcos needed a different approach I think by that time he must have thought that the story had enough public exposure for him not to be able to risk just making Roger vanish like a lot of his opponents 3 weeks later Roger at last received some good news he was told his Buddha was waiting to be collected at the courthouse in bagio when he got there he was in for a shock when Roger saw the Buddha he knew immediately this wasn't the Buddha that he had found it was a different color different shape facial expression the head didn't come off Marcus is expecting Roger to say yes that's the Buddha thank you but he didn't know Roos roas was determined he wasn't going to let that boot up and this was a huge mistake for Marcos because he had misread Roos personality Roger declared the Buddha was a fake I think that was completely Reckless of him because by that time he would have known that he was a Marked Man and to cause that kind of fuss effectively tackling Marcos himself at a personal level would have been absolutely ridiculous and very stupid in my view however he did it he clearly was a very stubborn man now he's publicly giv them two fingers really this marks the beginning of the end for Roger just over 2 weeks later more mysterious men came for Roger and it seems it wasn't long before interrogation turned to [Music] torture over several Days Roger said he was repeatedly burned with cigarettes he was beaten and [Music] electrocuted eventually Roger claimed he signed an affidavit stating Marcos had nothing to do with the theft of his Buddha and revealed the location of the thousands of gold ingots Roger was a very broken man when he signed at affid David I mean there he was fighting publicly but now admitting that no there was no wrongdoing he must have been completely demoralized Marcos had Roger imprisoned and wasted no time helping himself to the rest of Rogers find but eventually marcos's Megamania would prove his undoing in 1986 a popular revolution forced Marcos and Elda to flee the country the Filipino people stormed marcos's presidential Palace and what they found inside was unbelievable they were amazed at what they found they found Treasures of statues and art and thousands of pairs of shoes this is just what they left behind Marcos was by far and away the wealthiest man alive they were so wealthy they didn't really know what to do with their money one of the questions for the Filipino people was where had the marcos's enormous wealth come from for most there was an obvious answer marcos's wealth primarily came from theft embezzlement and Corruption and you can look back I think on their joint reign as simply being a plot of self-enrichment and the administration of the Philippines was made a secondary item they were basically using the public tracery as their piggy bank years later while on trial for fraud and embezzlement Elda Marcus's defense declared their Fortune was not looted from the Philippine treasury but actually came from finding yash's gold I think Elda claimed that um their joint wealth came primar from finding yash's goal because it was a very good blind nobody could prove otherwise yash's goal was just a wonderful Alibi but for Roger roas none of this mattered his life was in Ruins Roger never fully recovered from his torture and the damage is so great that you he can't see out of his right eye for the rest of his life after this he's lost his money he's lost his self-respect he's lost his wife Roger has lost everything despite all this Roger still had a bit of the spirit that had helped him find the gold it's a treasure Hunter's mentality they must get to the end of the story they must get the treasure anyway Roger had lost so much he had nothing to lose with Marcos in Exile in Hawaii Roger filed a lawsuit against him even when Marcos died one year later in September 1989 the case continued you could say that the marcoses actually got away with it he went out lived his Exile in Hawaii and died of natural causes um you could well say that they did rather well out of it it would take a further seven years before Roger was at last Vindicated in 1996 the jury concluded Marcos had stolen Roger's find $43 billion in Damages were awarded when the court finds in Roger's favor it's a significant moment in legal history 43 billion is awarded to Roger which is the biggest civil lawsuit award in [Music] history sadly Roger never saw Justice done on the eve of his day in court he died he was just 49 years old then in 1998 the huge compensation award was overturned while no court has challenged the verdict that Marcos stole Roger's treasure how to determine its value is still being fought out by the lawyers it's hard not to look back at Roger and feel empathy for this man his determination was boundless and I think if nothing else Roger was a hero and I think that's how he's going to be remembered he was willing to be David against Goliath he was willing to put his life on the line and therefore my hat off to him Roger's tragic story begs the question was what he found a one-off or as the legend states are there another 174 treasure vaults still waiting to be discovered [Music] since the War treasure hunters from across the world have scoured the Philippines in search of your Master's gold yet none of them have found [Music] anything nonetheless people are still willing to risk their lives looking searching for yash's gold is a very dangerous activity even to this day I think it was in 2000 two men were buried alive looking for Treasure what drives them is there certainty that yam's gold is still out there the legend of yash's gold in the Philippines is huge and it hasn't died it endures because it's real because there really are burial sites there really is gold bars gold gold dishes gold Treasures that are still to be found in the islands of the [Music] Philippines [Music]

Channel: War Stories

Views: 628,769

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, battles, Full Documentary, Yamashita's Gold, WWII Treasure, Myth Hunters, War Stories, Treasure Hunt, Tomoyuki Yamashita, Hidden Fortune, Roger Roxas

Id: zSGSvPSVpOE

Length: 50min 54sec (3054 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 13 2024