Goose discovered this wonderful photograph of Frederick Hartt, a professor of history and former officer in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Division of the US Army. He was known as one of the Monuments Men, a group that will have a much higher profile once the new movie comes out February 7 (I already have date night arranged with Ann).
This photograph was published on at Huffington Post, along with a short article about the Monuments Men. Let’s see, hunting lost art with a jeep. I think that might just be my dream job . . .
If you plan on seeing the movie, at least one of the scenes shown in the previews is in a cavern. It looks like there are endless bags of gold/currency/valuables on the floor. A similar real scene was photographed on April 7, 1945.
Dave, I’ll join you on that trek!
On the lighter side of things, that’s one heck of an hood ornament.
Lots of loot was found and kept during and immediately after WWII. The great question remains: What happened to it and where is it today? There was one hundred times this amount of gold which the Allies “took” out of China. It reportedly went to the Philippines and was guarded there for years secretly by Marcos and his crooks. Some of it is now reportedly in the Vatican. One can only wonder why, after two years of Germany asking for it, a great amount of their post WWII gold reputedly kept under safe wraps in the US Federal Reserve vaults, has only been trickling out back to its owner(s). Maybe it is all gone, but who knows? Our government knows, that is for sure.
Stephen. That’s what I’ve been researching the past couple of months. I’m trying to separate fact from fiction. There are some fascinating court cases that have appeared over the years in relation to it.
Very briefly (because the tale is quite complicated) The Japanese effort to move the gold to the Philippines late in the war (due to blockades) was called Operation Golden Lily. The Marcos certainly ended up with some of the treasure, but not all of it. Who was on the ground in the Philippines at the end of the war? The OSS and Edward Lansdale.
Now, fast forward to current day. You have to ask yourself why the US State Department still continues to aggressively block the reparations for the American POWs held and worked during WWII by Japanese companies (just one story: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91566&page=1).
The Final Treaty with Japan that wasn’t signed until 1951 (of course, the German peace treaty wasn’t officially signed until 1990, but that was complicated by the cold war). The Japanese treaty recongized reparations existed, then waved those reparations, to the frustration of the Brits and others. But why do this, while demanding Germany pay reparations?
I can go on, but that’s just a sampling of the history I’ll explore in my book October Gold.
Maybe it’s time to watch Kelly’s Heroes again !