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Before we can talk of the treasure, we must
recall the tragedy: of how and where and when and why the Awa Maru, her back broken by four U. S. torpedoes, was sent to the bottom of the Taiwan Strait. That done, let us talk of the fortune, said to be worth as much as $10 billion, she was said to have carried down with her.
Close to midnight on 1 April 1945, in the waning days of the war against Japan, the submarine USS Qiteenfish (SS-393) torpedoed and sank the huge Japanese freighter Awa Maru. After four torpedoes slammed into her hull, the ship plunged to the bottom of the Strait of Taiwan, settling in 30 fathoms of water inside the territorial limits of Chinese waters.
The Awa Maru was a devastating loss for the Japanese. Besides carrying vitally needed raw materials to keep the Japanese war effort going, the ship had on board VIPs and technicians with skills desperately needed in the homeland: in all, 2,004 people. All but one went down with the ship, making it one of the worst maritime disasters in history.
The lone survivor picked up by the Qiteenfish told his rescuers the Awa Maru was the ship they had sent to the bottom, a ship which the United States had pledged would remain unharmed. This information was promptly reported by Commander Charles Elliott Loughlin, skipper of the Qiteenfish, to his headquarters in Honolulu, which notified Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, U. S. Fleet, in Washington, D. C.
Reaction was swift. The Qiteenfish was ordered to Guam immediately. Waiting on the dock was Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of U. S. submarine forces in the Pacific. Acting on the express orders of Admiral King, Lockwood stripped Loughlin of his command and told him that he would be court-martialed at the earliest possible moment. Loughlin, one of the finest submarine captains in the Navy, was stunned.
For the next 31 years, the Awa Maru lay undisturbed and forgotten. Then, in 1976, the San Diego Tribune broke the story that a U. S. syndicate, including such notables as former astronaut Scott Carpenter and Charles A. Lindbergh’s son, Jon, was attempting to obtain salvage rights to the Awa Maru from the People’s Republic of China. They had engaged a top-ranking expert on China, Harned Pettus Hoose, who had served as a former counsel to President Richard M. Nixon prior to and after his historic China visit in 1972. This expert had been negotiating with top-echelon Chinese officials to win approval for a joint venture salvage operation to Chinese territorial waters. Subsequent press releases revealed that the Awa Maru reportedly sank while carrying a staggering fortune in her hold. Estimates of the treasure ranged from five to ten billion dollars.
Apparently, the U. S. syndicate had followed up on persistent rumors throughout the Orient that, in 1945, the Japanese, realizing that they were about to be driven from their conquered territories, had plundered all the wealth they could gather from these areas and had attempted to ship it to the homeland on the Awa Maru. En route to Japan, this ship had been sunk by a U. S. submarine despite the fact that the U. S. Navy had guaranteed safe passage to her. According to the syndicate’s research and secret sources, the Awa Maru carried precious metals and ivory, five cases of diamonds, 40 cases of mixed jewels, rare antiques and artifacts, and 40 tons of gold bullion. Even the fossil remains of China’s long- lost Peking Man, considered to be of priceless anthropological value, were supposed to be on board the ship. All this supposedly was loaded on board the Awa Maru in Singapore for her return home.
In dealing with the outside world, the syndicate attempted to keep one trump card up its sleeve— the exact location of the Awa Maru. The implication was that they had had access to the secret account of the Qiteenfish's patrol and the subsequent court- martial of her captain. In addition, one man in the syndicate claimed to be privy to a navigational error in the Queenfish's log which only he knew about; therefore, only he could find the Awa Maru.
This was all nonsense, of course. World War 11 submarine reports were declassified years ago and are available to the public. So are the court-martial proceedings of Loughlin. The bit about a navigational error was pure poppycock. But the syndicate had to have some kind of a gimmick to maintain control over the project, lest the Chinese simply scoop in all the information and salvage the Awa Maru themselves—which is exactly what the Chinese did over the next four years!
Let us now return to the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Awa Maru by Loughlin and
his subsequent trial by general court-martial.
As the war began drawing to a close, the United States became increasingly concerned about the fate of prisoners of war (POWs) held by the Japanese in the southern territories. With its merchant fleet swept away, Japan was having great difficulty supporting its own troops, much less the thousands of Allied POWs it still held in captivity. Through neutral Switzerland, the United States proposed to supply 2,000 tons of relief supplies for these prisoners with guaranteed safe passage to any Japanese ship which transported the goods. The Japanese quickly accepted this proposal as a sure means of getting desperately needed supplies to hard-pressed troops in the south and to return key personnel to the homeland. It also presented a heaven-sent opportunity to transport any other cargo of particular concern— gold bullion, for example.
As agreed, the United States delivered 2,000 tons of Red Cross packages to a Soviet port in Siberia where the Japanese picked them up. From Japan the goods were to move to the POW camps in two ships. The Hoshi Mam would transport 275 tons of relief supplies directly to Shanghai. The Awa Mam would transport the remaining supplies to Southeast Asia. Both ships were able to carry cargo far greater than the relief supplies assigned to them, and the Japanese took full advantage of this. The Awa Mam had a normal cargo capacity of about 11,000 tons. She was one of the few ships of this size remaining to the Japanese. War material and supplies were crammed to the absolute limit on board both vessels.
The first to leave was the Hoshi Mam. Through the Swiss, the United States was informed of the ship’s exact departure time and course for the five- day run to Shanghai. The ship left Japan on 8 January 1945 and arrived in Shanghai without incident.
The Japanese now set about to handle the far more complex trip of the Awa Mam. Her exact course was forwarded to the United States. She would leave Japan on 17 February and stop at Hong Kong, Taiwan, Saigon. Singapore, some Indonesian ports, and return via the Taiwan Strait to Japan. She would have special markings: white crosses on her sides and funnels and on her hatch covers. In addition to running with all navigational lights on at night, the white crosses would be electrically illuminated.
Not satisfied with taking advantage of the safe conduct guarantee by transporting war material, the Japanese attempted an additional ploy. According to the course sent to the United States, the Awa Mam would sail home via the Ryukyu Islands and the coast of China, which U. S. intelligence knew to be heavily mined. Had our intelligence been less accurate, our Navy might well have sent submarines into this area with disastrous results. About a month later, the Awa Mam's course was changed.
Once the new course and the sailing dates of the
Awa Mam were received from the Japanese, the U. S. Navy dispatched a message to all submarines at sea in the Pacific. Instead of sending out the message in cipher, the Navy sent it in plain language; the dispatch was broadcast three times on each of three successive nights. Each message specified the exact route and schedule of the Awa Mam, gave her description, and directed all submarines to allow her to pass unmolested.
At the time of transmission, the Queenfish was en route from Hawaii to Saipan. Atmospheric conditions during the three days the message was transmitted were so bad that the Queenfish never received a readable version. It was not a matter of great concern to the communications officer, however, because important messages were never sent without encipherment. Anyway, he could pick up a copy of the message when the ship arrived at Saipan—which he did. While the Queenfish was in Saipan, the same message was again repeated three times a day for three consecutive days. For reasons never fully explained, the message was filed and not shown to Loughlin.
By 28 March, the Queenfish was again at sea. She was part of a submarine wolfpack on patrol in the Strait of Taiwan when another message, this time enciphered, was received: “LET PASS SAFELY THE AWA MARU CARRYING PRISONER OF WAR SUPPLIES X SHE WILL BE PASSING THROUGH YOUR AREAS BETWEEN MARCH 30 AND APRIL 4 X SHE IS LIGHTED AT NIGHT AND PLASTERED WITH WHITE CROSSES.”
The skipper did see this message, but, unfortunately, it was addressed to all submarines in the Pacific from Australia to the Aleutian Islands and did not stipulate the course of the Awa Mam. The message made sense only if one had seen the previous messages on the subject. Loughlin had not.
It was now 1 April. That night, the Queenfish was alerted by her packmate, the USS Sea Fox (SS-402), that she had attacked a small convoy. Hoping to get in on some of the action, Loughlin sped through the fog toward the enemy. Shortly before midnight, the Queenfish picked up a radar blip at 17,000 yards, the distance at which Japanese destroyers were normally detected. Moreover, the target was moving at 16 knots—not zig-zagging—and heading directly for the area in which the Sea Fox had made her attack. Loughlin approached to within 1,200 yards but dared not get any closer since he was convinced that the Queenfish was dealing with a Japanese warship. Visibility that night was estimated to be 200 yards. Swinging his boat around to fire his stern tubes, Loughlin launched four torpedoes set at a depth of three feet and with a 300-yard spread—the kind of an attack one would employ against a destroyer. Four distinct thuds told the Queenfish's crew the results of her attack. In searching for survivors, the
Queenfish picked up only one man, a steward named Kantora Shimoda, who gasped out to Loughlin that the Awa Mam was the ship that the submarine had destroyed.
Loughlin’s court-martial was conducted by the highest-ranking U. S. naval board ever assembled. In the end, he was able to convince the board that, given the information that he had on board the Queenfish, his attack against the Awa Mam was warranted. He was found guilty only of negligence and given a letter of admonition. Such a light sentence enraged Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of U. S. Naval Forces in the Pacific. He was so concerned that the Japanese would commit barbarous reprisals against U. S. POWs—especially submariners—that he wrote the board members letters of reprimand, a far more serious punishment than Loughlin had received.
This, then, is the background of the Awa Mam and her rumored cargo of gold, which eventually inspired the People’s Republic of China to mount a salvage operation. Presumably acting on data given to them by the U. S. syndicate in its attempt to set up a joint venture, plus whatever other information they may have developed for themselves, the Chinese, convinced that treasure was on board, proceeded to salvage the Awa Mam. For two years, they operated in complete secrecy. Then, in 1979, China’s Vice Minister of Communications told Japanese reporters that China had located the Awa Mam in 1977 and had been attempting to salvage her since that time. Again, there was much speculation in the news. Once more, the five to ten billion figure was quoted. It was said that the Chinese were conducting the greatest sunken treasure hunt in history.
In January 1980, the Chinese announced an allout assault on the Awa Mam for the coming year. At the same time, in an unusually revealing statement for that government, the Chinese declared that during the past three years a total of 330 workdays had been completed, 10,000 dives had been made, and some 10,000 cubic meters of mud had been cleared. The press release went on to say that ten ships and more than 700 men were working on the salvage, including 100 divers. The Chinese Government must have felt very certain of its information to make these announcements, because if no treasure was found there was bound to be a great loss of face. This was no ordinary salvage effort; it was a major governmental undertaking to recover a mind- boggling fortune from the bottom of the sea.
Throughout the summer of 1980, the Chinese put forth maximum effort. But by September, the Vice Minister of Communications conceded to the world that no rare metals or treasure had been found.
This is one sunken treasure tale, however, which will not remain shrouded in mystery, tempting adventurers the world over to try their luck. Recently, the concluding pieces of the strange and tragic tale of the Awa Mam have become available for all to see in the files at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. The wraps have now been completely removed from what surely must be one of the greatest intelligence coups of all time.
During World War II, sophisticated cryptanalytic techniques enabled the United States to read the highest-level diplomatic and military radio communications of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire. The conduct of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s campaign in Europe and all operations in the Pacific were heavily influenced by the information obtained from these communications. Until recently, these messages have remained highly classified and unavailable to the U. S. public. Presidential Executive Order No. 12065, however, has ordered the declassification of all of these data except in those cases where damage to U. S. national security can be clearly demonstrated. Over a period of three years, the National Security Agency declassified World War II messages and forwarded them to the National Archives. These are the incredible Ultra and Magic messages. Buried among them are the Japanese messages dealing with the ill- fated voyage of the Awa Mam.
So far, 122 messages on the subject have been located, covering the period from December 1944 through 14 August 1945. These messages were sent by the Japanese through their diplomatic channels. As was true with most high-level Japanese radio transmissions, the traffic was routinely copied by U. S. intercept operators and forwarded to cryptanalysts for decrypting and decoding.
A few words of explanation are needed at this point. The United States did not intercept every message sent by the Japanese about the Awa Marti. Some were undoubtedly missed, and not all transmissions intercepted were copied completely or without garbles. Nonetheless, with the messages available, the story can be pieced together.
In early 1945, the Japanese were indeed shipping gold bullion, but not to Japan. It was going from Japan to the conquered territories in a last-ditch attempt to shore up their rapidly disintegrating positions in these areas. Paper currency was no longer being accepted; the Japanese-operated money presses in China had to be reinforced with gold. Many Chinese merchants were beginning to demand gold in exchange for their raw materials. Thailand, a Japanese ally which had previously agreed to supply logistic support to Japanese soldiers fighting on that front, now demanded reimbursement, half of which had to be in gold. Japan had no choice. It had to comply with these requirements for its gold. Thus, the two relief ships with their guaranteed safe passage were seized upon to ship the bullion. Fifteen tons of gold were loaded onto the Hoshi Mara, and an unknown quantity on the Awa Marti. In addition, millions of dollars in currency were brought on board each vessel. Thus was forged the initial association between the relief ships and gold bullion.
The Hoshi Mara weighed anchor first, and after an uneventful five days arrived in Shanghai on 13 January 1945, where she off-loaded her gold. Although there were only 275 tons of relief supplies on board, the Japanese were scrupulous in their handling of the goods, specifying that care must be used so that nothing would be lost or damaged. Further, a receipt was to be signed for their delivery.
After the Hoshi Mam left Shanghai, she went on to Tsingtao and thence back to Japan, arriving on 29 January. Her primary cargo on the homeward trip was a prosaic load of coal and pig iron. However, a special shipment for the home office was under the care of two policemen: six boxes of confiscated opium, 19 boxes of whiskey, and 52 boxes of miscellaneous goods. The special handling accorded these goods, along with their police guard, undoubtedly added more grist for the rumor mills in later years.
On 17 February, the Awa Mam left Moji,-Japan, and arrived at Singapore on 2 March as planned. Sixteen days later, on 18 March, the Japanese ambassador in Bangkok sent a message directly to the Minister of Greater East Asia in Tokyo: “FORTY BOXES OF GOLD BULLION ARRIVED ON 16TH AND WERE HANDED OVER TO THE BANK OF SIAM. ASSAYING IS TO BEGIN ON THE 17TH AND WILL TAKE ABOUT A MONTH TO COMPLETE.”
As scheduled, all the gold on board the Awa Mam was off-loaded at Singapore and reached Bangkok 14 days later. How much gold? It is difficult to be certain, but another message with a maddening garble in it can be interpreted as saying that a box of gold meant 502 pounds troy weight to the Japanese. If so, the value of this shipment on today’s market would be more than $80 million.
After leaving Singapore, the Awa Marti called at several Indonesian ports and crammed her holds with rubber and tin; both were sorely needed at home. She returned to Singapore on 24 March and left on the 28th. No messages have been discovered that deal with any special cargoes such as jewels, precious metals, or gold bullion loaded on board the Awa Marti while in port at Singapore. Messages during this period are primarily concerned with people trying to obtain passage on the ship. These were mostly to no avail, because Tokyo held fast to the principle that only technicians with skills vital to the war effort were to be booked for return passage.
Thus, laden with raw materials and people—but no treasure—the Awa Mam, her white crosses brilliantly illuminated and secure in the knowledge that the United States had guaranteed her safe passage, steamed north toward her rendezvous with the Queenfish.
Epilogue: On the very day of Japan’s surrender, 14 August 1945, Foreign Minister Togo forwarded a message to the United States through Bern, Switzerland, demanding payment of $52.25 million for the loss of lives and goods on board the Awa Mam. The message spells out exactly how these figures were obtained. No gold bullion is mentioned in the message. Considering Japan’s desperate situation and the awkward position of the United States regarding the Awa Marti, the Japanese almost certainly would have made a claim for any gold that might have been on board.
The war ended before any action was taken on a replacement ship, and, in 1949, the Japanese foreswore all indemnification for the Awa Mam tragedy.
Commander Elliott Loughlin went on to a splendid naval career, retiring as a rear admiral after commanding a submarine division, a submarine squadron, a submarine flotilla, a fleet oiler, a heavy cruiser, and a cruiser-destroyer flotilla. He is now serving as president and executive director of the U. S. Naval Academy Foundation, Inc.
As for the People’s Republic of China, it has not announced any additional salvage plans for the Awa Mam. The Chinese have stated that the remains of a few victims, along with a scattering of personal belongings, which had been recovered would be returned to Japan.
Mr. Lowman is a consultant for the National Security Agency, from which he retired in 1977. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and a J. D. degree from George Washington University.