More than
eight million dollars worth of silver had been dumped between
Corregidor and Caballo Islands. The Japanese had been determined to get it all,
but had been thwarted.
This article draws on documents
that were donated by Tore Anderson to the American Historical
Collection. They include newspaper articles, the text of an
interview, photographs, official documents, and Mr. Anderson’s
personal recollections of his experiences in the Philippines in
1945. The American Historical Collection hereby expresses its
appreciation for Mr. Anderson’s generosity.
The American Historical
Collection is located Lvl.3, Rizal Library Index, Ateneo de
Manila University, Loyola Hts., Quezon City, Philippines.
This article
is by Sara Collins Medina.
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Second Lieutenant
Tore Anderson,
second from right
above, with fellow
salvagers and a
large heap of silver
pesos, aboard the
Sub Tender U.S.S.
Teak. Note the
high-tech equipment
in use, i.e., the
garbage can.
Salvaging a Silver
Treasure
Diving for
Philippine Pesos off
Corregidor in 1945
In
July 1945, a young
2nd Lieutenant of
the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers named
Tore Anderson, from
Kearny, New Jersey,
was hastily summoned
to Washington for a
mission. Born in
Sweden, an immigrant
to the U.S. at age 3
1/2, he was an
electronics
engineer, a rare
specialty for the
armed forces of
those days, and had
spent the previous
months at Sperry
Gyroscope in
suburban New York
trying to persuade
them to build 300
copies of a new mine
detector he had
designed for use
against Japanese
anti-boat mines in
the Pacific. At this
time, the Pacific
Islands, including
the Philippines, had
been liberated, but
the war was not yet
over: the Japanese
homeland still held
out—the dropping of
the atomic bombs was
yet to come—and his
mission was labeled
secret.
In
Washington, Anderson
was informed that he
would accompany a
shipment of portable
mine detectors built
by Schlumberger to
Manila. He was
fitted out with full
overseas gear,
includiing a
.45-cal. automatic
pistol he says he
was “damned if he
could hit anything
with,” and was on
his way via
Honolulu, Johnson
Island, Wake Island,
and Clark Air Base
in Pampanga.
Finally, some 48
hours later, he
arrived in Manila by
truck. “First order
of business,”
Anderson recalls,
“you go to the PX
and buy a bar of
soap, then give that
and a GI shirt to
the Filipino tailor,
and the next day you
have an ‘Eisenhower
jacket’ made from
your shirt hemmed
around your waist
(much cooler) and a
long-billed cap so
you look like a real
old-timer.”
/2
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