Lost Gold of WWII on the History Channel premiered last Tuesday, March 19, 2019. The eight-part documentary series followed American investigators who have been searching for the rumored gold that a Japanese general left in the Philippines after the Second World War.
Now that the documentary has finished its first season, viewers are wondering if there will be a Lost Gold of WWII season 2. For now, History Channel has not made any announcements regarding the production's next phase.
Executive producers Ari Mark, Phil Lott, and Ed Gorsuch investigated Yamashita's treasures in the Philippines in early 2018 for Lost Gold of WWII's pilot episode. They would return to the country four times more as production would progress.
The tale goes that Japanese General Yamashita buried his treasures, which included gold and priceless stolen artifacts from other countries, as the Allied forces were closing in during World War II. Now, the History Channel team wants to know if the mysteries are true as they interview eyewitnesses and investigate the existence of Yamashita's treasure.
Mark told Cable Fax that there hadn't been any documentation of these lost gold. Thus, it begs the question -- where did the treasures end up and does it exists?
Lost Gold of WWII also features Filipino-American Manny Paez, who answered History Channel's call for a Golden Lily project.
"When I was a teenager in the Philippines, a lot of people were into treasure hunting, and it was an activity I did as a hobby," Paez recalled, per Asian Journal. "So when [the post] mentioned Golden Lily, I knew this was something for real because not a lot of people knew about it, so I applied and got called by the casting agent. After many calls, eventually, I landed the role."
Lost Gold of WWII also features a grandfather who lived during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines. This eyewitness claimed that he saw crates and crates of Yamashita's treasure being brought up to the mountains at the height of the war.
The documentary also highlighted a potential CIA involvement in the cover-up of the gold. The team also had to decipher secret codes as there were traps and clues that could lead to the treasure in Lost Gold of WWII.
Yamashita's treasures have ignited arguments among historians around the world for years. Some believe that the general could not have left the treasures in the Philippines, but instead transported these to China or Taiwan. Despite 75 years of investigations, however, no one has found even one concrete proof that the treasures exist.
