Aunt-in Law Early Inheritance

[mikie]

My wife's aunt jokingly gave me these Philippines Japanese occupation notes as my early inheritance. She said I'd be the only one to get any money from her. Nothing rare or valuable, but these are very special to me because as a young girl she actually used these things every day while living through the occupation. She is a great lady so I am thrilled and honored that after saving these things for so long, she passed them on to me. She doesn't have many memories of the occupation, but I haven't had the chance to talk to her about it yet. I wasn't sure where or if I should post these but figured since the Philippines was US territory at the time and were used by the civilian population, Homefront was the place to put them.

 

Mikie

 

[doyler]

Mikie

 

Not often you see them with a connection from the person who saved them.

 

granted I see the vets have them in with other souvieners but being from a civilian and a relative is icing on the cake.

 

congrats on your inheritance....now don't spend it all at once

[VenitHora]

Ditto that, very cool! It means so much more with the family connection.

[BagmanL6]

Items like this always have a special place in a collection.

[mikie]

I spoke with Aunt Tala on Christmas. Between only being about 12 when the war ended and her memory not working too well, there were only 2 things she could tell me about the war and these bills. Apparently sometime after the Leyte landings but before the liberation of her island, her Mom sold some jewelry. She didn't remember who it was, but they forced her to take a large box of this very Japanese money as payment. Tala remembers her Mom crying about loosing her jewels for worthless paper. The other memory of these bills is more pleasant. After the war, Tala and her friends had fun playing games with them. Over the years she lost or gave away all the rest of them and gave me the last ones. Things like this make me pause and think that all these things we collect are not just bits of paper, or metal or cloth. They all have stories, most that will never be told. I am thankful that I had a chance to hear a tiny bit of the story these bills have to tell.

 

Mikie

[RustyCanteen]

Hi Mikie,

 

The stories and family connection are priceless. I have read a lot of first-hand accounts of the civilians who were left trapped in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded. Some of the accounts are tough to read, for they suffered as did their military counterparts. The bartering and trading of prewar valuables seems to have saved a lot of lives by the food and essentials it purchased. Thank you for sharing them and the story that gives them so much more meaning.

 

RC

[mikie]

Aunt Tala sent me these 11 Philippines silver pesos the other day. They are dated 1907, 1908 and 1909. I did a little googling and found some interesting possible history to these coins. Millions of them were dumped into the bay off of Corregidor to keep them falling into Japanese hands. Here is a link to the story of the Japanese attempt to salvage them, and how American POWs and Philippinos managed to bring up many and used them to support the resistance. There is no way to tell if any of Tala's coins spent time on the bottom of Manila Bay, but considering the condition of some of them, I'd like to imagine than some of them did. Enjoy.

 

http://www.corregidor.org/chs_trident/silver/hubbell_01.htm

 

 

Mikie