Haunting

Today's tour through the Cabinet explores crime on both large and small scales.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

(00:27):
of Curiosities. We've all seen those apocalyptic movies where the
populous city has been abandoned. Streets that used to team
with pedestrians and taxis now sit idle, a still life
of decay. As grass pokes through potholes and trees flourish

(00:49):
along sidewalks. It's quiet, quieter than it ever has been before,
like a living photograph. It's hard to imagine an area
like New York City or Tokyo suddenly drying up and
losing its entire population, but it does happen. Chernobyl is
perhaps the most famous example of a modern ghost town,
with empty apartment buildings, dilapidated amusement rides, and overgrown parks.

(01:13):
But there is another location just like it, one that
saw numerous atrocities and horrors in its day, and it
survives as a symbol of both a time we'd like
to remember, and an era we'd like to forget. Nine
miles from the city of Nagasaki, off the coast of
Japan is an island. It's small, only sixteen acres large,
but this postage stamp size plot of land is big

(01:36):
with history. It's called Hashima, and in eighteen ten coal
was discovered there, which kicked off its long and complicated history.
A mining operation was established, and nearly a hundred years later,
the Mitsubishi Corporation bought the island. Part of the company's
plan was to expand Hashima's footprint, as well as the
amount of coal brought up from the mines. Given the

(01:58):
work being done on the island, was clear that the
miners needed somewhere to sleep, to eat, and even to play,
and so Hashima was transformed over the next five decades
into a full blown city. Apartments were built to house
the miners, followed by a school, a hospital, and even
places to shop and relax. It was a self contained
metropolis surrounded by water, and then World War Two happened.

(02:23):
Starting in the nineteen thirties, Hashima's minds became a dangerous
and hellish forced labor camp. Thousands of Chinese and Korean
workers were brought to the island, required to mind for
coal underground for twelve hours each day under some of
the worst conditions imaginable. They had very little water and
food to sustain them, and the food they did have
was practically inedible. They did not work clothes, only a

(02:47):
flimsy undergarment that was provided as a kind of uniform,
and anyone who refused to work or stopped due to
exhaustion was beaten or killed, a message to the others
to keep working. Meanwhile, above ground, the Japanese continued with
business as usual. They shopped and ate together had fun,
either unaware or unable to process the war crimes happening

(03:09):
literally beneath their feet. It was estimated that nearly fifteen
hundred Koreans and just over seven hundred Chinese laborers were
tortured and killed on Hashima. By nineteen time marched on
and the city all but returned to normal. Following the war,
the population on the island experienced a baby boom of
its own, reaching over five thousand citizens. However, while the

(03:31):
number of people living there grew the need for the
miners began to shrink. The nineteen sixties saw their dependence
on coal reach and all time low oil was the
energy source of the future, which meant that the mind
that had been active since the eighteen hundreds was becoming obsolete.
Mitsubishi shut it down for good in January of nineteen
seventy four. With their economy and shambles and their source

(03:54):
of income shuttered, the people living on the island had
no reason to stay. Everyone was gone by April of
that same year. Mitsubishi held onto Hashima until the early
two thousands, when it finally gave it over to the
local government. Of course, Nagasaki City, which controls access to
the island, believe the former burg still had something to offer.

(04:15):
But if not coal, then what well tourism. Of course
it took a lot of careful planning, but Hashima Island well,
a piece of it anyway, open to the public. In
two thousand nine, tourists were not permitted to venture out
of a specially cordoned off area due to safety reasons,
which is still the case today. The apartments and other
buildings are unstable, their foundations and structures rotting away from

(04:39):
exposure to the harsh elements, but people from all over
the world are still fascinated by what Hashima has to offer,
mainly because it's a time capsule of two distinct periods
in Japanese history, the tai Show period and the Showa period,
spanning the nineteen twenties to the mid nineteen seventies. In
two thousand fifteen, Hashima's Mine was designated a UNESCO World

(05:02):
Heritage Site, but Japan was told by the committee to
educate visitors about its problematic past as a forced labor camp. Sadly,
the island hasn't just preserved a moment in time for
the Japanese, but it also stands as a monument to
the cruelty perpetrated during World War Two. Ashima Island was
geographically and historically much like a typical city. It had

(05:23):
a shiny facade that everyone saw and a dark secret
few were willing to acknowledge. But history doesn't forget, and
neither should we, and the laborers who suffered and died
there deserve to be remembered. It's hard to let things

(05:52):
go when we witness injustice in the world, whether it's
a person in need of help, an animal left by
the side of the road, or someone being persecuted. Did
for who they are, it's in our nature to do
something about it. One British bus driver did just that,
but while his action against a perceived injustice put him
on the wrong side of the law and also put

(06:12):
him on the right side of public opinion. It started
in August of nineteen sixty one with the unveiling of
a new exhibit at the National Gallery in London. The
museum had recently acquired an oil portrait of the Duke
of Wellington's. First painted around eighteen twelve, it was, as
the name describes, a portrait of General Arthur Wellesley, the
first Duke of Wellington, and depicted the Duke in his

(06:35):
red military uniform adorned with various medals and ribbons acquired
during his service. It measured roughly inches by twenty one
inches and had been passed down through the family over
the years. By the time it went up for auction
in nineteen sixty one, the painting was owned by John Osborne,
eleventh Duke of Leeds. It was part of a nasty

(06:55):
buying war between American industrialist Charles Reitzman and the people
of Britain. They didn't want the portrait traveling overseas and
believed that should stay in its rightful home in England,
and so the Wolfson Foundation stepped in to buy it back.
The Foundation, a philanthropic organization that provided grants to top
scientists and arts candidates in their fields, purchased the portrait

(07:16):
at cost on behalf of the National Gallery. On August
two of that year, it was made available to the public.
Everything was quiet for the next nineteen days. On August one, though,
the painting went missing. The guards didn't say anything at first,
they figured it had just been moved elsewhere, but when
it didn't show up the next morning, they called in

(07:37):
the police. The investigation didn't turn up much over the
following week until a letter arrived at the London offices
of Reuters. It had been written by the alleged thief
and came with a few steep demands. First, they wanted
one forty thousand pounds donated to charity. Secondly, they wanted
immunity for returning the portrait. As long as those conditions

(07:58):
were met, then the National Allery could have its painting back.
The money never materialized, though, and so neither did the Duke.
The culprits continued to send letters to the media, hoping
to see movement on their demands, but nobody took the
bait until four years later in nineteen That's when a
fifth and final letter with a much less costly plan

(08:20):
arrived at the Daily Mirror. It made a simple request
for one month let the public see the portrait for
the low cost of five shillings per visit. After that
it could be reinstalled at the National Gallery, and any
donations that had been collected would be donated to the
thief's choice of charity. As with his previous attempts, the
police didn't bother entertaining the thief, but the Daily Mirror responded.

(08:44):
It published an article on its front page promising to
try its best to see that the thief's demands were met,
and although nothing ever came of it, their efforts must
have tugged at the culprit's heartstrings because not long after,
another envelope arrived at the newspaper's offices. Inside it was
a ticket. It had come from a train station in
Birmingham and was meant to be redeemed at the station's

(09:05):
baggage check counter. The paper gave the ticket to Scotland Yard,
who traveled to the station and exchanged it for a
carefully wrapped package that had been left behind. It was
the portrait of the Duke. The painting was still in
perfect condition, but it was missing his frame. The very
next week it went back on display at the National Gallery.
While authorities continued to search for the thief, they didn't

(09:28):
need to work too hard, though. Sixty one year old
bus driver Kempton Bunton waltzed into a police station on
July nine and told them everything. He had been the
portrait thief all along. So why had he stolen the
Duke in the first place, and more importantly, why had
he turned himself in. Bunton, you see, was a man
of the people. He resented the notion that retirees on

(09:51):
a fixed income still had to pay the government a
BBC licensing fee to own a television set. He had
tried to modify his own television so it couldn't actually
get a BBC signal, but he wound up in jail
a few times for failure to pay the fee. Stealing
the painting and holding it for ransom had been his
master plan to pay the television fees for himself and

(10:11):
his fellow retirees. As for why he'd confessed, well, he'd
accidentally let it slip to his son's girlfriend that he
had done it. He wanted to beat her to the
punch in case she turned him in for the reward money.
Bunton told the police that he had gotten into the
museum by climbing up a wall along the side of
the building, then up a ladder that had been left
out by maintenance workers, until he'd finally located an unlocked

(10:34):
window and slipped inside. There was just one problem. Though
Bunton wasn't necessarily young and rather large in size, there
was no way he could have pulled off the heist,
at least not by himself, but he went to trial
for it regardless. He argued that technically the painting was
no longer stolen, all he was really guilty of taking
was the frame, and the jury agreed. Then he went

(10:56):
to jail for only three months. But something still didn't
sit with the police nor the public. The idea that
this rather heavy set, older gentleman could have climbed his
way into the National Gallery and made off with such
a high profile item still puzzled them. Several years later
everyone got the truth. Bunton's son, John found himself in

(11:18):
police custody for a totally different offense. He was afraid
that after he was booked into the system, his fingerprints
would come up as a match to the prince from
the original portrait investigation. Rather than wait for the other
shoe to drop, John simply turned himself in. He had
been the real thief all along, having swiped the portrait
to bolster his father's BBC licensing cause. Funny enough, the

(11:40):
Prince didn't actually match up anyway, and the authorities had
no evidence to go on, so they let him go.
The case of the theft, however, became incredibly popular across Britain,
so much so that it was even referenced in the
first ever James Bond film, Doctor No, back in nineteen
sixty two. In one scene, Dr No, portrayed by Joseph Wiseman,
leads Sean Connery up a small staircase beside which sits

(12:03):
the portrait well a very convincing prop At least, Bond
notices it and examines it up close, incredulous that it
should be found in the layer of the film's main villain.
It's often said that art imitates life, but in this case,
life would also imitate art because After filming completed, the
film's version of the painting also went on display, and

(12:27):
then it too was stolen. I hope you've enjoyed today's
guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by

(12:47):
me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all
about it over at the World of Lore or dot
Come and until next time, stay curious. H