buishi

Fascinating! Wasn't Suishinshi Masatsugo making Katana in the edo period, up to 1860? Did they repurpose edo blades for world war 2, or would it be fake, or an "homage", or did the maker title become a workshop title? It does seem like a nice blade (to my untrained eye).

Looks like there was one more character there under the seppa

Thanks so much for your replies and advice! Those are very good points to consider. I suppose my first step is finding the family and reaching out to them. I'm not tied to the idea of returning the sword, especially if it were unwanted (or perhaps even rude to return such a gift), the shrapnel may be a more significant item to bring in that regard anyway. On this forum I came across a very similar story to mine that was made into a documentary (A Doctor's Sword, https://tubitv.com/movies/596823/a-doctor-s-sword). Here are some more pictures, let me know if you notice anything, and if you'd like to see anything in particular. Is it possible to know the rank from the tassels?

The sword was presented to my great grandfather during World War II. The story as I know it, is that he received it from an officer of a warship for giving him life-saving surgery. In addition to the sword, you can also see bits of molten aluminum, those were shrapnel removed during the surgery. There's a small note on a piece of masking tape on the sword, which I believe reads "Gen. Okamura of Japanese army. Sword of surrender". So my question is, what can I learn from this sword? Is it a general's sword? Any ideas on how I can find this Okamura? A cursory search turned up three General Okamura's, none of which would have been positioned in the pacific, nor who had injuries that could relate to the story. I'm traveling to Japan in a few weeks, and I'd love to be able to return the sword to the family of its owner. BTW this is my first post here and the beginning of my search, please forgive me if I've overlooked obvious resources, I don't know what I don't know