WW2 Bringback

[JohnB007]

My father brought home a sword from the Pacific Islands in 1945. I played with it in the 1960's. It was a mass produced sword and I painted it silver to look like a King Arthur type sword. (I was 10 years old, and dad didn't care.) It had chocolate brown and bright yellow tassles on it which I threw away. Now I'm looking up the story of these swords and see Brown and Yellow designate the rank of the officer. It has markings and numbers stamped on it. Is there any way to find out the history?

[Trenchnut]

Might pop some pictures mate.

[David Flynn]

G'day Gunther, can you speak Strine?

 

[PNSSHOGUN]

Yellow tassels like this? 

 

[Trenchnut]

1 hour ago, David Flynn said:

G'day Gunther, can you speak Strine?

 

Not at all David, but toss me some beers and I gonna give it a try. 

A friend of mine, engineering degree, worked for a company that had sold a number of IFVs on the M113 platform to Australia. The deal didn´t go too well, as they frequently broke

down. So the company send him down under to investigate, what has been going wrong. Right then he had a difficult time with his wife. Poor chap thus went to a bar, got some beer...

A young lady entered the bar late in the night, took him straight home and didn´t let him go eversince.  He married her, settled down, got the australien passport and two children.

Aussie slang has become familiar to me, but I fail with the proper pronouncation frequently...

Sorry, didn´t want to derail the thread, but sometimes I´m carried away with it.

 

[John C]

7 hours ago, JohnB007 said:

It had chocolate brown and bright yellow tassles on it which I threw away.

I hope not...

 

John C.

[JohnB007]

3 hours ago, PNSSHOGUN said:

Yellow tassels like this? 

 

The Yellow is correct but I can't remember it having a red backing. I just remember Chocolate Brown and Bright Yellow. Plus it was woven like that. Such a shame I threw it away. I'll post photos tomorrow of the sword, but it is an early mass produced sword from what I have seen on YouTube. 

Thanks

John

[PNSSHOGUN]

If it was that tassel it really would've been a shame as that colour denotes General officer ranks. 

 

[JohnB007]

So here are the photos. From what I can see on the internet it's an early mass produced sword, maybe 1935. It has an aluminium handle with a copper or maybe bronze hilt. It is very solid. Until a few days ago I thought the ribbons represented the regiment, but now I realize it's the rank. The ribbons were Chocolate Brown and Bright Yellow. It was really tightly woven material just like in the photo above, but I don't remember any red. Anyway here are the photos of the sword. But the main question is, why would a General Officer have a mass produced sword? Maybe he was just from a very poor family? Maybe he was promoted very late in the war and couldn't get a fancy sword? My father was in the Solomon Islands and got the sword in 1945 after the surrender.

I'll post other photos as I exceeded the upload limit.

[JohnB007]

More photos.

[JohnB007]

Another

[Rawa]

Impossible. NCO wasnt for IJA regular army. Someone just made addon. Also Its Kokura Pattern 2 [A?]NCO 95 @Scogg I would like to hear your estimates this sword was made - max1942?

[JohnB007]

Oh and I just remembered that dad said he got it off a Colonel in Rabaul. My dad was a sort of commando with a Bren gun. In the later years of the war he was on jungle patrols along with an ammo carrier who carried about 20 spare bren magazines, a radio guy, and 4 or 5 guys with Owens and lots of grenades. He was probably on security detail in Rabaul during the surrender, as he was not an officer. 

[John C]

Just now, JohnB007 said:

off a Colonel

John:

It's possible, however these type 95 swords were issued to NCOs; officers carried type 98 (like the one John (pnsshogun) showed above). In addition, these would have had leather tassels rather than silk. Do you happen to remember a leather tassel? It's possible an officer was carrying this sword for some reason, but less likely. The brown goo covering the blade is most likely cosmoline used to preserve the blade.

John C.

[Scogg]

Hi John, cool sword.

It's a pattern 2, Type 95 Shin-Gunto with the aluminum handle and brass tsuba. Yours has the Iijima factory stamp, TO stamp ((東)Tokyo first army arsenal supervisory section)), and Tokyo first army arsenal trademark star stamp. 

The date range I have for this serial number range and stamps is a little wide... It was made between September 1942 and March 1945; and probably sometime near the middle of that range, in my opinion based on my data. 

They are pretty collectible so take good care of it.
Does the scabbard have a number that matches the blade? It would be near the opening where the blade inserts.
-Sam


 

[PNSSHOGUN]

As Rabaul wasn't taken by force the Japanese were more or less left to their own devices after the surrender, you sometimes see swords from Rabaul with quite detailed owners tags that list the officers name, detachment, and details of the sword itself.  

[Bruce Pennington]

2 hours ago, JohnB007 said:

The ribbons were Chocolate Brown and Bright Yellow.

John,

The two colors are not what we see on Japanese rank tassels.  Without a photo, it won't be possible to tell you what it was.  We have seen a variety of unknown tassels on swords.  A good many of them were from sword bags and placed on the swords.  I suspect some of them were local productions.  As John, PNSSHOGUN, alluded to, many units were effectively abandoned by Japan and forced to fend for themselves.

 

As to the officer carrying this, again, we are off to pure speculation.  Officers were allowed to rent and buy Type 95 gunto due to repeated sword shortages during the war.  It is possible that this is the reason for this one.  There are many other scenarios I could imagine (his favorite NCO was killed and the officer was carrying his sword, etc, etc).  But, for us, it will remain a mystery.

[JohnB007]

Thank you very much for your detailed responses.

The tassle was definitely woven silk exactly the same as the photo above, except I don't remember the red backing. I remember it being very nice with the same tight weave pattern. Brown and Yellow, but I can't remember a red backing. Absolutely not leather. 

The scabard has the same serial number, so that matches.

I've read that New Britain had 100,000+ Japanese soldiers at the war's end. They were the invasion force destined for Australia but after Midway they had no way to be transported for the invasion. As an aside we had a shoe box full of invasion money which we used when playing Monopoly and card games. I raise you 10,000 invasion dollars!! I might have a few $100,000 left but 90+% is gone. No idea where. 

 

[JohnB007]

Does anyone have photos of tassles used on the sword bags? What does a sword bag look like? 

Thanks

[Scogg]

Japanese sword bags often have yellow tassels, as seen below:
 

If the sword originally had a General rank tassel, it would be a shame if it were lost; as they are pretty valuable. I see no reason to doubt your story, it sounds plausible to me. As Bruce pointed out, though, without a time machine, it may be impossible to confirm the full history with absolute certainty.
 

That said, inherited pieces like this often carry personal and historical value that goes beyond what can be proven. Thanks for sharing yours; it's always a pleasure to see these kinds of items surface and be appreciated.
All the best,

-Sam

[Bruce Pennington]

Fading can really change tassel colors, too.  Just a possibility.

[JohnB007]

Thanks Sam. This is all about personal value, and has nothing to do with monetary value. The tassles were not round like a bag tassle. Nothing like them. They were flat, tightly woven with that silver fleck, brown and bright yellow. The only thing is I can't recall the red backing. But hey, it's 60 years ago when I was a 10 year old that I'm trying to remember. I'm  very pleased that I now know what the sword is, and, where and approximately when it was made. That's a huge pleasure for me. 

It is a shame that a little kid in rural NSW, and really also my dad, didn't know the significance of those tassles. My dad had no interest In the war. He did his bit. It happened. Two of my uncles didn't come back. One on the Burma railway and the other died in a plane crash in the North Pacific and is buried on Vancouver Island, Canada. My dad was not interested in glorifying the war. That sword, the invasion money, and a Japanese pilot's watch (long lost) were just souvenirs that were in a box in the garage. They were never displayed. I just found them and played with them. Dad had zero interest.

So thanks for the information. It is great.

John

[Scogg]

My pleasure, John, and thank you for sharing your family stories around the war. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying how fascinating they are to hear.

Your experience with your sword is one many of us can relate to. At the time, these items were often seen as little more than souvenirs from a difficult yesterday; far from the historical items we now treasure as connections to our fathers and grandfathers and a world altering conflict.

I also inherited a sword very young. Before it came to me, my grandfather spray painted the scabbard gold. Fortunately, the dry climate has caused much of the paint to flake off over the years.

Cool sword, and thank you for sharing!
-Sam

[JohnB007]

Thanks Sam

I've watched a lot of documentaries on WW2, particularly in the Pacific, and especially around New Britain.  The Rabaul garrison was a core of their Australian invasion army. Dad said they had huge amounts of tanks, trucks, and artillery stored in caves to preserve them from Allied air strikes. However, the Allies did extensively bomb the Rabaul airfield, warehourses, barracks, port, and ships. After the Japanese navy became ineffective, it was too late for the garrison to be evacuated or even resupplied. So a scenario might have been an officer's barracks gets bombed whist he was hiding in a nearby cave or bomb shelter. Afterwards he finds his sword destroyed. There is no chance to get another "proper" suitable sword as a replacement,  so he grabs the best he can find, puts on the correct tassles, and continues like everything is OK, even though the men are starving. It takes a lot to feed 100,000 men. He needed to keep up appearances for morale. Then 6 to 12 months later the war was over. Dad didn't take the sword. He said the Colonel happily gave it to him, happy that he'd survived the war. And that sword meant nothing to the Colonel as it was a "nothing" sword and he'd only had it for 6 to 12 months. It wasn't a family heirloom or valuable.  That is a possible scenario but we will never know. 

But thanks again for giving me the information about the sword. It's a link to my long dead, very much loved father.

John

[John C]

7 minutes ago, JohnB007 said:

The Rabaul garrison

John:

If you are interested in reading a bit about the other side of Rabaul, The Eternal Zero by Hyakuta has some interesting stories about their time there.

 

John C.

[JohnB007]

Thanks. I've not read or seen that, but I've read and seen lots of documentaries from the Japanese side. Once they lost air cover and naval support, the 100k troops in Rabaul were on their own. Lots of disease and malnutrition. They tried to lure the Allies into a land battle but that was futile, and of absolutely no value to the Allies. So it was a waiting game. My dad said the terrain was very difficult. Even a patrol of 6 men was very hard going. Very steep with heavy jungle. The only way to attack was either along the coast or from the sea.