Help identifying two swords, brought back during WWII

[JeremyS]

My grandfather brought these back from WWII and they have been in my possession for nearly 20 years. A book I read recently piqued my interest, and I would like to find out a little more about these swords. The signature on the daito sure looks like naokatsu, but the first symbol (nao?) is slightly different from what I'm seeing. However, I cannot find anything else similar...

 

Blade length on the Daito is 26 inches, and on the Wakizashi it is 20.5 inches.

 

I'm just going to paste the links to these photos here instead of posting them in the thread here, because they are LARGE photos.

 

Thanks for any information you may have! Yes... both blades are dirty. They have some sort of grease on them from storage and I probably will not clean them myself... I clean and protect firearms regularly, but know essentially nothing about properly maintaining a sword. These were on my wall for maybe 8 years when I was younger, but have been in a closet the rest of the time. Unfortunately, my grandfather didn't really take care of them and the saya and other koshirae were cracked and broken when I received these.

 

Jeremy

 

Daito:

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swords/daisho.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... to_kao.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... issaki.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... shirae.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... nakago.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... tsuba1.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... _whole.jpg

 

Wakizashi:

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swords/menuki2.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... hi_kao.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... gatana.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... nakago.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... i_rear.jpg

http://www.crucialracing.com/images/swo ... _tsuba.jpg

wakizashi_whole.jpg

[SwordGuyJoe]

Wakizashi is Kunihisa

Diato looks like Nao *something* (someone can fill in the blank)

[JeremyS]

I was pretty sure on katsu... nao katsu. More sure about the Katsu part than the nao part. The nao in the symbol below (which is how it appears everywhere I have seen online) is different from what is on my sword in a few ways. A friend who speaks Japanese also read it as nao, although he does not know anything about swords. All I know is that the symbols have a few differences.

 

直勝 << nao katsu

 

Thanks for the Kunihisa info. I am TOTALLY new to the whole swords thing though. Obviously I'll do a google search and whatnot, but is there anything you can tell me about this. About what a Kunihisa sword means?

 

Jeremy

[Jamie]

That does look to be Naokatsu

I am just learning-so keep in mind others translations may be more accurate than mine.