Japanese Flag

[Libertesoe]

Have had SOME Japanese items at various times in the past but its not normally at the forefront of my collecting. That said I just acquired this Framed Flag. I liked it so much I took a punt for a reasonable price......Thought I'd share as it has an interesting story.

I wont repeat what's in the next picture as you can read for yourselves. I initially wondered if it was correct and referred to that specific flag.

I did a bit of digging and established that Major Young was from a well known and established Family who owned an old and substantial property in Scotland. I googled a few leads the other night and found the property he owned. It is a listed building (those in the UK will know what I mean but for everyone else, basically its protected and any new owner has to agree to its preservation) It's now been sold on and I can only think that the flag was sold during the house clearance.....Here's the really interesting part....because its listed, some photographs exist of its exterior and interior. These have been recorded for the future. I found the site which contains the photographs and low and behold here was the Framed picture, on a wall. If you look closely you'll also see the small letter displayed underneath.

Interesting that Major Young  is trying to make the connection between Major General Sato Tamenori/Vice Admiral Hara Teizo and the Flag. These two individuals signed a surrender document in the Andaman Islands in 1945. The islands saw some of the worst Japanese barbarity, including beheadings and the desertion of Indian Army troops to Bose's Free Indian Army. Interesting reading in its own right if anyone wanted to google it.

At the War's end, Tamenori was sentenced to be hanged for killing and ill treating Burmese civilians.

Appreciate these flags aren't rare , but I thought having a translation and some provenance was quite good.

The key for me will be finding out a bit more about Major Young. Anyone on the forum have access to soldiers records?

 

 

[Guest Fred Karno's Army]

That's a fantastic piece,thanks for sharing  .It will be interesting to see what you can find out.

[Libertesoe]

Just noticed the Samurai swords on the wall......the guy I bought it off said it had come in as one collection....I wonder where they went?

[Lenny]

That's pretty awesome...

[Davejb]

Well it must have some signifigance  as its framed in a grand house, not the norm for these especially as there are two Samurai swords a few feet away, I had one of these with the same type of sentiments on it although i never got them translated, but they do make a very nice display item, they are also one of the few items that are hard to fake as most are made from pure silk, which is very costly now but was in abundance in Japan during the war   

[Bil4338]

I've read that a lot of these plain meatball flags were faked up after the Japanese surrender by marines and GI's ready to sell or trade with the REMF's who took over garrison duty on the various islands.

what they did was to copy Japanese characters from captured or abandoned crates and boxes, so that years later, if a recipient of one of these flags was able to get it translated, the flag would read 'rice', 'sake', 'rations' or similar.disappointing enough if a genuine captured item was expected, but it just goes to show that commercial enterprise never waned at least on the part of the canny US serviceman!

....and I'm not at all inferring that the subject flag was in any way inventively created as I related!

[Libertesoe]

On 4/13/2016 at 00:01, Bil4338 said:

I've read that a lot of these plain meatball flags were faked up after the Japanese surrender by marines and GI's ready to sell or trade with the REMF's who took over garrison duty on the various islands.

what they did was to copy Japanese characters from captured or abandoned crates and boxes, so that years later, if a recipient of one of these flags was able to get it translated, the flag would read 'rice', 'sake', 'rations' or similar.disappointing enough if a genuine captured item was expected, but it just goes to show that commercial enterprise never waned at least on the part of the canny US serviceman!

....and I'm not at all inferring that the subject flag was in any way inventively created as I related!

I dont doubt it for a minute @Bil4338....Chance of a quick buck n' all that!

[Desert Rat]

There has been a few of these on EB recently..which seems strange, as I haven't seen any on there for 10 years like this, with writing, signatures etc....so I wonder if someone has picked up? on how to age these, get some Japanese guy to scribble some words on them in aged ink mixed with coffee or (good old English Bisto or oxo granuels) how am I to ever understand this language??) and sell them as WW2 rare items?

I am lost with this type of treasure...unless someone can enlighten me.???........Many Thanks..Desert Rat