WWII Japanese Soldier Dog Tag/Uniform Accessories Translation Help

[bigcaddy64]

I was out making my rounds this morning and ended up finding a small baggie (buried in a box of kitchen utensils of all places) that contained a number of personal effects from a deceased WWII Japanese soldier.


Obviously the dog tag is self explanatory but the other items are unique and I have no idea what you would even call them or if they are part of a Japanese soldiers uniform. Perhaps they are personal effects or tokens for good luck?

its going to take some time to decipher the tag but I think one of the pieces will contain the soldiers name. The hand written note looks like the guy that owned them did his own translating and only got that far.

If anybody has seen these items before I’d love to hear what they are called since internet searches pull up nothing except the dog tags

 

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[Red-Coat]

Interesting little collection, albeit with a tinge of sadness for the unfortunate former owner. I can’t help much (you really need someone fluent in Japanese) apart from this…



The dog tag characters are read from top-to-bottom and then right-to-left. Yours has what is known as a ‘Tsusho Bango’ or ‘Alias Code’ of 7768 at the far right. From 10th September 1940, these numbers were specified for the smaller components of self-sufficient operational units at Division and Brigade level. Usually, they were accompanied by a single Kanji character above the numbers known as a ‘Heidan Mojifu’ or ‘Corps Character Code’ for the division or Brigade. The combination of ‘Heidan Mojifu’ and ‘Tsusho Bango’ represented the full identity code for the unit and was known as a ‘Tsushogo’. Unfortunately, yours doesn’t have the Corps Character Code, so that makes identification more difficult.

These codes were designed to obscure the identity of the unit from which killed or captured soldiers came. Despite being ineffective at doing that for more than a month or so, and being an administrative nightmare for the Japanese army, they apparently persevered with the system until the end of the war.

I found a link to a website where someone has painstakingly listed the codes for identification purposes but it was in Japanese and, in any case, the links to the actual lists returned a “page not found” message.

 

[Yang Hao]

Picture number 4 is a location in Japan the right side characters are （和歌山県海南市冷水）

Shimizu · Kainan, Wakayama 642-0035, Japan

Kainan, Wakayama 642-0035, Japan

goo.gl

 

[Yang Hao]

I was looking at the bag and it appears to say the following 夏目軍者. 夏目 I believe means Natsume in Japanese and 軍者 I believe means soldier.

 

[Yang Hao]

I have a little more time and did some more looking. Both sides of the wood have the characters 宮前 which is the surname Miyamae in Japanese.

宮前 - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

The rest of the characters I'm guessing are the rest of their names. Which maybe the same names as in the piece of paper in the last photo. Seikichi (清吉) Miyamae, and Taichiro (太一郎) Miyamae. Which they seem to be.

 

[UnderMiner]

Great save!

 

[bigcaddy64]

I have a little more time and did some more looking. Both sides of the wood have the characters 宮前 which is the surname Miyamae in Japanese.

宮前 - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

The rest of the characters I'm guessing are the rest of their names. Which maybe the same names as in the piece of paper in the last photo. Seikichi (清吉) Miyamae, and Taichiro (太一郎) Miyamae. Which they seem to be.

thank you very much for the effort you put in to read those items. I had a feeling the little wooden board was some sort of token/charm with names on it. At some point the previous owner had somebody interpret them and wrote the names down on that piece of white paper.

I’ll keep them handy and let everybody see it on thanksgiving since we have a number of friends that were children born during the post war boom to GI parents.

thanks again and have a great thanksgiving too!

 

[Dadsnorz]

Returning relics to heal scars of war | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

They say time heals all wounds, but sometimes the healing can take decades. Seventy-five years after the end of World War Two, some people are still working to ease the pain of those who lost loved ones by returning artifacts taken by the victors.

www3.nhk.or.jp

This is a group in Japan that reunites these relics with their families and it is truly remarkable the significance they hold to the survivors of these soldiers. The small flags that were signed by all of the family members before going off to war were of special significance. If the relics become something you ever tire of, you might want to contact them. I personally would have a hard time letting them go because they are awesome pieces of history, but if you ever feel compelled, you may wish to contact this group. Nice haul!

 

[Gare]

Very Interesting ! Thanks for posting for us

 

[Gare]

I would think there should have been a lot of them where they committed suicide on Iwo Jima in the ocean cove where they jumped

 

[devldog]

The Japanese knew that the Corps was comin. When I was in the Marine Corps my Sergeant Major was a young 17 year old Marine when they slammed head first into Iwo Jima. He was quite a Marine.

 

[Gare]

The Japanese knew that the Corps was comin. When I was in the Marine Corps my Sergeant Major was a young 17 year old Marine when they slammed head first into Iwo Jima. He was quite a Marine.

DD Thank you for your input and most of all THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE