Nambu World: Display At My Museum Lecture, January 10, 2008
On January 10, 2008 I gave an invited one-hour lecture at The Military Museums, a single complex in Calgary that houses several museums representing different regiments and branches of service. It is an official Canadian Department of National Defence facility whose website is at The Military Museums - Home. My topic was "Sending Japanese Soldiers Off to War: The Artifacts and Culture Behind Letters from Iwo Jima". I set up a small display of related artifacts in the museum foyer. I only had about half an hour to set up, so it had to be simple. Here is an overall shot. The banners on the right are send-off banners for a Mr. Kurita (sponsored by a billiard hall) and a Mr. Ishikawa (sponsored by his employer, Nippon Life Insurance). The banner on the right is a welcome home (gaisen="triumphant return") banner for a Mr. Maekawa, who served in the Manchurian Incident (banner sponsored by a dry goods store). You can read more about banners at Nambu World: Japanese Enlistment Banners. Detailed photos and descriptions of the background panels and cases follow below.
Starting from the left, the first background panel is a good luck flag for a
Mr. Sato. This one probably dates from 1942 or later as it has the slogan
"Defeat England and America". More interestingly, however, it also
has a rather long slogan that translates roughly as "achieve a state of mind
where, upon seeing the enemy, you will certainly kill him". Sort of
Zen-like. You can read more about these flags at Nambu
World: Japanese Good Luck Flags. Below this was a case with senninbari (thousand stitch belts), shown in more
detail below. I did not do the kind of detailed labeling I usually do because I
was standing with the display the whole time it was accessible to the audience
doing a running commentary .
Here is a more detailed shot of the contents of that case. On the left is a
small (<24 inch) senninbari with the slogan
mamore gunkoku,
"protect our country at war". (You can read more about senninbari at Nambu
World: Senninbari (Thousand Stitch Belts). Just
to the right of that at the bottom of the photo is a small wallet that was made
in the field from a comfort bag (imonbukuro,
which is what the three characters on it say). The senninbari
came in that wallet. The large white senninbari
is from a military doctor with the rank of captain and has the date "an
auspicious day in August, 1937". In the upper right is an unfinished senninriki (like a thousand stitch belt but with the
character meaning "power" repeated instead of stitches. It has the
very common slogan "bu-un-cho-kyu", "eternal
good luck in war". The same slogan is on the senninbari
in the lower right, which belonged to a Mr. Kuwahara.
It appears to have been taken in the field as it has blood stains and a US Army
Intelligence inspection stamp.
The middle section of the display had a panel explaining the significance of
good luck flags and thousand-stitch belts and a case with the flag and other
effects of a Corporal Ogita, who was killed near
Shanghai in 1938 (see below for more details).
This case houses some of the effects of Corporal Ogita
(I have a number of his other items as well). The flag in the background has
the usual "eternal good luck in war" slogan in the upper right and
the slogan yamato damashii
(Japanese spirit) across the top. His green service record bag (hokobukuro) is in the centre along with a wooden
door badge indicating his family has a son at the front, and booklets about
draft rules and the responsibilities of a reservist. Along the right is the red
sash he wore at his send-off ceremony, his service record book (top) and the
ribbons his bereaved parents wore at his funeral (bottom).
The far right case had the flag of a Mr. Kameuchi,
which bears the other very common wartime slogan jinchu
hokoku (loyalty and national service). The items
in the case are described below.
This case has a variety of small items. At the left are sashes from the Women's
Patriotic Association and National Defense Women's Associations along with
membership badges from those groups (women's groups organized the preparation
of the good-lick items and were prominent participants in the send-off parades
and related ceremonies). Below the blue Japan Women's Association patch to the
right of the sashes are a membership badges from that organization as well as
one from the Seinendan (Youth Group; sort of
like a militarized version of the Boy Scouts) and early and late versions of
the Imperial Reservists' Association badges. The four rows of five small items
each are comprised of o-mamori, good luck
charms frequently purchased at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples even today (the
ones shown here all have military slogans on them and seem to date from the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05). The document in the upper centre/right is a
receipt for conscript life insurance, with the insured conscript badge below
it. There are several period photos and in the lower right corner, Imperial
Gift cigarettes (given to soldiers as a gift from the Emperor when returning
from a successful campaign), a small silver box commemorating gaisen (triumphant return) from the Russo-Japanese
War of 1904-05 and a sake cup with a flag of Manchuria that is marked to
commemorate triumphant return from the Manchurian Incident of the early
1930s.
Finally, here I am with my display. The talk was a success, with about 25
people present, including the Consul-General of Japan. This level of attendance
seems to be about average for the lecture series. I got this opportunity due to
a fellow member of the Military Collectors' Club of Canada who put me in touch
with the organizer. After I retire in a few years, I hope to devote myself
full-time to speaking and writing on topics related to the Imperial Japanese
military, so I was very pleased to be offered this chance to get started on
building my reputation.
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