Nambu World: Other Japanese Militaria

This section shows a small selection of the non-weapon Japanese militaria in my collection. It also has links to sites on these topics for those who wish to find out more about flags, banners, medals and lots of other stuff. I have tons of stuff to add to this section—it will take me years to catch up!

Good Luck Flags

Japanese soldiers often carried a couple of mementoes to bring them good luck. One was the famous senninbari, or “thousand stitch belt” (see below). The other, perhaps more common, was an autographed hinomaru flag. To find out more about these flags, please click here: Nambu World: Good Luck Flags (Hinomaru yosegaki)

Senninbari “Thousand Stitch Belts”:

Japanese soldiers often carried cloth belts on which female members of their families had gathered one thousand stitches from passersby. These belts were supposed to help them return from battle safely. Here is my senninbari.

To see more photos and read more about these belts, please click here: Nambu World: Senninbari (Thousand Stitch Belts)

Good Luck Charms (O-mamori)

Here is a selection of good luck charms that have military slogans on them: Nambu World: O-mamori (Good Luck Charms)

Send-Off Banners

Japanese conscripts got marched off to the local train station in parades with great fanfare. These banners are the ones you see people carrying in these parades. To see several such banners and more explanation, please click here: Nambu World: Japanese Send-Off Banners

Welcome Home/”Triumphant Return” (Gaisen) Items

Of course, the Japanese also held celebrations to welcome their victorious soldiers home and created items to commemorate their victories. The term gaisen (“triumphant return”) generally appears on such items. To view a selection from my collection, please click here: Nambu World: Welcome Back/"Triumphant Return" (Gaisen) Items

Medals:

I just have a few fairly common medals, but I have translated all the inscriptions on them in this section, and provided links to more detailed information.

To check out the medals section, please click here: Nambu World: Japanese Medals

Japanese Military Bags

The Japanese military used a variety of cloth drawstring bags: hokobukuro for service records, kichohinbukuro for valuables and imonbukuro for “care packages”. I have several of these bags. To find out more, please click here: Japanese Military Bags

Japanese Military Sake Cups and Bottles

Sake, or “rice wine”, is an indispensable part of Japanese culture. Many military sake cups and bottles were commissioned. They are a fascinating and still relatively inexpensive form of militaria to collect. To see my small collection and find out more, please click here: Japanese Military Sake Cups and Bottles

Japanese Currency & Invasion Scrip:

Japanese troops had to get paid, and wherever the Japanese took over, they issued invasion scrip for use in the local economy. To see some examples of Japanese WWII era currency and invasion scrip, please click here: Japanese Currency & Invasion Scrip

Marksmanship Related Items

This section includes a variety of items related to marksmanship and marksmanship training, including badges, record books, certificates, manuals, etc.

Nambu World: Marksmanship Related Items

Miscellaneous Japanese Militaria

Here are some other miscellaneous items like field manuals, stuff from paramilitary organizations, etc. To see this potpourri, please click here: Nambu World: Miscellaneous Japanese Militaria

Books:

There are lots of books on Japanese militaria, and several are covered in the sections above. I’ll just post a few of the other things I think are the best here.

One exceptional recent book is this one by Mike Hewitt entitled Uniforms and Equipment of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II. This amazing book has colour photographs of every conceivable type of gear along with black and white period photos of it being used or worn by Japanese troops. What’s even more astounding is that everything shown is in this one man’s collection! (except for a pair of skis). The publisher is Schiffer.

Another standard reference work is in Japanese, but has an English insert that translates the captions. It is Dai Nippon Teikoku Rikukaigun Gunso to Sobi by Nakata, which bears the English title Imperial Japanese Army and Navy Uniforms and Equipments [sic]. It has a lot of photos of original artifacts.

Another useful reference is a Japanese-English, English-Japanese Military Dictionary. Here is the one I have: It is a 1942 reprint of a pre-war dictionary. I got it from Abe Books, an on-line clearing house for second-hand book dealers. Unfortunately it is surprisingly light on firearms terminology.

Last updated: June 9, 2009. All contents are copyright Teri unless otherwise specified and may not be used elsewhere in any form without prior permission.

Click here to go back to the main page: Nambu World: Teri’s WWII Japanese Handgun Website