Good & Bad News...

Bad News

In regards to my previous post, ‘Opening of the Samurai Sword’. I received an email back from Daniel McGlinchy,  (Duty Curator at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra). He was able to identify what the number ‘66’ on the sword meant. Unfortunately, the number was in no way linked to the officer who carried the sword. The number was simply an assembly number, and relates to the manufacturing of the sword. When the guards on the swords were made, they had several spacers either side, they were all numbered the same as they belonged to one set of mountings that fitted to each individual sword, and each sword would have a different number.

Good News

When I was at my uncles last month, he noticed that one of the pictures my grandfather found was actually not a photograph, it was infact a postcard of the soldier, we had never noticed this previously. Then when I looked at the back of the second photograph, we discovered the postcard and photograph actually had two identical stamps.

I photographed the stamps, and sent them to Daniel McGlinchy. Daniel, had them decoded and they read the following:-

‘Nada Group [Borneo Garrison] (top section) Kuching (Borneo) Kempeitai (Japanese secret police, on right side) Passed Photo inspection by Inspector (on left side) Nemuto. (the red stamp).

It’s basically a passed censorship stamp of the photo on the postcard. During the war for both sides, keeping troop movements, and the movement of each force a secret was very important. There was a slogan used during WWII that helped remind people not to pass information too freely, the slogan was "Loose Lips Sink Ships". Because it was so important not to let out information that might reach enemy forces, letters and photographs were censored for specifics such as locations, battle content and the names and whereabouts the soldier was going.

When a letter had been censored, the person that censored the letter, would usually, put a censor's stamp (usually on the lower left corner), and sign (usually, but not always), or initial near or on the stamp.

Ranking of the soldier

We also had a closer look at the Japanese soldier’s uniform. We were able to identify his ranking by matching the patch on his collar. His collar insignia was exactly the same as below, which was a Captain ‘Rikugun Taii’. 

With the above information, I was able to send a letter to the Japanese Embassy for assistance to track down the family of the Japanese soldier. Hopefully I hear some positive news in due course.