ashleigh powell / writer: January 2012

Yesterday, my uncle and I, opened up the tang (handle) of the Samurai Sword my grandfather found in WWII, the sword that my Uncle and I are trying to restore.

It wasn’t until after our visit to Canberra and speaking with Daniel McGlinchey, who was Duty Curator when we visited the Australian War Memorial, that we knew the handle of the Japanese army sword could be removed. Mr McGlinchey advised us, that the majority of swords have a marking on the blade to identify the arsenal or blacksmith it was made by. In some cases the swords may even have a family badge (mon) on the handle, though our sword did not. Mr McGlinchey then gave instructions to my uncle on how we could open the sword ourselves. Knowing this information, I got excited and very optimistic that a treasure or some sort of writing could be hidden in the sword, and just like a fairy tale, it will give us a hint to who the soldier was.

To unlock the sword, we went over to my uncle’s cousin’s, house. His cousin, Stewart is a carpenter and my uncle felt much more comfortable with him unlocking the sword, then he. With it being in a fragile state and over 70 years old, he didn’t want to damage it in anyway.

Miraculously it was only a small wooden peg that kept the heavy metal blade attached to the tang. Stewart, carefully chiselled a small piece of wood to knock out the peg. In the car on the way there, I couldn’t help to be curious of what could laid underneath the handle.

Within thirty seconds, just like that the peg was knocked out and Stewart was sliding the tang off the blade. Unfortunately, when we opened the blade there were no engravings, or folded pieces of paper with the soldier’s name on it. The only markings we found were the number ‘66’ imprinted on the tsuba (hand guard) of the sword. I am not sure what these means, but hoping it can lead to something….

I was a little disappointed, when we didn’t find any monumental, lead changing markings. But I felt an immense amount of belief from my uncle. Writing this book, has been an adventure so far. However, a major challenge in itself for me personally. A lot of doubt of whether your writing is good enough plays on your mind, and, if your ever going to finish it. But when I unexpectantly overheard my uncle speaking very positively about me writing this book, it was really lovely to hear and immediately, I had a tremendous amount of motivation and confidence to keep going with this and not to give up. It is amazing what one can do, when someone believes in you. Soooo, I will be finishing the book this year, it will be done for my uncle, grandfather and myself. Even if just the three of us read it, I will still be happy, knowing I followed my grandfather’s advice - “You have to follow your dreams, as you never know where they will lead you !”.