Introduction to Japanese Army Pay Books

[Nick Komiya]

Is there a record anywhere of which weapons or equipment were issued?
Regards

Russ

No, unlike the German Soldbuch, these did not record weapons or equipment issued to the soldier. However, the "special skills" column after the branch of service on page 1 of the personal info section would mention qualifications such as machine gunner, communications, etc. The black Meiji booklet I show in the beginning, says he was a bugler and a stretcher bearer, so this column provides an idea of what equipment the soldier used.

[kaigunair]

again, another excellent article, and something only seen here. this is awesome info Nick. Thanks again for taking the time to put it together.

[GeorgeP]

As always, very fascinating and valuable information! Thanks Nick!


Tom

[Tora_Tora_Tora!]

This is not a thread but simply a REAL bible for all collectors!!!!Thank you so much Nick for your friendship, professionality and great knowledge!
Now I will go better to examine and study mine!!!

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=307984

[BRUNO FRANCK]

i find this a verry good thread,,, i read the thread (i have holiday)and now i see what the writing is,,,, this is a wherpass , solbuch and mein kampf at all,,,

thanks Nick

greetings Bruno

[Nick Komiya]

Better 5 years late than never. Anyway what counts is that it was an eye-opener for you.

[BRUNO FRANCK]

hi Nick

thats correct i started 5 a 6 years ago collecting japanese , mine english was not so good, with collecting japanese and posting here on the forum it is better with the years,,,no i am starting also reading english books (not to fast) like the kempetai and the war between japan and russia( 1939)

greetings bruno

[Nick Komiya]

My article seems to have succeeded in awakening interest in the pay books and has lead to interest in a new field of collecting for some. But more and more, I see people picking up booklets that are not what I discussed here, but look similar. So perhaps I should briefly touch upon the other look-alikes that are easily mistaken for army pay books.
The photo below shows a set of similar booklets, but only one is the Army pay book (No 5). However, they all belonged to the same person, so it serves as a handy example to explain which is what.
No. 1 is his Youth School Booklet .This booklet says he was born in 1919 as a second son to parents in Mie prefecture and had graduated from elementary school in March 1931. At the time of entering class 2 of Youth School in Oct 1936, he was a live-in employee of a Kimono fabric wholesaler in Nihonbashi Tokyo. He finished with Youth school in March 1937 at which time he was 157cm tall and weighing 45.8 kg. Packed under the cover is his school attendance cards. One was required to take this booklet to the draft physical check up.
No.2 is the card he received after the draft check-up dated September 1939, assigning him to 1st Replacement Reserve Status, which means he was fit for active service, but was not immediately drafted.
No. 3 is his Replacement Reserve Book. The cover says Compiled by the Ministry of the Army “Booklet for pre-induction Replacement Soldiers of the army “ This booklet has a pocket on the back cover, where the above card (No.2) was to be kept. This booklet was to be kept inside the Service Bag shown in the left and in this way carried to drafts, annual reserve roll calls and to meetings of the Veteran’s Association meeting. At the periodic roll calls for the reserves, participation needed to be recorded in this book. His occupation is still shown as working for the fabric wholesaler in Tokyo. The book also records his enrollment in the Veteran’s Association in October of 1939. Although we translate it as a Veteran’s Association, the Japanese name actually means “Association of Soldiers Residing in their Hometowns”. Thus members included reserves who had never been to war, as in this case.
No.5 is the usual Army Pay Book. He probably received this at the same time as his reserve book above, or sometime soon after, as all his roll call attendances are recorded here and not in his reserve book. Thus his attendance to the inspections in 1941 and 42 are recorded here.
No 4 Would explain why he never went to war. It is a booklet titled “Detailed Guidelines for Plant Personnel” issued by the Tachikawa Army Air Depot, where he was repair personnel , probably for planes.

[Nick Komiya]

In contrast, here are the contents of the service bag for his elder brother, the first son, born in 1918, who was drafted into the 22nd Field Artillery Regiment in January, 1941, made it to corporal and finished his active service in July 1943. He received his artillery communicator’s badge in Oct 1940, but for some reason he mutilated it as shown in the photo. As is expected of a real veteran, his bag has the usual good luck charms.

[viper502]

Fantastic amount of information. I just bought one of these and am awaiting it in the mail. Needless to say, I'll be using these posts as a reference to see what I actually have. Thanks again!

[Nick Komiya]

Having recently spent time browsing through the official army spec books, I gained some interesting information on pay book specs as well, so I will share it with you here.
The WW2 pay book had its specs detailed within the army's Specification Notice number 5 issued on Feb. 25th 1935. However, the year after the outbreak of war with the USA, the army revised its specs to introduce a simplified version called the "Type Ro"(Ro is equivalent to B in English, so it means Type B). This came out as the army's Specification Notice number 26, dated March 24, 1942. The main change was that the earlier "A version" pay book, if you will, had both sides of each page formed by folding a printed page in two, the traditional Japanese way of bookbinding. The B version specs now called for printing on both sides of a single sheet like any Western book. This reduced paper consumption in half. While the A specs used Japanese paper, this B version used a chemical pulp paper called "Simili Japanese vellum". Thus the spec book was now much thinner and perhaps that gave them the idea to get rid of the closure tabs on the protective cover. Also the pocket on the inside of the back cover was also now drastically simplified to just a piece of cloth, with no folded edge nor bag structure as seen in the A versions. The photo below shows these changes. By the way, if you want to know the official Japanese designation of this Type B pay book, it was 呂号軍隊手帳(Ro-go Guntai Techo)

[Nick Komiya]

Here is a calendar of dates upon which major content changes were introduced into the WW2 pay book.

May 5th 1939 : Order issued to add "Instructions in responding to call-up and reporting to service"
May 16th 1941: Order to add Tojo's "Instructions for the Battle Field" Though I wrote in the foregoing article that this appeared from the 42 edition, they would have been already available in mid 41, judging from the date of the order.
March 24th 1942: Order introducing the simplified Ro specs for the book.
July 10th 1943 :Order to add Emperor Showa's Declaration of War against UK and US. I had thought that this might have already made it into the 1942 editions, but that was not the case. After all, they had never carried the previous war declarations against China or Russia, so initially they would have only been following a set precedent by not including it. The WW2 declaration must have been entered as an afterthought after much discussion.

[Nick Komiya]

Unfortunately all volumes of the army spec book have the page for the drawings of the pay book missing, but I did find official specs for the Service Bag in which one was to keep the book. This bag was introduced on 15th July 1939. I had thought this was perhaps a commercial item, but it is clear that it was an army issue item.

[Igueriben1921]

Long time 'lurker' on the forum finally joined in
Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to all of you, specially those who share that invaluable amount of information regarding IJA/IJN militaria, I am so glad I found months ago the best forum of Japanese militaria by so far. I am sorry I didn't participate as much as I wanted.

Secondly, thank you very much Nick Komiya, this thread and the precious information on it is marvellous! doumo arigato Nick-san

After our private messages and your permission Nick, I am glad to inform all of you I will translate this great info regardind guntai techo into Spanish, it deserves so.

Thanks again,

[JERRY PRICE]

Service bag

Hi Nick,
Thanks for providing the great information on the "Service Bag" and the "Pay Books". I have a collection of both items and have been struggling to do a write-up on the different variations. It turned out to be a much more difficult task than I had originally planned. Judging from the resistance I've gotten from other translators on assessing the contents of the printed text pages in the "Pay Books"; you really did a bang-up job in your translations. Yours is the only full translation I've heard of.

On the "Service Bag" I have a translation of the inscription on the rear side of the bag and I can find the bottom (BAG) character on the front, but I cannot match the top two characters to any guess I can make including SERVICE. Would you translate those two characters and the bottom 5 on the title provided on the right side of the manual bag illustration? By the way I have a brown and a green cloth variation in manual size and configuration.
Thanks, JERRY