My girlfriend´s ancestors

[STEBALIN]

Hi Gentlemen,

I´m not into japanese militaria but talking to my GF last weekend she said she found a photo album with some of her ancestors. She was kind enough to take come pictures and sent them to me, asking me if I could investigate which period were they approximately. I noticed the collar tabs showed some numbers (the unit where they were assigned?). What period were those uniforms from?

BTW, her grandfather, Shinichiro Kuguhara was recruited into the Imperial Army when he was 15, in 1 August 1945. He was supposed to start fighting on september 3.
You can see him holding an Arisaka rifle in two pictures, with his field equipment. As her grandfather himself told me during my last visit to Japan he had very little field gear to use, and most of it was rather worn.
He appears also in other two pictures, eating with another veteran, next to the pics showing airplanes.









Hope you have liked them. I´m looking foward to hear from you.
Thanks in advance!

[Tim B.]

Not 100% sure here, but in the first set of PIC's, there are pictures of soldiers wearing medal bars. Too small to see details, but the second shot shows some seated and one is wearing a 3-place medal bar. Appears to be a Golden Kite 5th class?)/??campaign medal/Red Cross Member's Medal. It's possible you could track it down by what the people are wearing.

I might lean towards 1930's China.
Tim

[FightenIrish35]

The rank badges in all images are on the shoulders. I believe in 1938 or 39 they changed the dress code so that they had to wear the rank badge on collar. I would suspect this images to b 1938/39 or earlier.....

[ZERO-sen]

yep those should tabs are from the 30's.

[STEBALIN]

Thanks to everybody for your help.
My GF just told me that he could identify her grand-grandfather, Kiyokichi Kuguhara. He served in Manchukuo, so I now know almost we can know almost for sure the pics are from the 1930s.
He is portayed with another officer(?) next to the third shot of the first picture; he is the one standing. You can see him again wearing a sam browne belt and his saber at the second pic´s second shot.

After taking a closer look I noticed a young man wearing a dark uniform, just under the IJN sailor photo. Any idea what it was? Doesn´t look like a school uniform.

[STEBALIN]

She also found his awards...

Now, none of us have a clue about what they are. Help pls!
the only one we could figure out was the Red Cross medal. Which actions were exactly rewarded with this medal?

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[maverick87]

The first and second picture you have are:

Order of the Sacred Treasure (8th class) (on the left)

and

China Incident 1937-1945 (on the right)- This one was for fighting in the China "incident" as Japan calls it, or better known as the Second Sino-Japanese War. They gave these before you went to fight in China.

[maverick87]

The yellow medal, the order of the sacred treasure, came in eight classes, with the different classes awarded to different ranks. That one is 8th class. Seventh and eighth classes were the only ones available to enlisted men.

[b-m-n_animal]

Thanks to everybody for your help.
My GF just told me that he could identify her grand-grandfather, Kiyokichi Kuguhara. He served in Manchukuo, so I now know almost we can know almost for sure the pics are from the 1930s.
He is portayed with another officer(?) next to the third shot of the first picture; he is the one standing. You can see him again wearing a sam browne belt and his saber at the second pic´s second shot.

After taking a closer look I noticed a young man wearing a dark uniform, just under the IJN sailor photo. Any idea what it was? Doesn´t look like a school uniform.

HI I've just had a look at the photo of your GF grandfather in the sambrowne belt and the uniform he is wearing is the type 45 (1912-30) this uniform had the coloured band around the cuff for all ranks in branch of service colour. his collar badges show him to be part of the 5th indipendent infantry. so they would be red. interestingly he has no visable stars on the rank badges these could either indicate him being an nco or a trainie??? odd especialy as the sambrowne would be for a pistol, you can see the pistol lanyard as well, But he has a bayonet. odd photo I have seen pictures of enlisted men with the machine gun armed in this way. does the family know if he was trained for this? some of the other photos show enlisted men with there qualification badges on there chest.

the odd blue uniforms that you mention are early version of the type 45 and there dark because they were using up the stocks of blue wool from the meiji uniforms. so these photos would date from fairly early in the Taisho period.

looking at the other uniforms 90% of them look to have soldiers in either the type 45 or type 5 uniforms. so you have a nice range from 1912-1938 when the type 98 uniform came in with the rank badges on the collar

hope some of this helps.

Paul

[maverick87]

I wanted to do this same thing. My girlfriend who is also Japanese, and I, want to find information about her grandfather. I was going to help her dig around when I go over there in a few weeks. Her dad told me the slaughterfest her grandfather was involved in when he served in China. Dark times.....

[STEBALIN]

Paul and Maverick87,

Thank you very much for your help.
I wonder why did this man receive the China Incident medal twice (usually campaign medals are awarded once). Could it have been two consecutive service periods? I´ve asked my girlfriend for more details, but even his own grandfather knows very little about his father´s service. This is quite usual, as most of the japanese families I know do not want to talk nor know too much about the wars they´ve been to, so they don´t ask too much questions neither .

She is now looking for the uniform and a box of ammo that she assures are around somewhere in her house for me. In the meantime she will keep the medal group and give them to me the next time we meet.

BTW any clues about the badge with the anchor and star? A veteran´s organization, I suppose?

[b-m-n_animal]

HI yes the badge with the star and anchor is the veterans badge. .

I dont think that he would have been issued the china medal twice. more likly that there was a brother or other family member in the army as well. the photo album has a photo of a member of the navy. I believe that they were issued the same medals but the navy isn't my area.

[STEBALIN]

more likly that there was a brother or other family member in the army as well. the photo album has a photo of a member of the navy(...)

Good point. I´ll ask her about the sailor. Thank you!

BTW, We´re not planning to sell the medals group, but how much would it reach? Does the fact of being from the same person (or family) increases its value? Just for the sake of being curious.

[Tim B.]

Not much IMO, as all the items are very common and not in the pristine shape often seen for sale on ebay.

Unfortunately (Fortunately for collectors), Japanese awards still do not command high prices, except for medal bars and some of the higher decorations and a few rare campaign type medals.

Tim

[FightenIrish35]

I agree with Tim... very common medals.
but look at it this way, there familiy airlooms,so in the sense there price.