Japanese Dagger with Medals

[stoogeco]

Hello all. Thank you for the great response to the medals. Here is a dagger that was obtained from the same family. This story again is that the dagger and medals came from a kamikaze bomber on the USS Taluga. I can find no information on this dagger. Please HELP!! Any information is greatly appreciated, as the family is eager to know (as am I).

Thanks again!!

Dave

[Jareth]

WW2 Chinese nationalist dagger NOT Japanese

[stoogeco]

No kidding. Huh. Thank you.

[Bob Coleman]

The badges and dagger are all of the correect period. However, the kamakazie story is something that gave a more exciting aspect to the veteran's souvenirs. It was not unusual for vet's stories to grow as the years past.
I recall watching an interview with Corneoius Ryan discussing his famous book on D-Day, "The Longest Day." When researching the book, he advertised to interview veterans who had been in the first wave on the beaches in Normandy. He mentioned that there were over thirty names credited in his book that were either not in the first wave and some not even there. There names had been given to the author by family members based on their loved ones post war stories. Mr. Ryan chose not to embarass the men.

[Stu W]

Indeed these stories do get better with the passage of time. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia with regards to the attack on the USS Taluga...

"Shortly after dawn, ten kamikazes attacked her formation. One of them dove at the oiler, strafed her deck, and then made for her superstructure. The attacker careened off the ship's bridge and exploded through her forward well deck into a compartment adjacent to her tanks brimming with 300,000 gallons of aviation fuel. However, only 12 men were injured; and the oiler was soon back in action"

Seems to me the odds of that pilot ending up as anything other than a smear on the inside of the aircraft are infinitesimally small.

Regards,
Stu

[ROZ]

I have a Chinese Nationalist Airforce dagger which came from a Korea veteran, He claimed it was taken from a downed Mig pilot. I find the story improbable, but have to admit the "possibility" makes it more interesting.