Battle Damaged & Repaired Bayonet?

[RonR]

Can't imagine it'd have been reissued w/ the hilt being left so structurally compromised. Probably a better chance that whoever brought it home decided to give it a new grip at some point after the fact.

Milt,

Entirely possible, but also a new scabbard?

Best regards,

[Paul G]

Its an interesting piece for sure.

PG-

[Jareth]

I'd bet the bank it wasn't repaired by the Japanese & certainly not reissued. Looks like a G.I. basement repair to me

[Milton]

Ditto. The damage obviously occurred to the hilt / pommel, not the blade / scabbard which leads me to think that it didn't happen while sheathed on the soldiers belt (at least not in THIS scabbard). The damage probably occured when the bayonet was affixed to a rifle, and whoever brought it home could've removed it from said rifle, and mated it up w/ another scabbard laying around. There was certainly no shortage of "souvenired" Japanese bayonets back in the day from which to choose...

[dog soldier]

Been thinking about this one .There were loads of bayonets brought back as Trophies and there certainly appears to have been many lying about on the battle fields so why bring a broken one back.We have seen the last ditch Bayonets with their inferior quality , maybe the soldier survived the damage to the bayonet and was issued with the inferior last ditch type and decided to get the better quality damaged one fixed .Maybe he felt that the bayonet stopped him being seriously injured and it was a good luck piece and wanted to carry it with him and got it fixed.Or maybe an American soldier brought it back and fixed it.These are all Maybe theories .So who knows .I like to think "maybe" it was done by the japanese themselves

[Milton]

Nice thought, but in theory, w/ the hilt being so badly compromised, (nearly broken in half), it doesn't seem like a wise choice to have continued to have used it as-is. Besides, quite a few G.I.'s preferred souveniring battle damaged items as opposed to others that didn't show signs of battle. I've had more than a few Japanese and German items over the years w/ shrapnel and / or bullet damage, etc. They tend to emphasize the impact of combat far more convincingly. In the end, we'll never know the exact circumstances, so it simply is what it is.

[dog soldier]

Very true my friend

Graeme