ID books + paper prayers (O-inori?) + diary + Handkerchiefs

[dewoitine]

Hello,

I'm slowly building a Japanese display and here are my latest additions.
I'm still pissed that I have lost a very nice grouping sold by a WAF Member on ebay but nevermind.

Two ID books:



In the right one:
Sorry for the bad quality, the number on his collar is the 36.











No separate pages

In the left one:
3 separate pages, awards documents ?:














Discharge?

I'm using this

and is it normal that all military related informations are not listed in the 2nd ID book?

Thanks and best regards,
Cyril

[dewoitine]

Paper prayers + wooden dog tag?



It seems that some characters were written on the silk cloth.

[dewoitine]

Diary:



More than 100 written pages, if anyone is interested I can scan it page by page.











Explosives (?) drawings, they don't look like a type 91 or 97.




It's the 2 only drawings.

[dewoitine]

Handkerchiefs:

I was running very low on money and could only afford one of them. But it seems that they were made for the same soldier and I hate when nice grouping are separated. So I'm going to eat badly until my next paycheck











It looks like that they were not painted by the same person but both will be framed together.

[dewoitine]

That's all for today.
Thanks for looking and as I'm still not able to read the Japanese I would be thankfull for any name/unit/date or any interesting information.

Best regards,
Cyril

[GeorgeP]

Your techo with the picture is a fantastic (and sobering) piece of history. The soldier belonged to the 9th Division, 36th Regiment. The 9th was involved in the 1st Shanghai Incident (see January 28th Incident) and unfortunately the soldier who used that booklet was wounded by bayonet and died in a field hospital in Shanghai a couple of weeks later. (Although the page with this history is not shown on this forum, it is still available via the seller's sold items on everyone's favorite auction site) The page that is shown has him participating in field exercises pre-Incident.

The other booklet is a little newer with what looks like substantial entries concerning the soldier's life pre-activation (occupation, etc.) but little else. There is one roll call stamp for 1944, but that is it. Unfortunately I see no info. for superior/sub unit for this soldier, at least in the booklet.

Thanks for sharing!

Tom

[dewoitine]

Thank you so much for these informations! Sobering indeed.

I'm currently using the great tacked threads to decipher as much numbers as I can.
So if I'm doing it right, the 2nd one was 1m70, born the 26th december 1907 and living at the 391 something.

[GHP]

Right book:

小形 善兵衛
Ogata Zenbei
Born 8 June, Meiji 42 (1909) in Fukui Prefecture
36th Regiment, 6th Company
Edit: Height 1.611 meters (161.1 cm / 5 ft. 3.4 in.)

Left Book:

山田市郎
Yamada Ichirō
Born 28 December, Meiji 40 (1907) in Kyoto City

The wooden Charm is from Narita-San, a Buddhist temple still in Narita City, not far from Narita International Airport.

Paper charms (Omamori) are from these shrines/temple:
RIGHT to left:
Togo Shrine, Katori Shrine (dedicated to fencers and military), Meiji Shrine, and Yamato Houryuu-ji temple (printed: 武運長久 Buun chōkyū "Everlasting Fortune in War")

The fold-out page with nice calligraphy is for "Soldier's Relief" (or "Benevolence to Soldiers") and signed by 英機 Hideki (also pronounced Eiki)

恤兵 英機
Juppei

--Guy

[dewoitine]

Damn thank you so much again!
I could have not found these informations by myself so I'm truly in debt.

Best regards,
Cyril

[GeorgeP]

It is interesting to see both the temple and shrine omamori (I might be wrong on this, but it looks like there might be bonji written on the back of the wooden tag). Assuming the good luck charms are from the same soldier, it brings to mind something I once read about how in a country of over 120 million people, Japan has 80 million people who practice Buddhism and 90 million people who practice Shintoism. Something along those lines.

Tom

[dewoitine]

The story of the omamori according to the seller. I'm taking it with a grain of salt but the papers are quite homogeneous.

"Purchased from a estate sale, The previous owner's grandfather had recovered this while in battle during World War 2. Their grandfather said this was carried by a Japanese soldier, and contains a wood dog tag, papers with prayers written on them. The cloth that wraps all the pieces has some brownish stains on the cloth. Comes with a silk bag with tassle and a string that has a wood drum and genuine pearl. The drum and string were part of the draw string for the bag that has come off. The owner said, in the past his grandfather told him this also had a photo of a Japanese woman that was in it but now lost."

But yes the religious part is quite fascinating.

[GHP]

This is one for the Native Speakers!

Diary:
Explosives (?) drawings, they don't look like a type 91 or 97.




It's the 2 only drawings.

I don't think it's munitions. The dimensions are given in shaku (roughly equivalent to 30 cm or 12 in) and sun (appx 1.2 inches: 10 sun = 1 shaku).

shaku converter

From the center point (I'll use cardinal directions; author does not).
North: 3 shaku
East: 5 shaku
South: 7 shaku
West: 5 shaku
Overall height: 4 shaku 8 sun
North opening: 1 shaku 9 sun
South opening: 1 shaku 8 sun
Overall height: 4 shaku 8 sun
[So, the thing is about 10 ft wide x 10 ft length x 4 ft 8 in. height-- and I do not know if it has a roof]
Bottom left "wall": 4 shaku 8 sun
Bottom right "wall": [not given]
Top "pipe" opening/width: 8 sun [about 8 inches]
"Pipe" length: 2 shaku 2 sun [about the "regulated" length of a gunto]
... I think the top is a pipe, it has dokan in katakana: ドカン. The kanji 土管 "dokan" means earthern pipe.

CAUTION! Wild Guess Ahead: Until a native-speaker comes along .... I'll guess it's either an earthen oven or a cistern of some sort.

--Guy

[dewoitine]

Thanks, I would have bet a lot that it was some kind of explosives but that would be a hell of a kaboom with such a size

The diary is full of numbers so maybe it was used by a merchant instead of a soldier.

Best regards,
Cyril

[GHP]

From A Fortune Teller ???



This drawing appears to me to be of a yogic/esoteric type -- possibly associated with fortune telling.

The artist/author signs it to Takahashi-kun telling him:
橋本君留念
Hashimoto-kun Ryuu* Nen
for Mr. Hashimoto as a Souvenir

*I'm not certain if this is the correct pronunciation. These two kanji, 留念, show up in the CHINESE Wiktionary meaning "to keep as a souvenir."


The figure is -- I think -- an impressionic rendition of the motto on the left border of the page (正心身修 -- see below).

The head:
心
Kokoro [mind]

Under that is the "neck"
正

Tadashii [correct/proper/true]
using the base of the head as the top part of the kanji -- with the "arms" being stroke #3 (left arm) and strokes 4&5 (right arm)

The left hand is the kanji
斗
which -- astrologically and astronomically -- means the Chinese dipper constellation of 北斗七星 Hokuto Shichisei [North 7 Star Constellation]; the Big Dipper. 斗 toh, is also used as a liquid measure equalling 18 liters -- but here, I think its meaning is astrological.

I think the right hand holds a calligraphy brush.

The "corpus" is made up of two kanji for "body" and "study/cultivation"
修身
[reading from RIGHT to left]
Shin Shu

Under his left foot is a frog:
蛙

Then on the left border the aphorism is written:

正心身修
Sei Shin Shin Shū
True Mind and Physical Improvement

These two sayings come from Confucius' 大学 Daxue (Great Learning) and are numbers 4 and 5 of the Eight Entry Steps :

4) Rectification of one's heart (正心)
5) Cultivation of a person (修身)

Just to the right of the stick-figure is this:
金星點状元
Modern Japanese uses 金星点状元 . I do NOT know what this saying means. When searching it, I've found:

金星 Kinsei -- Venus
点 ten -- a point/speck/decimal/iota
状元 Zhuangyuanis a Chinese scholarly rank of the first order. In modern Chinese, zhuangyuan is used to refer to anyone who achieves the highest mark on a test, or, more generally, to anyone who is at the forefront of his or her field.

So, perhaps: "The Person in the Forefront is But a Speck of Venus." Again, PROBABLY an astrologic/fortune-related meaning/implication.

Phew!

--Guy

[GHP]

Self-Correction

The head:
心
Kokoro/shin [mind]

...


But now that I look at it again ... the "head" is calligraphed in such a way that it is more likely to be 正 "tadashii/shin" . Compare the "head" with the calligraphy on the top left. I've seen this handwritten version many times ... I think I was guilty of over-thinking.

Cheers,
--Guy