Signed Japanese flag taken from a wounded soldier on New Georgia

[Paul G]

xv.

[Paul G]

xv..

[Paul G]

xv...

[Nick Komiya]

I support your translator's conclusions about the circumstances, but the wording points more to some illness (TB, etc) rather than a wound IMO.

[Paul G]

OK, Thanks Nick! Its great to have your insight on this, it is always greatly appreciated!

PG-

[RussellM]

Great looking flag Paul, and most interesting to get the translations of the owners buddies!

Regards

Russ

[Paul G]

As a side note, why do we sometimes see Japanese signing these flags with a mix of Kanji and english characters? I would think that an overall hatred of the US / British would make this fall out of favor, or make someones flag unsightly, for lack of a better term. Or was this not the case? People, being human would still find it acceptable to express themselves however they felt appropriate? I have often wondered about this.

PG-

[Nick Komiya]

It's not English just the alphabet, which was also used by Japan's ally Germany. In Japan, they are called Roma-ji, Roman characters. In public, it did become generally politically incorrect to use English, hence there was a great deal of confusion when baseball players could no longer say Out, Safe, Homerun, Foul, etc. However, English was indispensable for international seafarers, Navy officers. So it remained a compulsory subject for their studies. Hence a lot of Navy slang developed by cadets involved English words, not easily understood by the public. And when university students lost their immunity from the draft enmass, among themselves they would not have had much hesitation to use the vocabulary of their studies. So among learned friends, political correctness concerns over English would not have excluded the use thereof.

[Paul G]

Thank you for clearing that up Nick That makes sense.

PG-