Sorry about duplication of the post. the other has the photo and I can't figure out how to delete this one.
I acquired at my local flea market a WWII "keyring" assortment consisting of a US WWII navy dog tag, a .30 M1 carbine deactivated cartridge and a Japanese token or medal that I thought looked interesting. (who can resist something military looking and with a skull on it and priced like a McDonald's meal?) I had a Japanese professor at Yale Univ look at a photo of it to try to determine what it said, and it seems to be a commemorative piece for the Shina Jihen (second Sino Japanese war). There is possible reference to a "Murakami group", and Lt General Keisaku Murakami did lead one of the major Japanese forces in that war into a number of engagements around 1940, sometimes referred to as the Murakami force, and which included seven or eight regiments of the 39th Division. I am told other writing is a phrase from a poem from the Manyoshu or Ten Thousand Leaves (oldest existing collection of Japanese poems) but this one was also incorporated into a popular wartime song) with the phrase meaning "the grass will grow over a dead body (if you die in the mountains)" and presumably accounting for the skull and death iconography. I wonder if anyone is more familiar with the background of this particular piece and what it represents and the circumstances of it being made. I am assuming it probably dates from the 1940-1945 period? Any thoughts?
I acquired at my local flea market a WWII "keyring" assortment consisting of a US WWII navy dog tag, a .30 M1 carbine deactivated cartridge and a Japanese token or medal that I thought looked interesting. (who can resist something military looking and with a skull on it and priced like a McDonald's meal?) I had a Japanese professor at Yale Univ look at a photo of it to try to determine what it said, and it seems to be a commemorative piece for the Shina Jihen (second Sino Japanese war). There is possible reference to a "Murakami group", and Lt General Keisaku Murakami did lead one of the major Japanese forces in that war into a number of engagements around 1940, sometimes referred to as the Murakami force, and which included seven or eight regiments of the 39th Division. I am told other writing is a phrase from a poem from the Manyoshu or Ten Thousand Leaves (oldest existing collection of Japanese poems) but this one was also incorporated into a popular wartime song) with the phrase meaning "the grass will grow over a dead body (if you die in the mountains)" and presumably accounting for the skull and death iconography. I wonder if anyone is more familiar with the background of this particular piece and what it represents and the circumstances of it being made. I am assuming it probably dates from the 1940-1945 period? Any thoughts?