Gutkowski, they are some magnificent pictures of the sword, the bullet deflection i would agree with, and it would be a officers sword from the three interlocked rings on the handle, the thing that looks like a boat with the symbols on it would mean that the user was possibly a marine fighter, such as a pilot or a boat marine, and the faded symbol is the officers regimental number. But it looks a treat.
Maybe this will be interesdting to someone in here: http://asiaout.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-post_21.html
It’d be a lot more interesting to me in English.
The pix just look like the standard Chinese swords and head loppers.
The Japanese didn’t have a monopoly on butchery by sword.
They just made the unforgiveable mistake of doing it to Westerners.
And to Chinese which, strangely given the supposed Western contempt for Asia at the time, raised Western ire and provoked sanctions which led directly to Japan’s last war.
Japan’s butchery is largely forgotten now, because Westerners made the unforgivebable mistake of nuking the poor bloody Japanese who never did anything nasty to anyone, which has got caught up in a whole lot of Western protest, anti-American, anti-bloody-everything-who’s-not-a-dipshit-hippy-with-no-knowledge-of-history movements.
Here is a officer’s sword my Grandfather brought back from Cape Gloucester
Very nice piece, I am full of envy now. :mrgreen:
The Japanese didn’t have a monopoly on butchery by sword.
Maybe not the monopoly but a long full tradition of use the sword for those.
My grandparents, who grew up in the occupied Philippines during the war, would tell us stories of how the Japanese soldiers would just take babies from their mothers, throw them into the air and try to “catch” them with their bayonets just for the fun of it. The officers would be even more dangerous with their swords and their penchant for using them on anyone who crossed them.
Those things have quite a dark history.
The darkness is not in the sword, but in the arm that wields it.
Both Very True, but this still happened in fuedal Japan, and this style of massicre was only common to the soldiers that grew up around the Boshido training, as this was common to any family lines that either stood against them or opposed their thoughts or thier military advancements. but this is very true with the history of the Japanese and would not really suprise me at all
I don’t know if Japanese soldiers were really planning to use their katana in combat. Sure, it may be able to stand up to the power of anything short of a .50 cal Browning machine gun, but I don’t think they could deflect bullets Jedi-style either.
Anyway, this is the video showing the standoff between a Colt M1911 and a katana:
http://www.compfused.com/directlink/252/
The description of the link that was with the video with the Browning M2 was wrong in that it said this was a katana vs. 9mm pistol match; it’s definitely a .45 ACP.
Not by Japanese values.
What the western world takes no account of is that to the Japanese, execution of a soldier by beheading was actually a sign of respect.
What makes the photo further up the page disturbing to western eyes is that the soldier has his hands tied.
A Japanese facing death in the same manner would not, in usual course of events, have had tied hands.
Though I agree the usual Japanese traditions in such matters were deliberately perverted during WW2, there are cases recorded where those same traditions were as closely adhered to as possible, and certain Japanese officers suffered disciplinary action from their own higher command as a direct result of doing so.
Does this make it less of a “crime” in western eyes? No.
However, I respectfully suggest that western nations have never really evolved past the propangandised differences between the respective cultures and highlighted during the WW2 era.
To give a cultural perspective: to a Japanese officer, and Allied “Special Forces” soldier would be seen as being similar to a “Ninja” (Not a “partisan”, but a specialised warrior) from a military perspective. Ninja were, if captured, executed in the same manner as the photo shows.
Now, I agree westerners find the thought distressing and distasteful.
Personally, I have made the effort to research, in order to reach some personal level of understanding such cases. I might not condone them, but I find it hard to condemn each and every case.
Regards, Uyraell.
It may be that here we begin to agree to disagree.
The Japanese military values of WWII, and of the preceding war in China, were derived from but not in any way a natural, direct or proper descendant of classical Japanese warrior values.
They were in fact a complete corruption from their claimed classical base, not least because the military classes and ranks which assumed those values were not from the classes or traditions which established and observed the classical values.
WWII Bushido Code etc had about as much claim on direct descent from and observance of classical Japanese warrior culture as Nazi culture did on its claimed Norse ancestry and mysticism.
The Japanese militarists presented a corrupted version of classical warrior belief (not least total subservience to the Emperor, when the Samurai had a long history of imprisoning and disposing of emperors unacceptable to them) and conduct to imbue their troops with spirit (‘spirit’, being a super version of ‘chi’ and its variants in Asian thought, in the contemporary Japanese military usage encompassing everything that supposedly made ‘mind over matter’ allow the common soldier to triumph over everything in service of the Emperor – not unlike a similar outlook embodied in Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph of the Will’)
It could be, in classical times, or it could just be a bit of unbridled savagery.
In WWII it certainly wasn’t a sign of respect in the ways it was carried out in many cases as, for example, for the reasons you mention in your last post. But also because of the NCO ranks which carried it out. It had more to do with blooding the troops, as did bayoneting prisoners with lower ranks, and giving them a bit of a leg up to the honour of using a sword than it did with according any respect to the victim.
Nor have the Japanese as the subjects of rightist governments since WWII, and even less than the Western nations, in their absurd censorship and misrepresentation of their war in Japanese education and memorials.
In some cases that may be true, but they were probably a very small minority.
There was none of that in the brutality on the Burma Railway, albeit much of it actually perpetrated by Koreans in Japanese service at the bottom of that brutal heap. Not that there was much swordplay there.
The Japanese officers at Harbin, or on the Burma Railway or in the massacres of Chinese in Singapore or the Australian nurses at Banka Island and in countless other incidents, didn’t observe any honourable or even vaguely humane standards. There was undoubted savagery by the Allies against the Japanese, although pretty much on a ‘as ye sow, so shall ye reap’ basis, but nothing to begin to equate with Japanese war crimes and crimes against humanity in numbers or scale.
I have travelled a similar path over many years.
I am able to understand Japanese actions from the Japanese militarist perspective of the time (which was not the same perspective of all Japanese people at the time) but, unlike you, I have no difficulty in condemning them in almost every case because they were devoid of humanity and were, as our General Blamey said in more detail, primitive brutes who engaged in torture and savagery for their own sake. As illustrated by the example to which I have referred elsewhere, of Japanese troops bravely shooting a six year old boy on landing in Papua because he would not stay still long enough to be beheaded after seeing these brave and heroic sons of Nippon behead his civilian father in front of him after executing other civilians.
The sword of Nippon was employed much more in such disgusting, weak, cowardly, inhumane, and brutal acts than in awarding any ‘honour’ to the poor bloody defenceless prisoner.
Rising Sun, I should perhaps have written a little more carefully.
Like you I do condemn the usages of the Katana which belittled it.
I did state that the true values had been deliberately perverted, most notably in WW2 though the process began in the late 1920’s.
What I had in mind was to point out that there are several recorded cases where officers deliberately held as closely as possible to the true, ancient values which the Katana represents, and for which actions those same officers suffered, regardless their own ancient lineage.
I mentally separate and draw distinction between the abuse-misuse of the Katana and those occasions (few indeed though they are) where the weapon was used legitimately.
I hope this post clarifies My view for you.
Respectful Regards, Uyraell, Kendoka.
I am aware of some incidents involving Australian forces which support your comments about some IJA officers according courageous POWs the honour of beheading, but I’m not aware of any instances where IJA officers suffered for trying to observe classical values. Could you expand on it? Why did that happen? How did it offend the IJA hierarchy?
The offence perceived was that only Japanese deserved the honour of a “Japanese” death. This too had happened much to the shock of other Allied officers in World War One, when Japan was an Ally of the western nations.
In World War Two, the perversion of values to which yourself and I have both referred led to a “resurrection” of that view I cite in this paragraph.
There were certain officers of the IJA whom, having spent time in the west, and being of ancient lineage had been deliberately sent to the west to acquire military knowledge, had then, in wartime, reacted with dignity, as regards the view they took of certain Allied prisoners. This is to say, they treated said prisoners with as much dignity as circumstance allowed.
When this became known to higher command in the IJA, certain persons there informed the Kempei Tei, an organisation hardly known for its’ staunch support of the values those IJA officers referred above exemplify.
In three cases I recall reading of, the following happened.
One IJA officer of very respectable lineage was recalled to Japan, and there invited to commit seppuku. He did. (It should be noted here: the methodology of the ritual itself can be such as to be a symbolic protest, against wrongs done by superiors, and it was in this means said man died.)
In one of the other cases, the Kempei Tei executed the officer, bullet to back of head, and made his own men eat parts of him.
In the third case, the Kempei Tei arrived, as a group of four, and simply shot the man in his office.
I’d have to go a long, long way back in time to find the books I read this in, I was about 17 at the time, almost some three decades ago. However, I hope this adds a little to the expansion of info you so politely sought.
Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
this is a replica I got in Japan many years ago. in the 60"s. still in perfect condition. not a speck a rust on it at all. I never had the blade sharpened. but as you can see its big enough to do serious injury.
It is a nicely crafted piece.
I’d happily practice with it.
Full tang, or partial, if I may ask?
Regards, Uyraell.
im not an expert on swords. what is a tang???
Real Japanese swords are all full tang. Its tapered somewhat,(to hold the hilt snug) and usually bears the information about its maker, and production. There is a pin that holds the hilt in place, remove that, and tap the hilt off, its all underneath. Attached is a picture of different blades.
Many Thanks TG, Nicely expressed, and accurately.
Kind regards, Uyraell.
Thanks.
Introduces something I hadn’t heard of before.
If you ever recall the sources for these incidents, or anything else that might help get more info on them, I’d appreciate you posting it.