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    1874 War Medal: Close look


    JapanX

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    Inscriptions

    Obverse inscription could be translated as “War Medal”.

    Reverse inscription could be translated as “Meiji 7th Year/First Year of the Dog”

    Bar has two characters that stand for “Formosa"

    Edited by JapanX
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    Original expedition strike force and casualties

    Thanks to Nick Komiya (who found this info in the Japanese National Archive) we know that in May 1874 under the command of Saigo Tsugumichi were 3658 men, including

    NCOs and above 781

    EM 2643

    Civilian staff 172

    Servants 62

    Total Japanese casualties during the expedition were 590 men, including

    Death by sickness 561

    KIA 12

    Sick 17

    Edited by JapanX
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    Number of minted medals

    Thanks to Richard Catalano we know that the total number of minted 1874 War Medals was 3 677.

    Quite rational number when compared with 3658 original punitive expedition members.

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    Number of actually presented medals

    Thanks to Nick Komiya we know that only 2638 medals were presented, including

    Army Personnel 2352

    Navy Personnel 286

    Well, after subtracting this number (2638) from total number of minted medals (3677) we will have 1039 unissued medals.

    We know why 590 medals were unissued – their cavaliers were dead.

    We are left with 449 unissued medals.

    Currently we don’t know why this 449 were not presented and what happened with all these 1039 unissued medals.

    Regards,

    Nick

    Edited by JapanX
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