Nick Komiya

I would have liked to learn when it was made, as the name of the award itself "Golden Kite Sacred Light Award" is a mocking parody of the Golden Kite, Sacred Treasure and Rising Sun Orders, something normally not tolerated during the 30s and 40s.

It's a privately made medal from a pharmacy known for its hemmeroid cures. They go for $10 tops in Japan.

Nogi's orders are on display at Nogi Shrine and other items at Yasukuni. His Blue Max should also be at one of those places. As to the timing and reasons for ironically stoking the fire of the "Gelbe Gefahr" by presenting the order to Nogi,,you can hear that directly from the horse's mouth below. He was merely making up for the mistake he made in having awarded General Stessel the same previously; to a man the Russians later sentenced to death for cowardice. At Nogi Shrine you can also see the sword that he and his wife killed themselves with following the Emperor's death.

It was awarded to the Frenchman, Paul Julien Auguste Fourès on 25th July 1896.

There should actually be many more dates to be be found on the China Incident War Medal citations. The earliest is 23 April 1938, as the first round of awards for the war dead in the incident was announced at 8:15 PM that night. These awardings of the fallen continued every few weeks and the one on 2nd October 1942 was already the 41st. The first round of awards for the fallen in the Greater East Asia War came on 16th Jan. 1942, which was at the same time the 58th round of awarding for the China Incident. In contrast, the predominantly seen 29th April 1940 date was the first and only prize-giving date for the living. It simply means that most citations that come up for sale were those awarded to the living. One also needs to bear in mind that the dates on the citations have nothing to do with the actual timing of the medal being handed over to the recipient, which is typically 1 to 1.5 years later than the citation date. The citation date is only a nominal award date for the records. So it did not matter that the medal was not even instituted yet at the time of the early citation dates. The medal's design back in 1938 actually showed the crow on the medal with 3 legs, which got reduced to 2 legs only in the final launch due to pressure from the Legislation Bureau. If you want to learn more about the meaning of the citation dates read this http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/japanese-militaria/story-golden-kite-671453-5/ If you want to learn more about the China Incident War Medal development read this http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/japanese-militaria/evolution-imperial-japan-s-war-medals-1875-1945-a-610821-9/

I don't think any usual visitors to the forum can answer your question, so I will answer it though I generally do not post here. That paper tells how a father in the navy named his newly born son "Shinji Yoshizawa" after a naval event. As the child's birthday of 5th October happened to be the launching ceremony date in 1916 of Japan's top two destroyers, the Amatsukaze and Isokaze, he took the number 2 from the two ships and first kanji from the Launch Ceremony to name his son. All very hardcore navy stuff and nothing of army aviation, sorry.

I finally found the film about the Bando POW camp on the net. They must have used a translation program for the English subtitle, as it is full of horrible mistakes, but if you understand German, half the movie is in German anyway. The set used for the movie is a pretty faithful recreation of the real thing and the daily life of the POWs is well portrayed. In the film, the historical concert takes place with the participation of the local residents as audience, but the real event was only for the inmates. The 4 on the wooden tag must be the barracks number. Here is the link to the movie.. http://www.veoh.com/watch/v19512431wEnaEjn8

I had thought his name was on the rear side of the Bando tag you showed first, but now I understand it was not. The latest photo shows he was prisoner 32, and as that was not his number in Matsuyama, we can assume it was his number at Bando. So what was the item in the first photo with the branded Bando Camp name?

Yes, I've had a head start on the subject of WW1 German POWs in Japan while writing an article for the Wehrmacht Awards Forum. Sorry, but I don't know how to insert links here. There in the Japan Forum, the article is titled "Beethoven’s Symphony Number 9, Odes to Joy in Captivity ". Basically all the POWs can be looked up. A great number of them remained in Japan after their release and quite a few famous Japanese brands today owe their existence to the Germans, who became members of Japanese society, Bridgestone Tires being an example. Anyway, it is a fascinating area of study for me, which is why I made an exception and posted on this forum for the first time.

That tag belonged to Hans Eggebrecht, born in Steglitz He was working at Illies & Co. in Kobe, Japan as sales staff when the war broke out and he volunteered in August of 1914 as a Seesoldat in the 6th Company of the 3rd Marines Battallion. He became a POW of the Japanese in Nov 1914, first in the POW camp in Matsuyama, where he was prisoner 2835. He was then moved to the Bando POW camp on April 9th,1917 He was released in December 1919. He obviously spoke Japanese as he was one of the 4 German interpreters during his stay in Matsuyama. Your tag is from his days in Bando