Medal from Poet-General: General Homma Medal for the Invasion of the Philippines

[JapanX]

Toasting to His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, at the luncheon which our General gave on April 29, 1942, at the Manila Hotel.

[dark379]

So what is this bronze version?!

Simply the "trial piece" or indeed version "for soldiers"?

Any info chaps?

Ideas?

And while you are thinking about how to help me out (I know you have kind hearts ) - better quality pictures of exactly the same bronze version of the medal that we saw in the Murphy/Ackley book.

Please note, that this is (again!) different stamp ...

Hi again Mr. Nick, the bronze trail peace had been produce many replica in Philippines, due to its price....and few people have seen it in actual.....i have some in my collection year years ago but not sure if it is a trail peace or just a replica in market.

Even the siver Homma medal had many reporduction, due to its price....

Edited December 16, 2012 by dark379

[dark379]

Hi again Type 1 w/ loop - i think have 2 types ....silver and (other one dont whether bronze or copper)...i think silver are given to higher officers and the other one is given to private rank.

[dark379]

rear of the medal

[dark379]

Type 2 w/ reeded edge which was ----it has reeded edge due to the Japanese use 1 Peso sliver Phil. coin for medal

[dark379]

Not sure if this is a trail peaces from my collection..... came from a Japanese vet., its color like aged bronze or copper? what to you think? same design as type 2 design

[dark379]

tips on how to check the real type 2 Homma medal...i should have reeded edge of the coin and can still see some of the designs in coin

[JapanX]

What a collection of these rare medals you have Dark!

The specimen from post #30 is awesome!

Interesting, that the bronze and silver versions "with the loop" that you showed in posts #28 and #29 both have not very accurately soldered loops!!!

And the silver medal that I showed (and the medal displayed in 1968 book) have more accurately soldered loop (actually they look more like a stamped ones).

So let me get that straight.

As for now we have four versions in circulation:

a) silver version with the the loop

b) bronze version with the the loop

c) silver version without the loop (peso version)

d) bronze version without the loop (replicas + 3 original trial pieces)

Looks like c) and d) were made by the same stamp.

Also your c) piece was made (at least it looks like it was ) by the same stamp as piece in posts #19-#20 and it looks like a patinated bronze to me.

If d) is indeed an original trial piece than we already have 2 out of 3 that could be in existence

Ok. So silver is for officers and bronze is for soldiers.

But why two silver versions - with the loop and without the loop?

Any versions?

Regards,

Nick

Edited December 16, 2012 by JapanX

[dark379]

Hi again Mr. Nick, 1st of all thank you

about the medal, each have its own variations and differences in the production and quality.....which makes me hard know which will be the real one the which will be the repro. (if there is repro. in there).....or there is for low class and high class officers???

[dark379]

Ok. So silver is for officers and bronze is for soldiers.

But why two silver versions - with the loop and without the loop?

Any versions?

Im not quit sure if bronze is for soldiers and silver for officers, but some says it was how they are divided????

or some are repro. and some are original??? which makes the silver into 2 types(with loop and w/o loop)?

Edited December 16, 2012 by dark379

[JapanX]

Give me a couple of days and we will continue our analysis of variations with new HQ scans that you kindly sent to me

Regards,

Nick

[dark379]

Ok Thank you Mr. Nick... Good luck to the analysis.

[JapanX]

Ok.

Now with new HQ scans of Dark collection we can "dig deeper".

Let`s examine silver specimens first.

Type S1 ("Peso" type)

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

Another peso specimen made by exactly the same stamp

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

So what`s up with this "peso" version?!

Why pesos and where from these pesos came from?!

From April 20 to April 30, 1942 right before surrendering MacArthur forces had dumped millions of peso into the deep crater south of Corregidor. It is belived that about 17 000 000 pesos were dumped into Manila Bay. The majority of the Philippines Silver Pesos dumped into Manila Bay (actually at Caballo Bay facing the South Dock) in 1942 were minted during the years 1907 to 1912 and 1936. The Philippine Peso was first minted in 1903 and until 1906 was a large 26.9568g coin. From 1907 to 1912, the Silver Peso was minted as a smaller 20.0000g coin. The coins from 1903 to 1912 were designed by a Filipino resident from California, Melecio Figueroa.

The 1903 to 1912 coins featured the seal of the US Administration on one side. On the other side was a young lady holding a hammer on an anvil. The Mount Mayon Volcano is in the background. The young lady is often described as a Walking Liberty. However, a close look at her facial features reveals a Filipina. It has been report that Melecio Figueroa's daughter modelled for the design.

So the Japanese did recover a number of them and converted them into "Homma Medals".

Salvage operations began as early as May 1942 by Filipino divers under the control of the Japanese Navy recovering 108,000 pesos. In "The Great Manila Bay Silver Operation", Bosun’s Mate First Class Morris “Moe” Solomon told the story of how captive U.S. navy divers disrupted Japanese recovery.

[JapanX]

John G. Hubbell, "The Great Manila Bay Silver Operation", Readers Digest, April 1959; Vol. 74, No. 44

In the late summer of 1942, when the Japanese had been in control of the Philippines for several months, their occupation currency suddenly began to collapse. Japanese soldiers found that a month's pay wouldn't buy so much as a glass of beer. The cause was a mysterious flood of silver Philippine pesos that began turning up in the markets of Manila. Somehow the silver was reaching even the prisoner-of-war camps American prisoners were bribing demoralized Japanese guards for food clothing, medicine. Next, they would start buying freedom! If the source of the silver wasn't found soon, it could corrupt the whole structure of Japanese control.

Where did the silver come from? The Japanese knew the MacArthur forces had dumped millions of peso into the deep crater south of Corregidor before surrendering. There was $8,500,000 of it down there, lying at a depth of 120 feet. A diving crew of seven American prisoners of war had been put to work salvaging that fortune — it would be a gift from the army to the emperor. Japanese security police were watching the American divers, guarding every peso recovered. It seemed inconceivable that any of this silver could be smuggled into Manila. Nevertheless, the Japanese decided to tighten the guard over the Americans. (The guards may or may not have known that the U. S. Navy divers whom they were forcing to recover the silver were the same ones who had dumped it there in the first place.) It had all started in the early months of 1942, when defeat in the Philippines had become inevitable.

Quickly Philippine government officials and U.S. Army officers decided to save the Philippine national treasury. They recorded the serial numbers of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of paper currency, then burned the bills. In February, some two million dollars in gold bullion and $360,000 in silver were shipped to San Francisco in the ballast tanks of the submarine U.S.S. Trout. But now time and the enemy were moving fast. There was no way to get out the rest of the treasury, 17 million silver pesos* (each worth .50 cents) still lay packed in wooden boxes in a steel vault on Corregidor. On April 20, U. S. Army officers drew two straight lines connecting well-known landmarks of Manila Bay on a map. The lines intersected at a point in the water on Caballo Bay, formed by the thin crescent of Corregidor's curled tail. There the water was deep and rough enough to discourage enemy salvage.

There the treasure would be dumped. Lt. Comdr. George G. Harrison, commander of harbor craft in nearby Mariveles Bay, gathered up a working party — a dozen Navy enlisted men, orphans from the submarine tender Canopus and submarine rescue ship Pigeon, sunk in Manila Bay. Most of them were divers. Harrison told them Corregidor's days were numbered; the job had to be done quickly and at night. It was backbreaking labor. The heavy boxes, each of them holding 6000 pesos, were wrestled aboard two flat-topped barges, which were then towed to the dump site in the bay. There the weary sailors began pushing the precious cargo into the sea. It took ten nights to move the 425 tons of silver to the floor of Caballo Bay.

When the job was finished Harrison turned the men loose with a prophetic warning: “If you are captured, don’t let them find out you are divers.” On May 6, Corregidor surrendered. The divers were among the captured. Six weeks later, the Japanese commandant of the prison camp at Cabanatuan, 90 miles north of Manila, sent for Bosun’s Mate First Class Morris “Moe” Solomon. “We know you are a diver,” he said. “Manila harbor is choked with sunken vessels. It must be cleared for traffic." The Japanese had excellent intelligence. Besides Solomon, they had singled out Bosun's Mates Virgil. L. "Jughead" Sauers, Wallace A."Punchy” Barton., P. L. "Slim” Mann and two other experienced divers.

[JapanX]

In 1947, two Americans got a salvage contract from the Philippine government, but were able to raise only about 500,000 pesos. Since then, millions of pesos have been recovered (these appear even on eBAY) Most are dated 1907s, 1908s and 1909s are common. Occasionally pre-1907 pieces are found. 1910s though 1912s and 1906s are scarce proportionately to their scarcity within the series. Let`s take a look at these famous pesos that were used as base for type S1.

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

That`s how peso in mint condition looks like

[JapanX]