Article about: Proving Absence of IJA Bogus Specs and Fantasy Items German militaria used to be plagued with fantasy items that never existed, and as crooks will smilingly point out, “Absence of proof is n
Rather than beat a dead horse, let's make this a meaningful lesson for the future. Let's beat a dead lion instead.
I immediately cringed at the pauper-like look of the cover and the scratched on bugle and name, which all automatically spelled fake for me. Yet the Americans absolutely loved the quilted beat-up look that said the wearer was a "die-hard survivor of 30 years of guerilla warfare in the jungle". As a souvenir-hunting GI, a beat-up helmet represented victory over a tenacious jungle fighter, while a clean helmet just makes you look like a "murderer of a harmless army office clerk". They have to look like they deserved to die or elusive enough only to be slain by the very best in "fair sport". It is "dehumanization to wild game status", actually in the same vein as the skull and body parts collectors abhorred by the mainstream as perverts.
This was the GI sentiment that the Seabees wanted to take advantage of. They needed props that portrayed the enemy as a sneaky, scarred snarling lion. Camouflage paint, netting, mud, graffiti, embellished with dried grass, all helped to create the "Japanese Robinson Crusoe cum Rambo Style", a style that Americans wanted as a trophy, but did not exist in reality in the IJA. Mounted lion heads are always snarling or roaring, it doesn't matter whether they actually died of old age in their sleep, you just can't sell a lion head that's snoozing. And Seabees were like professional taxidermists, who beat dead horses into snarling lions.
As I have been saying all the time, as a rule, there is no such thing as a field-made uniform item. You can add graffiti to your personal cigarette case, but you never defaced an issue item.
The Seabees ran a faking industry that churned out fakes with perfect provenance, and this kind of provenance support firm believers in field made camo, etc. But this time we caught the Seabee red-handed, we can be sure that he put in hours of work, simulating 30 years of use in the field. You can see how far they would go to convince you it's been there. He actually makes Cupman look like a lazy slob.
It's time you reexamine your fetish for the "been there" look by asking "been where? In the Seabees factory?" Camo is guilty until proven innocent, and a capture tag is no alibi, that is what this whole fiasco should mean to collectors. It is like an A-bomb dropped on all captured souvenirs, which got wiped out in one blast that discredits them all. A helmet with capture tag with dried shrubbery still entangled in the net now needs a DNA certificate that matches that shrub to a Pacific origin and not to the vet's back yard. It is the end of innocent reverence.
It also reveals how pathetic the "been there" worship really is. You are only one notch above the perverts, who like to think of themselves as skull collecting predators.
But, yeah, black night raid helmets do make you look like a Bruce Willis type sleep-deprived hero against sneaky ninjas out to cut your throat in the depth of night. "It happened and we have the capture tag to prove it!" "Right, sure, now grab onto my arm, I'll take you back to your ward."
"What, you want a roaring lion instead? Of course we have that too. We call it the Simba Special, but its 200 Bucks more, cause we have to add all the gum, tongue and teeth details, unless you don't mind a toothless Simba. But if you go that far, I should add that for only 50 Bucks more, we can even build in a roaring speaker that gives that famous roar followed by the MGM tune with some Sinatra songs to follow. But most GIs want to save some money for our selection of rare "whachamacallit, Hari Kari" flags, so that's why the menacing snarl is our best seller. No, that shelf is not for you. That's for some hardcore stuff we call the boneyard, next time maybe."
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 01-26-2020 at 11:38 PM.
Like keeping toilet lids open or closed, simple habits can get blown out of proportion and be interpreted as a conspiracy against the spouse. This can go much further when the gender difference is compounded by a nationality difference. In a similar way, enemy foreigners tend to observe the actions of a Japanese soldier with wifely distrust, attributing totally innocent actions to diabolical motives. I’ve already called this the “Snarling Lion Syndrome”.
Let me give you another example of how such an attitude will mislead you, even in interpreting what you see going on before your eyes. Imagine a troop of Japanese soldiers marching along a jungle path in full gear. Every one of them has some palm fronds tied unto the top of their backpacks. 99% of American collectors will regard this as camouflage and will go further to embellish helmets with dried grass, etc.
But no, it’s not what it looks like. Those soldiers only want to prevent their lunches from spoiling. The foliage is only there to shade their rice basket from direct sunlight.
In the tropics, unless when humidity was extremely high, cooked rice carried in a mess tin spoiled fairly quickly from the outside of the tin towards the center. Inserting sour pickled plums in the rice was effective in slowing down this spread of bacterial activity. Paying attention to such matters was critical in the tropics, as you were supposed to carry two days of rations with you, in an extra bread bag if needed.
Better suited for use in the tropics were woven lunch wicker baskets, which were issued with net bags or Furoshiki cloth wraps. In these baskets woven out of bamboo, rice spoiled much slower and in the opposite direction, from the center outwards, so having a sour plum in the middle like a "Hinomaru Bento" was particularly effective. During the dry season, these were carried in a net bag hung from shoulders or fixed to backpacks. When carried on top of packs, one used foliage to protect the pack from sunlight.
During the rainy season, with constant high ambient humidity, mess tins had an advantage, so they would switch. But keeping them covered was still a requirement, which was achieved with a shelter half over it.
Both mess tins and wicker baskets were recommended to be washed in boiling water for sterilization.
There you have it, lunch box shading, being mistaken as malicious ambush camouflage. I show below the spec sheet and drawing for these baskets.
Another item loved by US collectors for the wrong exotic reasons are tabi shoes, which have a ninja image. The truth is that wear of these shoes were to be minimized in the tropics, because the rubber soles were bad for hygiene. They were only to be worn in scaling cliffs and other climbing that needed traction. Americans are amazed that construction workers still wear them today, but they have been standard climbing shoes in Japan for hundreds of years, formerly with woven soles for use by steeplejacks that needed to walk on narrow beams, hence similar in design to tightrope walker shoes.
They do go well with black helmets for night raids, but that is only the lion in your head snarling again.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 02-07-2020 at 10:20 AM.
I said in the text that spec drawings for weapons hardly survived the war, yet cover letters to replacement drawings sent to various departments and units within the army are very common. They are, however, systematically missing all the actual drawings that should have been attached to the cover sheets.
I had always assumed that this was due to intentional destruction by the army at the time of surrender. But I suddenly realized that they might actually be there, all intact, in the archives.
An article from 1950 mentions at least 21 volumes of ordnance blueprints survived the war. These records should be at NIDS but I doubt they have been scanned though. As always, I enjoy reading your informative research articles.
Great read Nick , it is so important to have studied collectors. If you leave such things to dealers they have you buying all kinds of fantasy stuff , and it will be published on top.
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by nick komiya
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