The Banner of Golden Brocade

[Nick Komiya]

As explained in the text, the banners were kept at regimental HQ at the front. They were accompanied by two log books, one recording damages to the flag 軍旗損傷誌 and the other was the banner diary 軍旗日誌. The Ministry of the Army was ultimately responsible for the fate of these flags, so a second central copy of the flag diary was maintained at the ministry updated by radio.

The burning of flags were done by order of the regimental commander, when the situation became hopeless. They held a ceremony and this burning also meant that they would pay for this loss with their own lives. This burning was reported by radio to the ministry after which they made the last charge or took their own lives.

In the surrender process, the ministry radioed all intact units to burn their banners before being disarmed.

In Okinawa, for example, the 32nd Inft Rgt held their flag-burning ceremony on 28th August, a day before the 300 surviving members dropped their weapons.

[Nick Komiya]

In post #10, I wrote about the unwritten prerequisites for being selected for the honor of becoming a standard-bearer in the army. This point is interestingly depicted in the animation series Golden Kamuy Episode 6 of Season 3.

English-dubbed episodes for Season 3 currently only go up to Episode 3, but English subtitled Japanese versions are on the web up to Episode 8. In case you watch that version, bear in mind that what is mistranslated as a " 3-round IJA rifle" in a sniper battle is "The Type 38", which happens to sound like "3-round" when referred to in IJA slang of "San-Pachi" which the translator misheard as "San-Patsu".

[Nick Komiya]

Further to post 62 is another illustration of the Army's Rising Sun National Flag only used between 1870 to 1873. See how the red beams taper sharply in this rendition.

[Nick Komiya]

Mission Impossible: 5th Cavalry Regiment Flag Hoax


At the WAF forum, there is a ludicrous discussion going on whether an IJA 5th Cavalry Regiment banner, coming out of Taiwan and in the possession of an American collector is authentic. The poster of that thread is claiming the flag was taken by the Chinese and the IJA covered up the loss of that flag out of embarrassment and falsified records.

A single photo supplied in that thread shows the corner with the regimental name obviously printed on the flag, instead of having being hand written by Emperor Meiji, as was the custom for regimental flags. Furthermore, the photo shows the flag to be in virtually mint condition.

I will show you how nonsensical such a conspiracy theory is, as none of my colleagues seem to be ready to objectively refute what was being said.

Although the poster claimed that any official record on this particular flag is bogus to cover up the loss of it to the Chinese, records are very clear about the fate of the flag, as recorded in the logbook page shown below.

The 5th Cavalry Regiment was bestowed the banner on 18th November 1896 and they returned that flag to the Imperial Court on 27th January 1941.

The returning of the banner (Hokan) was simply, because the majority of the former cavalry regiments got reorganized into motorized reconnaissance regiments one after the other in the early 1940s, leaving only a handful left as cavalry.

Thus the 4th regiment also returned their banner on 9th September 1942, and the 7th regiment on 18th December 1940, etc, etc.

Regimental banners were only meant for infantry and cavalry, and other branches such as artillery never received them. By becoming the 5th Reconnaissance Regiment, they no longer qualified to carry a regimental banner.

The returning of these flags was a big ceremony, involving the whole city, where the regimental flag was marched to the local train station for all to see and say farewell to, a public event all the way back to the Imperial Palace. There was no way to cover up the loss of a regimental flag when the whole city lined up to see the flag marching towards the train station for the very last time.

Then all these returned flags that were kept in storage were lost to a fire in an American bombing raid a few years later.

So, if indeed original, the flag in question had to come out of the Imperial Palace, during its years of storage, before the bombing and the fire.

But even if we assumed that to have been possible by a Ninja, this stolen flag had been in use in the field for 45 years (1941-1896) and now 126 years old (2022-1896). Can a flag that had been exposed to the natural elements of sunshine and rain for 45 years look so pristine 126 years later?

The photos below show what a cavalry regiment banner should look like. The first flag is for the 26th Cavalry Regiment, a flag much younger than the example in question. This flag was issued on 22nd September 1909 and was burned on 22nd August 1945 preceding the unit’s surrender. So this was how a cavalry banner looked after 36 years of use (1945-1909).

Just to be thorough, I’ll also show below the flag for the 25th Cavalry Regiment as well, so you can see that the condition of the 26th Cavalry banner was no fluke. So a flag used for 45 years would never look like new.

Clearly the flag featured at the WAF is a fake, so all beware.

[ghp95134]

Thanks Nick!

You write, "....as none of my colleagues seem to be ready to objectively refute what was being said...."

Err ... I hope I am not included in your statement. I wrote:

But there's something that bothers me about the kanji ... it looks too much like text-book kanji (too squared) and not regular hand-brushed kanji; the 第五 [dai-go "Fifth"] kanji also seem to be a bit irregular in size.

Perhaps not a direct refutation -- but casting doubt nonetheless.

Also, Adachi did express direct doubt.

Cheers,
-- Guy

[Nick Komiya]

Too many of these posts that go "This is what a friend has...." are phishing posts to market-test fakes, asking for your endorsement, preceding their sale as originals. You guys did cast doubt, which the guy shrugged off with a laugh, saying "Never say Never".

To those collectors that think that the IJA was like any other army, and "anything could have been possible, black helmets and all." your points failed to score, because there was no attempt for a serious rebuttal, which was surely within reach of you guys that can read Japanese.

A regimental banner sold as original would rip someone off thousands of dollars, and when the risk is that high you need to call a fake a fake in a way that even "open-minded" guys feel foolish about their gullibility.

Many readers rely on us to protect them from fraud, and I thought you guys could have done better.

[Nick Komiya]

So here's the coup de grâce. With help from my brother, I finally found the photo album of all regimental banners issued up to 1936. The book was published before the 5th Cavalry Regiment returned the flag in 1941, but already shows only the fringes of the flag remaining. Now we have irrefutable proof that the flag at WAF is a poor fake.

At this rate, we can't hold much hope for the authenticity of the East India Company flag either, because, as we all have learned through this, the mind is a powerful thing, especially when it is so blindly sure of something that it utterly fails to observe even the most basic of due diligence.