The Evolution of the Japanese Navy Gunnery Badges 1898-1945
Article about: The Evolution of the Japanese Navy Gunnery Badges 1898-1945 Foreword I think I saw these Navy Proficiency Badges for the first time in 1980 as I was invited over to stay at the house of Bill
The Evolution of the Japanese Navy Gunnery Badges 1898-1945
The Evolution of the Japanese Navy Gunnery Badges 1898-1945
Foreword
I think I saw these Navy Proficiency Badges for the first time in 1980 as I was invited over to stay at the house of Bill Chizar in San Francisco, during my first revisit to the States in 16 years since leaving there as a kid. He was a collector of exotica and proudly showed me 5 or 6 of the first class badges he had collected. Back then, I had absolutely no interest in Japanese militaria, but the beauty of these badges struck a familiar cord in me.
The green metallic coloring of the 1st class badges would earn them the nick name of “green grade badges” in the navy, and this iridescent green must have awakened some fond memories in many navy men as it did in me, because it is a color familiar to boys, who are all fond of beetles in Japan that look like jewels (I am not talking about the pesky Japanese Beetle). To me the green iridescence of the enamel reminded me of the precious jewel beetles ( Chrysochroa fulgidissima ) that I coveted in my childhood. They were seldom seen and flew so high close to the tree tops that it was really a rare feat to be able to catch them.
They were so precious and beautiful that even one of Japan’s National treasures, the Tamamushi Shrine from the 7th century used the beetle’s metallic wings as outer decoration cladding. The wings have, however, exfoliated from the little shrine due to the centuries, so there have been attempts to recreate the original splendor as a replica, but they could never find enough beetles to complete it. An attempt was started in 1933 to produce such a replica in time for the year 2600 celebrations of 1940, but after working on the project for 15 years, they finally had to abandon it, because the beetles were in no mood to celebrate (they finally did complete that job in 1960).
I don’t collect them, I mean the badges, but I have always liked them, because there is that magic in that color.
Through Bill, I made the acquaintance of Shelton Yokomizo, Roger Bender among many others during the spring trip of 1980. My name, “Nick” was also a heritage of that trip, because Bill’s mother simply couldn’t deal with my real name and called me something different every morning, so I finally had to make it simple for her.
It was a memorable trip in many more ways, but as the trip was made between my graduation from university and the start of my professional career, I was immediately overwhelmed by a life of returning every day from work only around midnight and for some years I had no energy left to maintain contact with the many friends made on that trip.
I have tried a few times since then to find Bill without success, but a few years ago learned to my sorrow that he had already passed away.
I know he would have loved to learn more about his badges, and I am sorry I could never reciprocate his generosity back then. That is why I made the exception this time of writing about a navy theme, which I normally avoid. So this is dedicated to the memory of Bill Chizar, who passed away in 2003.
I also thank Japan X (Nick) for kindly scrounging up for me pictures of the badges, particularly the rare ones showing them in wear.
In order to promote various onboard combat skills, the Imperial Japanese Navy held skills tests/competitions every year from very early on. The competitions involved cash and other prizes, and among the prizes given out were badges representing proficiency in each skill category in two grades. The lower grade badge was called the 優等章 (Yutoh-Shou, Superior Class Award) and the higher class was called a 優等徽章 (Yutoh-Kishou, Superior Class Badge/Insignia).
As you see, in the Japanese wording 章(award) and 徽章(Badge/Insignia) were the only differences in the names, which being almost synonyms, conveyed no real sense of distinction between these two grades of badges. Such lack of differentiation in naming must be partly to blame for the common misunderstanding that one was for enlisted men and NCOs, and the other for officers, though officers were not even subject to these awards.
Though 章(award) and 徽章(Badge/Insignia) are not significantly different in meaning, I think military tradition ended up giving 徽章 higher status of the two as those words were used for the field marshal's badge and other badges expressing permanent status, whereas an award was something you won sometimes, but nothing that earned you permanent status. In this sense, the higher grade gunnery badge did indeed confer a certain Master status that was permanent and could not be taken away from you.
How you won these badges shifted over time, but by WW2, generally speaking, the lower class badge was won by participating in designated annual Navy Skills Rating tests and performing within the top 20 to 25% ( in the very early days it used to be the top 10% as a rule of thumb). They did not give you a new badge every time you made it into the top group, but if you did not make that grade or skipped a test, they took that badge away.
On the other hand, if you continued to make the top grade three times within a 6 year period (this used to be an allowance of a 5-year period before, in the years Nov. 1913 - Feb. 1939), you were awarded the upper class badge, which you could wear for the rest of your navy career. Both badges, however, were to be returned when leaving the navy, or if you drew punishment heavier than confinement.
So in order to reflect the true significance of these two grades of badges and to prevent further misinterpretations of the status of each, I will call the lower class badge a “Superior Class XX (Gunnery, etc) Badge” and the higher grade a “Master Class XX Badge”. This designation for the lower class is extremely faithful to the original Japanese, but the Master Class naming is devised to add the notion of seniority lacking in the Japanese naming. I will disregard all other English names given previously to these badges, as there has never been anything written about these badges in English worth reading anyway, not that there is anything decent in Japanese either.
The above is probably all that needs to be said about these badges in a typical reference work on them, but here we will be taking a much deeper look at how the award system evolved since its inception. Specifically we will look at the evolutionary history of the “Superior Class Gunnery Badge” and “Master Class Gunnery Badge”, as a representative example. This was actually the first of these series of badges to be established, so it went through all the twists and turns of tweaking the system to have just the right “carrot in front of the horse effect”. Being the first of its kind was also a reflection of how important gunnery skills were to the navy, so it is a representative choice in that sense as well.
The Guns of the Yellow Sea and the Secret of IJN Marksmanship
The first shelling match between an IJN vessel and an enemy ship occurred on 25th July 1894, against the Chinese fleet, the largest navy in Asia at that time. That was in the opening phase of the Sino-Japanese War. Things quickly escalated from there to the Battle of the Yellow Sea in September, which became the largest naval engagement of that war.
The IJN was up against a bigger Chinese fleet equipped with bigger guns and also with the advantage of having experienced military advisors from Prussia, Britain and the USA onboard their ships. However, despite being better equipped, the Chinese critically lacked Gunnery practice, due to lack of ammunition and they were soon outgunned by the deadly accurate and rapid fire from the fast-moving IJN fleet. The Chinese fleet lost that battle and finally surrendered after the Battle of Weihaiwei in early 1895. Gunnery proficiency was a decisive factor in the IJN’s victory over the superior equipped Chinese Navy in that war.
Ammunition was expensive, so not having enough live shells to use for gunnery training was the same for Japan, but the Japanese navy had perfected a method of training that cleverly substituted rifle ammunition for real large caliber shells in sighting practice for their gunners. They accomplished this by devising a method of installing a rifle's action into the breach of a large caliber naval gun. With totally different effective ranges, one would think that shooting with a rifle would never work as training for shooting large canons, but it did.
You just had to scale things down to match the range of a rifle bullet. Targets for these trainings were placed about 400 meters away. The trajectory of the rifle bullet is known, so it is possible to calculate how much elevation angle the gun needed to hit a target 400 meters away. Next you calculate how far a large projectile would go, if shot at the same elevation. For instance, in case of a 6 inch gun, the same elevation required for a rifle shot to hit a target 400 meters away would lob a real shell 3,400 meters. So if you calibrate the sighting optics of the real gun to 3,400 on the range scale and use that to sight the target 400 meters away and shoot, the trajectory of the rifle bullet traveling 400 meters would be a miniature ballistic simulation of a 6 inch shell travelling 3400 meters and will land on the target 400 meters away in the same way a 6 inch shell would on a target 3400 meters away.
The IJN gunners were constantly required to hone their sighting skills with this method, mixed with live fire practice. So by the Russo-Japanese War, their gunnery skills were really quite deadly, especially in combination with the secret “Shimose powder”, which the Russians really feared. Once again, Navy gunnery was a decisive factor in Japan’s victory against a superior navy in 1905.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 01-15-2017 at 07:56 PM.
Let’s now take a look at how gun crews were organized within the turret in those days, as there were actually many involved and any incentive, in the form of a badge, had to motivate the right man to have the intended effect.
If we take the example of the 12 Inch Turret Gun of Togo’s Mikasa, each of the two guns inside the turret had a crew of 6, and in addition to that, there was the turret chief and sub-chief, so 14 members all told, not counting the officer in charge. The turret chief was normally a chief petty officer, and he was responsible for rotating the turret, elevating the guns, sighting and firing. Thus he was the “gunner” or “shooter (射手)” as they say in Japanese. He had his position beside the right side gun. His sub-chief was at the side of the left gun, whose job was to assist the chief with the turret operation, in addition to part of the aiming and triggering process of the left gun. The other 6 gunners per gun had their tasks divided as follows---
Number 1 Gunner: Oversaw loading operations and operated the loading device.
Number 2 Gunner: Opening and closing of breach and on/off of firing circuit
Number 3 Gunner: Shell carrier
Number 4 Gunner: Responsible for resetting the elevation to 4.5 degrees and locking it there for loading
Number 5 Gunner: Barrel Cleaner
Number 6 Gunner: Assistant Shell carrier
As you see above, during the Russo-Japanese War, the turret chief had the busiest and most critical job of all, and he was therefore the one that was targeted by the gunnery badges at that time.
However, one of the lessons learned in that war was that he needed to be freed from the job of rotating the turret, in order to be able to concentrate on elevation and sighting. Therefore the rotating operation was taken over by a specialized “trainer 旋回手” after the Russo-Japanese War. Also, the setting of the gun sight was delegated to a specialist 掌尺手, who needed to factor in the moving target’s anticipated travel. In this manner, the number of people involved in achieving gunnery precision soon increased and job distribution within the turret also evolved.
So by 1908, the turret chief was no longer a gunner and the composition of crew within the turret was changed as follows
1 Turret chief: He now managed and did not operate the guns anymore
2 Gunners (right and left): one on the right was the senior gunner
1 Trainer: He was responsible for the lateral sighting of the gun by rotating the turret
2 Tracker/Calibrator (right and left): They had to anticipate the position of the target at the time of projectile impact and calibrate the gun sights
1 Sub- Tracker/Calibrator: He had to factor in lateral target movement into the azimuth setting of the sight used by the trainer
In addition to the above, came the Number 1 to 5 gunners for each gun. That made the total 17 men per turret. They had to drop the 6th gunner, as there was no more space left in the turret. However, still on top of these 17 men, came the Gun Station Commander, who was a lieutenant or lieutenant commander, and his aide served by a sub lieutenant or ensign. His job was to select the right firing pattern (dual fire/single fire), shell type and fire rate, etc against the target communicated by the ship’s captain. In those days, both guns hardly ever fired together, as the guns shared a single hydraulic pump, which had to buffer the recoil, and both shooting at the same time required too much time for the pressure to come back for the next round. So they usually started fire from the right gun operated by the senior gunner and took turns.
Anyway, in 1908 there were only two men per turret, who could win the gunnery badge and those were the men who actually had fingers on the triggers. But as the importance of teamwork increased, the Trainer and Target Tracker became eligible for the badge in 1916, followed by the head of search lighting in 1924, and chiefs of the ammunition and powder magazines in 1928. So that by 1939, as many as 22 job functions supporting fire-control became eligible for the gunnery badge, provided they excelled in their respective tests.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 01-15-2017 at 08:29 PM.
It was after the Sino-Japanese War, in December of 1898 that the Navy held its first gunnery tournament, which caused them to think of setting up a badge for the winners as one of the prizes. This was a competition for cash prizes and was therefore called 艦砲懸賞射撃 (Gunnery Prize Tournament).
Draft rules for this competition were released on 22nd March 1898, which explained that the purpose was to select superior gunners from each ship and have them compete for prizes and citations. The competition was a tournament in three tiers. Firstly, there was an independent contest by ship, to be held once annually after routine gunnery training. These were held starting in May of that year. There were two upper tier joint competitions on top of that. One was a Fleet competition, and the other a Naval Base competition.
The fleet joint competition was to be held once a year and the top gunners from each vessel were assembled on a designated ship to demonstrate their skills. The naval base joint competition was to be held once in 2 or 3 years, in which selected ship and land-based gunners competed on one ship.
Then as the finals, came the All Navy competition, where the winners from the base competitions competed.
However, this competition was not set up anymore as one of individual skills, but as a ship versus ship competition. The first of this competition was held over 3 days between 4th and 6th December 1898, off the coast of Tateyama in Tokyo Bay. In this first competition, the gun crew from Amagi won first prize and the 2nd prize went to Kongo. The crew of the Musashi swept up the 3rd to 5th prizes for regular gunnery.
Competitions with heavy guns were at a range of over 2000 meters with the vessel at a 8-knot cruise along the buoy-marked base line of a triangle with the target raft anchored at the apex of that triangle. For light guns, the range was set at over 1000 meters.
Sand filled dummy projectiles were used. From each gun class, the top 10% of the gunners were rewarded, and prize money was distributed among them. The total amount of the cash prize in the pot to be distributed at the finals was set each year, but for instance, the total cash pot for a fleet competition was calculated as 3 Yen per number of contestants and for the ship level competition this was 1 Yen. Furthermore, in the finals, the gun crew of the winning vessel was awarded leave of up to 5 days.
For all competitions above ship-level (excluded), the rewarded top 10% were also to receive citations and a badge. This badge was to be called a 優等砲手章 (Superior Gun Hand Badge), which was to have a status equal to the naval rifle marksmanship badge. When an individual had both badges, the gunner badge was to be worn at the inner side of the two. These individuals were also to have the awards recorded in their personal ID papers.
The above badge, however, was not issued, as it only existed on paper at that time. It was also never issued in that name.
Even during the first competition of 1898, the draft rules seemed to get adapted to the situation and shifted somewhat. So a final official set of rules were announced on 25th February 1899. It was at this time that the Gunnery Badge was also finally instituted. However, the badge had a totally different name back then and was officially called,”艦砲懸賞射撃優等射手徽章 (Gunnery Prize Tournament Superior Gunner Badge)”.
The 3-tiered structure of the tournament remained unchanged, but competition classes were set up by gun caliber, namely Heavy Rapid Fire Guns, Light Rapid Fire Guns and Regular Guns. The top 10% performers in each class were eligible for prizes.
The range for heavy artillery was changed to 1500 meters plus and 2000 meters plus, and for light artillery it was now 800 meters plus or 1500 meters plus.
Firing duration limits were set at 2 minutes for the heavy rapid fire guns, 1 minute for the light guns and 8 minutes for the regular gun class.
Ranking was determined by the number of hits. When this was a tie, the crew with the higher number of total rounds fired won. If this still didn’t break the tie, the team with the quickest average firing cycle time won.
Only when the gunner won a prize, did the gun crew get rewarded as well, but his prize money was not to exceed 10% of the amount won by the gunner.
The award winners received also a citation and those who had won two or more citations were to receive the badge.
The contest regulation was tweaked again on 30th May 1899 to modify the target raft specs as shown below.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 01-15-2017 at 05:23 PM.
On 31st March 1902, the regulations went through another update. The Superior Class Badge still did not exist at this time. The main change was to separate execution details for the contest as a separate sub-regulation. However, the main regulation was also updated at this time to say that torpedo boats could participate as well when appropriate.
The sub-regulations defining execution details were now fine-tuned and expanded to 24 articles. These articles defined in finer detail, the responsibility of each official like the scorekeeper/observer and defined threshold qualifications for entering the contest.
Otherwise----
Cruising speed was raised to 10 knots, unless conducted on a destroyer or torpedo boat, when the speed was further increased to 13 knots
For each gun class, firing duration as well as maximum of rounds allowed was set. Unlike before, one could not exceed the maximum number of rounds even when excess time remained.
Ranking was by the number of hits, and when that was a tie, by the shorter duration of fire. If still tied, a maximum of 4 further shots were allowed to break the tie.
1907 February, The Superior Class Gunner's Badge Appears at last
Finally, on 18th February 1907, the “Superior Class Gunner's Badge” (艦砲射手優等章) was introduced and the previous “Gunnery Prize Tournament Superior Gunner Badge” (艦砲懸賞射撃優等射手徽章) was now renamed the 艦砲射撃優等徽章, which as discussed, we will call the Master Class Gunnery Badge. Note that the superior class was a "Gunner's Badge" while the master class was a "Gunnery Badge" at this time, thus having mismatched names.
Regulations for the gunnery competition were naturally revised on the same date, but now instead of having regulations dedicated to a competition, it was absorbed into the pre-existing Gunnery Regulations 艦砲射撃規則. This was a hefty 48-article regulation, as it covered all aspects of gunnery from A to Z. So I will only pick out the topics that relate to the badges.
Actual details for awarding superior gunners, however, were not discussed within this gunnery regulation, but were covered instead by a separately set up regulation titled Gunnery Awarding Regulations (艦砲射撃褒賞令) and a further set of implementation rules for those regulations (艦砲射撃褒賞令施行規則).
The revised gunnery regulations classified gunnery into 5 types, of which we need to be familiar with the following 3 to understand how the badges fitted into the overall scheme.
1. Drill Firing 教練射撃
This was for the purpose of familiarizing the gunner with aiming and firing of live rounds, and to familiarize the gun operator with the processes. It also served as practice for the Rating Gunnery.
2. Skill Rating Firing 検定射撃
This was a test performed to rate the skill level of each gunner. Gunners and operators, who excelled in these tests, were rewarded through the Gunnery Awarding Regulations (艦砲射撃褒賞令).
3. Combat Firing 戦闘射撃
The purpose was to simulate actual combat to familiarize commanders at various levels with fire control management. Ships excelling in combat gunnery were rewarded through the Gunnery Rewarding Regulations
When carrying out Skill Rating and Combat Gunnery exercises, an application was to be made to the Minister of the Navy 2 weeks prior to the event, giving details of the vessels involved and locations and dates.
Three different Target Types were defined in this new gunnery regulation (Type 1, Type 2, Type3)
Targets evolved further, but I will omit them from further discussions.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 01-15-2017 at 09:03 PM.
The new the Gunnery Awarding Regulations (艦砲射撃褒賞令) also released on 18th February 1907 was now a compact regulation of only 5 articles, brief enough for me to give you a complete translation below.
Article 1: The purpose of this regulation is to gauge the skill level of gunners and ships and award those who excel, in order to promote honing of those skills.
Article 2: Gunnery performance subject to awards in this regulation relate to the following two types of gunnery. (1) Gunnery performance per gun. (2) Gunnery performance per ship.
Article 3: Gunners 射手 excelling in category (1) of article 2 above shall receive a citation, prize and also a (newly established) Superior Class Gunners Badge. Gunners having won the citation for the third consecutive time are awarded the Master Class Gunnery Badge. Other Gun Operators are subject to rewards only when his gunner has won a citation.
Article 4: Ships excelling in category (2) of article 2 above will receive a citation as well as a Victorious Gunnery Banner (艦砲射撃優勝旗).
Article 5: Implementation details for this regulation will be decided at the discretion of the Minister of the Navy
And decide he did, as the “Implementation Rules for the Gunnery Awarding Regulations” (艦砲射撃褒賞令施行規則) duly followed on 13th May 1907. This was composed of 14 Articles. Instead of giving translations of all articles, I will extract points of interest as follows;
1. It limited the subject of the Gunnery Awarding Regulations to Skill Rating Firing 検定射撃 and Combat Firing 戦闘射撃
2. When those already in possession of a Superior Class Gunners Badge participated repeatedly in Skill Ratings, and excelled, they did not receive the same badge again, but were expected to continue wearing the badge they already had. Citations and prizes were awarded each time, however. And when qualifying for the third time in a row for the superior class badge, they were awarded instead a Master Class Gunnery Badge.
3. The required threshold level of performance to rate an award was announced each year.
4. Those with a Superior Class Gunners Badge had to return the badge to one’s commander in case of the following. (a) When the following year’s Skill Rating did not meet the grade, (b) When after winning the badge, one did not participate in further Skills Ratings by the end of November of the second year after the year of the win (c) When being discharged. The Master Class Gunnery Badge required to be returned to one’s commanding officer only when one was being discharged.
Thus you could skip one test after winning and still hold onto the badge, but unless you excelled in the third test, you lost the badge. However, once you won a Master Class Badge it was yours to keep throughout your navy service.
5. All badge holders forfeited the badge if sentenced to punishment heavier than confinement.
6. Reward money for Skills Ratings was split among contestants in the following ratios by gun caliber. 5 each for large caliber guns, 3 each for mid caliber and 2 each for small caliber guns.
7. From ships in the following 4 classes, the best of the class in Combat Gunnery received a citation and Victorious Gunnery Banners. (1) Battleships and First Class Cruisers (2) Warships other than the above, (3) Destroyers, (4) Torpedo Boats. However, when there were not enough contenders in a class, only the citation might be issued and not the flag.
8. Vessels that won the banner may keep it until a new winner was announced the following year. However, should there be no combat gunnery exercise in the next year, the banner was to be returned by end of November.
The Banner
The Victorious Gunnery Banner (艦砲射撃優勝旗) mentioned above was also introduced on 18th February, at the same time as the superior class gunners badge. It came in two sizes, the larger being for battle ships, and the smaller one for destroyers and torpedo boats. It was a red brocade banner with the imperial chrysanthemum and crossed guns in gold bullion and an anchor in silver bullion. The cherry tree leaves were green and metal fittings were gold. The cord and knot decoration was in purple.
The pole had a Golden Kite perched on a cherry blossom in gold metal as a pole top, the part below it was patterned after sheathing for a spearhead and was painted silver, the wicker-like wrapping cord was glossy black and the shaft of the spear was red.
The implementation rules above went through a minor revision on 26th October 1908. An addition to point 3 above said the total reward amount was also to be announced each year along with the required threshold performance level. Point 6 was deleted.
On 1st April 1910, another amendment spruced up the banner, adding silver rings to the pole of the banner to be engraved with the ordinal number of the annual competition, the year and the Vessel Name. Furthermore a Resume Record Document was now to accompany the flag, recording in addition to the above, the score in percentage points and the name of the commanders involved.
11 days later, on 12th April 1910 a further update specified that the winners of the Skills Rating rounds held between 1st December of the previous year and end of November of the current year were to be announced on the 1st of December, and citations and badges were to be awarded.
So from this point awarding of the badges became an end of the year event. Those losing the superior class badges were now to return their badges also on 1st December, unless they were leaving the navy, in which case they were to give them up at the time of departure.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 01-15-2017 at 05:27 PM.
1909-1911, Proliferation of Proficiency Badges and Development of a Master Regulation
While the gunnery awards got the finishing touches to the award structure and rule details, other proficiency badges followed the path paved by the gunnery skills incentives. Thus on 27th March 1908 came the duo of Torpedo badges, followed on 27th December 1909 by the Badges for Engine Running at Peak Performance, and on 7th September 1910 came the Signals Communication Badges.
But things got messy with all these badges and flags having their own set of regulations, so it was time to consolidate them into a streamlined Master Regulation governing all badges. This was the purpose of the 海軍戦技褒賞令 (Navy Combat Skills Awarding Regulations) instituted on 8th September 1911.
To coincide with this new format, the design of the Master Class Gunnery Badge was changed to have an appearance more consistent with the other badges that got established later. The Master Class Gunnery Badge of 1899 had a color scheme quite different from the other Master Class badges, which had a predominantly green metallic hue due to the large chrysanthemum leaves in green. Thus these Master Class Badges actually had gained the nick name, “Green Grade Badges 青バッジ”, because of this.
So the 1911 revision of the gunnery badge design introduced the green color scheme to the Gunnery Master Class Badge as well. The design of the Superior class badge did not change (except for a longer pin), but its naming was changed from 艦砲射手優等章 to 艦砲射撃優等章 which now matched the 1907 naming of the Master Class Badge. However, this subtle name change shifted the purpose of the badge from a “射手 gunner’s badge” to a “badge for 射撃 gunnery” and may also be foretelling the coming extension of the award to others supporting gunnery and not limiting it to gunners only.
This umbrella regulation for the various proficiency badges was basically the same as the compact 5-article Gunnery Awarding Regulations (艦砲射撃褒賞令) of 18th February 1907, only that it was now written to cover Gunnery, Torpedoing, Engine Running and Signaling skills and awards. Besides the badges, all these skills had their own Victory Banners for the winner ships, but now all 4 of these different flags were discontinued and replaced by one flag design a ship could win only when they were top of the class in total scores of the various skills.
This new 1911 flag was called 海軍戦技優勝旗 (Navy Combat Skills Victor Banner). It was a red brocade flag with the characters 戦技優勝 (Combat Skills Victory) embroidered in gold bullion under a golden chrysanthemum. The cords and knot were purple, metal fittings in gold. The pole design was the same as the gunnery flag, but the new flag was no longer made in two sizes according to ship size.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 01-15-2017 at 05:29 PM.
Just as it was with the gunnery awards, Implementation Rules for Navy Combat Skills Awarding Regulations 海軍戦技褒賞令施行規則 were announced on 8th September 1911 as well. The contents of this regulation was basically the same as the May 1907 rules established for the gunnery awarding, merely extended to cover other skills as well. Thus I will only explain new features that impacted the gunnery awards.
Previously, only punishments heavier than confinement were cause for forfeiting the award, but now a second clause was added “For undignified behavior unbefitting a member of the military”.
Submarines were added to the vessel classes eligible for the victory flag competition, but flags were no longer won for being the best ship in the class for one skill. Instead vessels had to participate in all disciplines and have passing grades in every combat skill. In which case, scores for each competition were converted to percentages out of a full score of 100% and the ship having the highest average score won the flag. Being the best in the vessel class for a certain skill still won the ship a citation, but the flag was now only for the all round Champion.
The new flag continued with the established tradition of silver rings with winner engravings as well as the resume record document described for the gunnery flag above.
These implementation rules were modified slightly on 11th November 1911
“Suspended sentences” heavier than confinement, now did not necessarily mean voiding of the medals, if consent was given by the commanding officer.
Ships winning the Combat Skills Flag could give each of its crew a day’s leave
When successful award candidates were transferred to other posts or ships, the awarding was to be carried out by the new commanding officer.
When an individual qualified for an award, but died before announcement, only the reward was given to the next of kin. If one died after the announcement, but before the prize-giving, the award as well as the citation went to the next of kin.
Another revision following on 20th December 1911 said---
When an individual qualifying for a Superior Class or Master Class Badge got sentenced with punishment heavier than confinement or showed behavior unbecoming a soldier before the prize giving, neither the badge, award nor citation were to be awarded, unless the sentence was a suspended one.
1913 March, “How the Master Class was Won” for Dummies.
As we saw in the development above, in the beginning, winners of every tournament were supposed to win the Master Class Badge (1898). Then they said only for the second time (1899), but that bar was raised again to the third time (February 1907) when the Superior Class Badge was introduced. But then, they added twists to the game through various clauses that could take the senior class badge away from you, such as going to jail or missing 2 Skill Rating tests in a row after winning it.
So by this time you didn’t have to be dumb to be scratching your head and wondering how the loss of a junior badge in between affected your chances for the Master Class. Thus on 19th March 1913, a memo titled “Regarding the Awarding of Master Class Badges for Naval Combat Skills” was issued to clarify how it now worked (or didn’t work) for you.
The memo said “The exact meaning of winning the Superior Class Badge 3 times in a row” was now to be interpreted as (1) Winning the Citation (the badge itself you got only once with the first citation) in 3 consecutive years, or (2) Even when not in consecutive years, when one was not required to surrender the badge in between and won the citation 3 times (in other words, when one qualified to wear the badge 3 times in a row). What this meant was that if you had to give up your badge, your previous wins were voided and no longer counted toward the Master Class Badge -- you had to start from scratch.
To make sure that everyone got this right, they made the whole thing into a visual chart ( see below ).
At this time, the allowance of letting you earn 3 wins within a 5 year period did not officially exist yet, and was suggested here in the diagram for the first time. It will officially enter the Awarding Implementation Rules later that year from 29th November 1913.
By the way, you need to bear in mind that in peacetime military service, service in the army was 2 years, and it was 3 years in the navy, so no EM actually had the luxury of the 5 years to win a master class badge. Thus it would have been extremely difficult for an EM to reach that level of proficiency within his active service.
Banner Leaves the Stage
4th November 1913
Navy Flag Regulations got an update to define when the ships should exhibit the Victory Flags. The banner was to be displayed at domestic ceremonies (excluding those held in honor of foreign guests), campaign anniversaries and national holidays. In case of battleships, they were to stand on the bridge or on the front or rear gun turret. In case of destroyers, it was to fly on the bridge of the command vessel. For boats and sub fleets, upon the tower of the commanding vessel in a prominent position easily seen from outside. The duration of exhibit was at the discretion of the captain or commander, taking into consideration weather conditions, etc.
This regulation was superseded, however, on 17th November 1916 by a special regulation dedicated to the handling and safekeeping of the victory flag, its resume document and citations from the Combat Skills competitions. However, as the flag is not the main subject here, I will omit further discussions on these points.
15th January 1924
The Navy Combat Skills Victor Banner海軍戦技優勝旗 was discontinued
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 01-15-2017 at 07:24 PM.
1913-1928, Further Developments During the days of the Combat Skills Awarding Regulations
Let’s get back to the badges and continue with how the awarding of the gunnery badges evolved. As we have seen, the badges were governed by 3 different regulations, a “Gunnery Regulation”, a “Combat Skills Awarding Regulation”, and its “Implementation Rules”. For the sake of being concise, I will just pick out the changes occurring by date without naming the regulation that was changed.
29th November 1913
Now when an individual rated for a Superior Class Badge for the third time, the Master Class Badge was given to him in addition to the first Superior Class Badge he had been allowed to keep. This comment suggests that previously the Superior Class Badge needed to be surrendered for a Master Class Badge, which was also how orders were presented (If you possessed an Order of the Rising Sun 5th class and newly received the 4th Class, you had to return the 5th class order).
Unlike the 1907 regulation that allowed you to skip one test and still keep the Superior Class Badge, it now needed to be surrendered if one did not participate again in the following year before 30th November. However, this new rule was only to be applied from those winning the badge in December of that year in 1913. Therefore this 29th November revision was to come into effect only from 1st December 1913.
Introduction of the 5-year Allowance However, it was also mentioned here for the first time that even if you did not participate in the tests every year to earn the badge 3 times in a row, if you could get three wins within a period not to exceed 5 years, that would be treated the same as 3 consecutive wins.
This 5-year allowance was already suggested within the memo of 19th March 1913 above, but this November revision was the first time it was officially spelled out as a regulation.
20th March 1914
New points were primarily related to the ship versus ship competition, but I will omit those parts of the competition unrelated to the gunnery badges, as even the banner for gunnery no longer existed since 1911.
The required performance level to qualify for the gunnery badge and the details of the reward amounts were announced in November each year. These points will also be omitted here as they are outside the scope of this article, but I am providing below a excerpt sampling from the performance threshold and reward amount scale for the Skills Rating tests for the year 1914 to give you an idea how it worked.
28th May 1915
The Master Class could only be won once
14th April 1916
The Skills Rating Firing Tests were dropped from the Gunnery Regulations. This was done preceding a total revamp of gunnery related skill tests, breaking them down into specialized tests for specific skills that have become important.
12th June 1916
The range of gunnery related combat skills (戦技) defined as being subject to awarding were now 戦闘射撃 (Combat Firing Exercises), 砲員検定 (Gun Crew Test), 測距検定 (Range Finding Test).
“Combat Firing Exercises” were defined in the Gunnery Regulations to consist of two types. One was a Formation Combat Firing Exercise (編隊戦闘射撃) in which two or more ships participated in a mock battle exercise to simulate realistic situations. The other type was a Single Vessel Combat Firing Exercise (単艦戦闘射撃) conducted individually.
Reflecting the new assortment of specialized tests introduced, Trainers (旋回手) and Trackers (測手) newly became qualified for the gunner badges, in addition to the Gunners (射手). A tracker’s job was to establish the path of the target’s motion in order to aim ahead along this path of travel.
The requirement to excel in 3 tests within a 5 year span in order to earn a Master Class Badge was clarified to mean that one could only take one test per year.
When an individual qualified for a reward and citation, but died, the next of kin were given all the prizes (no more hairsplitting over at which point he died in relation to the announcement or prize-giving)
15th November 1921
The date for selecting the winners for the past training year as well as the deadline for badge returns was now 20th November instead of 1st December.
1st April 1923
Gunnery Regulations (艦砲射撃規則), were renamed “Gunnery Training Regulations” (艦砲射撃訓練規則).
1st December 1923
The tests established in 1916 were reorganized into 3 Types of Gunnery Skill Tests by the new “Gunnery Training Regulations” (艦砲射撃訓練規則). These were 射手旋回手検定 (Gunner and Trainer Test), 掌尺手検定 (Sight Calibration Test) and 砲手検定 (Gun Crew Test). Besides those 3, there was still the 測距検定 (Range Finding Test), so it was now 4 specialized skills that were tested. In addition to those 4 tests, 戦闘射撃 (Combat Firing Exercises) also remained subject to awarding.
15th January 1924
照射検定 (Search Light Projection Test) was added to the “Implementation of Awarding Rules” and accordingly, the Head of Search Light Operations (探照燈長) could also now get the badge.
25th December 1925
照射検定 (Search Light Test) was belatedly added to the “Gunnery Training Regulations”. I assume this was already an established test as of January 1924 as shown above, but rather in connection with another Combat Skill such as torpedoing, and that it was simply shifted to the gunnery category at this time.
3rd February 1928
弾火薬庫員弾薬供給員検定 (Ammunition Magazine and Feeder Test) was established in the “Gunnery Training Regulations”, and simultaneously the “Implementation of Awarding Rules” added the Head of Ammunition and Powder Magazines (弾庫長火薬庫長) to the list of posts qualifying for the badges
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 01-15-2017 at 07:14 PM.
The Evolution of the Japanese Navy Gunnery Badges 1898-1945
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