ID Tag for review.

**grimnar** · 10-04-2016, 01:34 PM

Morning Gents,

Just after some opinions on this tag. I believe the Tsūshōgō associates it to the 52nd Division, but what specific unit, I have no idea. What is confusing to me is the name in the left column. Is this an officer's tag maybe? I have yet to see an officer's tag with a Tsūshōgō code, I just don't know.

Any info or advice/opinions would be great.

Many thanks.

**Nick Komiya** · 10-04-2016, 05:09 PM

Unfortunately none of the lists compiled at war's end show the unit code of 4609 as having been issued. As seen in the listing below, 4606,08,09 and 4610 did not exist in 1945. The closest one, 4607 was the 78th depot hospital, all the others are independent transport troop companies.

However, the stamping looks legitimate, and judging by the other units in the range, if we were to assume this was also transport related, a possibility is that it was for a laborer in the transport troops.

They were below private in rank and were more like slave labor than soldiers. While proper soldiers in the transport troops served 3 years in the service, these workers served only 3 months because of the nature of their service. They were selected from those that did not qualify for normal service in the physical exam.

Rich but "softie" kids thus easily got over-ranked by toughened farm boys in the army and army life was way easier than a farmer's life for the country lads, so they even used to say the army spoiled farm kids into lazy sloths.
Anyway, giving this type of short term labor a personal ID number in a company probably did not make much sense and a name was more expedient.

The 4609 unit may have been decimated or disbanded during the war, but that means a huge amount of documents to comb through, so I will not go any further on this. I also do not think this is for an officer. Did the auction not give you details of the unit in the description?

**grimnar** · 10-04-2016, 11:58 PM

Fantastic information Nick. Many thanks for your assistance and time.

Unfortunately the listing was not forthcoming with any additional information. The tag was cheap, the details looked above board so I decided to take the gamble. One additional question, have I got his name right? 濱田一平, Ippei Hamada?

Again, thank you for your time and effort in giving so freely of your assistance.

Regards,
Matt.