What were the regulations for the Army civilian employees to carry swords?

[Nick Komiya]

Regarding that so-called "army civilian employee sword", now I see that Ohmura-san is again part of the reason that old wives tale exists. He obviously does not read army uniform regulations.

On the top part of the page, however, he touches upon non-regulation gunto, which he admits were also worn by army, navy and civilians in military employment alike. Actually what he calls an army civilian employee sword is one of those. Both Ohmura-san and Wikipedia call them 異種軍刀, variant gunto. I also briefly touched upon these in a previous article, mentioning that by the war's end the army welcomed use of family guntos, due to the gunto shortage. But samurai swords needed the Koshirae replaced to have hanging rings and other military fittings. So conversions kits that made Samurai swords into quasi guntos existed.

The Gunto article in Japanese Wikipedia is far better informed about army regulations and practices than the amateurish Ohmura site and explains that such Samurai swords converted into gunto style were used by the army, navy and by its civilians alike and were also sanctioned by military regulations, so long as they were reasonably similar to the military specs.

So the sword you show would have been totally proper for an Army NCO to carry, not only a civilian employee of the army. However, I personally tend to feel that Army NCOs had more motive to go that route than army civilians. Civilian employees were fully entitled to proper army officer swords, whereas an NCO could return his Type 95 and switch to a better blade by going that route. 　

[Bruce Pennington]

Nick,

If I understand this correctly, the all-brown tassel was essentially the civilian rank equivalent of the Lance Corporal and NCO. Instead of using a leather tassel like the NCO, the Ko-in and Hanin-kan used the all-brown cloth tasel, and they could use a Type 98 gunto instead of the Type 95.

That would mean that an original bring-back 98 with all-brown tassel wasn't carried by an IJA officer, but was rather carried by the civilian equivalent of an NCO. If I have this down correctly?

[Nick Komiya]

Yes, a bringback 98 with an all brown tassel was not an Army officer's sword at all, but used by an army-hired civilian office manager with roughly NCO status.

[RussM]

Here's a couple of my all-brown tassels.

As you can see they are different shades.

The one on the left is approximately 37cm long, the one on the right is around 52cm long.

Regards

Russ

[RussM]

I’m wondering if perhaps the length is the easiest differentiating feature rather than the shade?

Regards

Russ

[Bruce Pennington]

Nick,

In the army, the samurai styled sword was a symbol of authority for the officer corps. Wouldn’t a low ranking civilian wearing one of these swords seem to put them on an equal level of power and authority as an army officer?

[Nick Komiya]

Russ, whether you go by the shade of brown or the length, you need to show a standard company grade tassel beside them as control, as the brown as well as length of the tassel remained consistent in the army.

Bruce, civilians in the army are not my normal area of interest. I merely gave you the facts, as I was asked to. I am surprised myself that civilians were so pampered. What personnel management politics stood behind the phenomenon requires a lot more in-depth research to understand, so for the moment you just have to accept it as fact, because that was just how it was.

One thought that already pops up, though, is that Army NCOs were not highly educated, whereas office/school management required higher qualifications of academic prowess. So officer-class civilians with higher learning were treated on par with army officers, but the civilian NCO class probably needed to be put on a pedestal higher than an Army NCO, not to end up reversing common sense social order based on education levels.

[RussM]

The company grade tassel is around 51cm in length on this example.

The colour is closest to, but not quite identical to, the tassel on the right, which is around 52cm in length.

Regards

Russ

[Nick Komiya]

And the leftmost one has considerably different length?

[RussM]

Yes, the left one is 37cm and is the same one shown on the left in the first pic.

Regards

Russ