Flag set question

[josephc]

This set is for auction locally and i am curious if anything interesting stands out about it. Also what is the smaller banner framed with the flag? being advertised as an Army Infantry tenugui towel??

[ghp95134]

I can’t find a date or recipient’s name, but it is interesting in that it names a unit on one side of the orb:
第二十四師団第三十四連隊
24th Division, 34th Regiment

The other side of the orb has a string of katakana that I cannot read at this time due to qualitu of the image.

I cannot read the tenugui (hand towel) but it looks period.
I might be able to do better on a computer — using an iPhone now.

— Guy

- - ------- - -

The flag is oriented upside-down.

[ghp95134]

The tenugui main kanji is

玉砕
kyoku-sai
breaking the jade.

Another term for “banzai charge operation.” The 砕 in my explanation on the tenugui is post-1947 kanji — I can’t convert to the pre-1947 on my iPhone.

— Guy

On a computer now:

玉碎

[tomp]

I am wondering how the person who wrote the unit info connected the 34th Regt. to the 24th Div., because I am sure finding it hard to connect those two.


Tom

[ghp95134]

Tom,.

Maybe I misread the numbers. Even on a computer now with the image enhanced, it's hard for me to read.

-- Guy

[Nick Komiya]

The flag is a joke flag done postwar as an American soldier's souvenir.
Commemorating, US 24th Division's Occupation of Matsuyama City and made out to a Pete Velder

[josephc]

So the flag has correctly scripted Kanji and not gibberish but is a souvenir flag made up for the US soldier? Definitely hard for a novice to know this one not battle/japanese soldier possession - thank you as always for taking a look at it for me. Auction is tonight so based on this I should not try to acquire the set? More thoughts on the legitimacy of the flag and towel?

flag isolated and rotated -

[Nick Komiya]

Pete asked some local Japanese to write where the 24th Division had been in the war and various place names in Japan, popular sumo wrestler's name and miscellaneous Japanese words. It's US militaria rather than Japanese. The Tenugui's photo is too poor for authentication, but first time I see a towel with such a pessimistic and defeatist word as "Mass Suicide".

[josephc]

Additional pics at auction

[josephc]

Flag was supposed to be flipped