Fantastic post Austin. Of note, these guys were not just some POW's that surrendered at wars end. Incredible that these two made it off Saipan alive. They would have most probably taken part in, and made it through, the early morning attack on June 17th. There was actually an article posted on May 15, 2024 that has some first person accounts of this action. Tank Attack on Saipan! - Marine Corps Association
Austin-san, Guy-san:
Thank you very much for your very kind words about my late brother Nick.
I am sure that there would have been nothing that he would have appreciated more than your appreciation of his work.
Getting back to the topic, I find the new information uncovered by Adachi-san to be truly fascinating.
Since the report mentions the POWs’ unit to be the Karashima Unit, it must be the Yokosuka 1st Special Landing Unit（横須賀鎮守府第1特別陸戦隊 ）which was under the command of Commander Tatsuo Karashima (唐島辰男) at the time of their capture. I wonder what made them lie to their interrogators about their patches when they give a fairly accurate description of their garments? Or, could they have adopted an unofficial insignia, which they were talking about?
As my brother Nick had stressed, adoption of a specialty patch for paratroopers would have required the approval of the Emperor which would not have escaped being announced in the official gazette, and the full line up of Naval Specialty Patches then in effect showed up in the order dated March 31, 1942 which replaced the round specialty patches with the single or double cherry blossom special training course patches respectively for Ordinary (普通科) and Advanced and Specialized Training (特修科 -Tokushuka and 専修科 - Senshuka). Also, the abolishing of insignia also required at least a Cabinet resolution, so it is neither possible for a paratrooper specialty patch to have been somehow adopted only to get discontinued before the March 1942 switchover of insignia. So, there is no chance that an officially adopted specialty insignia for those trained as paratroopers to have existed.
It is interesting to note that although the 1st Yokosuka Special Landing Unit was relegated to ground duties by the time they were sent to Saipan, they seem to have brought their parachute equipment with them as I have in my collection a used Type 1 paratrooper parachute harness that was purportedly brought back by a GI from Saipan. (This is an "almost direct" veteran pickup, the dealer knew the vet who had the harness and when I expressed an interest in it, he took the trouble of going to the vet's house to pick it up for me while I had dinner at a nearby Black Angus Steakhouse at Walnut Creek.)
I will attach photos for those who may be interested. The harness is named to a Leading Seaman (水兵長) in the Antitank Gun unit and is dated July 16, 1942 which is almost 6 months since the drop on Menado, so the Navy had not completely ruled out the possibility of conducting another airborne operation for some time. In fact, the Type 1 parachute in my collection is dated 1944 and there was even a Type 4 Parachute that must have been adopted in 1944 (there is at least 1 example in a collection in the U.S.). Also, according to the records of Otsuka Shoe Co., Ltd., a company which exists to this day and was then the main supplier of footwear to the Navy （and is known today as the purveyor of footwear for the Emperor,）they received orders for 5,000 pairs of paratrooper boots from the Navy during fiscal year 1944 (April 1944 to March 1945).
The photo of the paratrooper in his white uniform is also very interesting. Since the Navy Gunnery School was also responsible for specialized training for Naval Landing Forces, the Ordinary Class Gunnery Course Graduation insignia worn on his left arm may actually even denote special landing troop training. (In June, 1941 the Navy even opened a branch school of the Naval Gunnery School in Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture -館山砲術学校, which specialized in landing troops training.)
Last edited by Akira Komiya; 05-16-2024 at 03:25 AM.
I’ve always believed companies with contracts continued to honor and finish production well into the point of obsoletion and up to wars end etc. I’m a real skeptic on that harnesses history. Carrying that into combat region would be totally impractical, useless and doesn’t make sense to me. We have seen naval bandoliers in period photos of deceased soldiers etc.
I am not a great believer of the “picked up in Saipan” story either; that’s why I wrote “purportedly brought back from Saipan”.
However, I thought the vet’s mentioning of Saipan as where he picked up the harness was interesting as it coincided with where the Yokosuka No. 1 Special Landing Force ended up in. In any event, the harness was clearly issued and used after the Menado and Kupang drops in early 1942 as indicated by both by its manufacturing date markings as well as the owner’s rank designation of 水長, Leading Seaman which only came into use in November 1942. So, the Navy was probably still contemplating the possibility of conducting further airborne operations at least until late 1942.
I am not sure what you mean by the reference to companies continuing to manufacture products honoring contracts but companies will not manufacture products without contracts and records show that Otsuka received orders for 5,000 paratrooper boots between April 1944 and March 1945. (During the same period, they also received orders for 180,000 pairs of landing troop boots, although I doubt that they were able to completely fulfill either orders in light of the late war material shortages.)
Furthermore, the Navy adopted a new Type 4 paratrooper parachute in 1944 which was a completely novel design allowing the canopy to be jettisoned by pulling a cord just like some modern parachutes, which I believe to have been revolutionary for the time.
My late brother Nick took tons of photos of an example that was in a collection in the United States when he visited in early 1980 intending to use them for a magazine article. (Some did eventually make it into the August 1987 issue of the PX Magazine, a 1980s Japanese magazine on military uniforms and equipment in an article on Navy paratrooper clothing and equipment written by Ms. Etsuko Yagyu who was the foremost expert on IJN uniforms at that time and shows a manufacture date of August 11, 1944. )
In hindsight, such may seem to show how divorced from the realities of war some people in the Navy were, even going to the extent of developing and manufacturing a new paratrooper parachute and ordering paratrooper boots so late in the war, but such was probably just the result of compartmentalization within the Navy; once a group responsible for developing and procuring paratrooper equipment and clothing is established, they just keep on doing their job heedless of events in the outside world until the higher ups finally pull the plug.
Interesting though, is that you do see a disproportionate number of IJN Type 1 paratrooper parachutes as compared with the rarity of any other navy paratroop related items.
I think a definitive history of the IJN paras in English needs to be authored eventually. I have contemplated it but the lack of period photos is rather unappealing to me. They may have only dropped at Menado and Kupang but the IJN certainly hadn't abandoned plans for further airborne operations beyond that. They conducted more jump training at home in 1943 and there was even a proposed plan to jump on Attu to retake it from the Allies. It is documented that the Yokosuka 1st SNLF brought their parachutes to Saipan with them. Their status as an airborne unit was very important to them, so to strip them of their gear likely wouldn't have done well for morale within the unit.
I will attach scans of the relevant portions of the magazine article I mentioned in my previous post.
You can see that the shroud lines of the Type 4 parachute converges into a claw like clasp high on the back which could be opened by pulling the cord on the left shoulder thus releasing the canopy. I noticed with interest that the parachute pictured bears the serial number of 1900001, meaning the first chute manufactured in the year Showa 19 (1944) so this could very much be the very first example of the Type 4 parachute manufactured.
The minty paratrooper jacket and pants are dated January 1943 and were rescued by its owner literally hours before it would have been turned into pulp at a recycling factory.
＜It is documented that the Yokosuka 1st SNLF brought their parachutes to Saipan with them.＞
Adachi-san: Thank you for the input.
It is nice to learn after more than 40 years that I wasn't being fed a lot of horsesh**t after all.
Perhaps you and Akira-san could co-author such a history!!! I'll buy a copy.by adachi
-- Guy
Guy-san:
My knowledge on IJN paratroopers is pretty much limited to what is written in the Japanese Wikipedia article on IJN airborne troops which I didn’t even know existed until this morning but found to be very well written. 日本海軍空挺部隊 - Wikipedia
I always thought of IJN paratroopers as something of a mystery organization and was surprised that there are actually a fair number of photographs showing clear shots of IJN paratroop clothing in wear; my younger brother had a book on Japanese military small arms published in Japan and there were some excellent uniform shots including a shot showing even details of the jump boots.
Their obscurity is no doubt at least in part due to the Army’s request to keep the Navy’s Menado and Kupang drops secret until the Army’s Palembang drop, after which the Army stole all the accolades and is said to have made ex-Navy paratroopers bitter to the end.
Akira-san, you are too humble! Even if you do not feel comfortable as an historian of IJN paratroopers, you have the skill, knowledge, and ability to be an outstanding researcher working with someone like Adachi.
I think it would be a good match! AA!! Akira & Adachi. What do you say, Adachi????? Can you team up with Akira-san to write that book you've had in mind?
(^___*)
Community Organizer or Activist to some .... Agitator to others!!!
Domo Agitator!
-- Guy
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