Cloth wound badge

[Alowen]

Afternoon, I recently bought some IJA soldiers ID books and was looking through them. In one of the pre WW2 books I found this in the back pocket. I’ve done a little online research and can find only one similar. It’s on collectors guild and is listed as a ‘reservists wound patch’.

Can anyone give me any further information about it please? Where it was worn? Years of this type of badge being issued? Was it a career ending injury? Etc.

Many thanks

[Alowen]

This is the ID book it was in.

[Nick Komiya]

Sorry, I cannot immediately identify what that patch was for, but I vaguely recall seeing it before associated with some shrine as a good luck charm. The black shield and swords are all imperial regalia related to the Imperial family and Shintoism. I very much doubt the description at the CG site, as I have never seen an Edict establishing such a patch for a wounded vet, and there also would have been no need for such a confusing different design when the vet could have simply worn his official wound badge. The pass book it came in also records no battle wounds.
I will keep this in the back of my mind and will come back to it once I have a definite ID.

[delibes]

Hi,

Maybe this help i have the same on this uniform.

Regards
Delibes

[Nick Komiya]

I had already done in-depth research on both uniform regulations for reservists as well as wound badges to write the following two articles. If such a patch had been established for wounded vets, my research net would have definitely caught it in one or another of war time documents. So it is neither for reservist nor for the wounded.

Sorting out a Mess, Imperial Japan’s Reservist Badges
Evolution of the Japanese Wound Badge at a glance

[Alowen]

Nick, thank you for your time. I hope this comes to light at some point as I’m very interested in it now that it’s not an obvious badge/patch. I see the soldier the ID book belonged to was a gunner in the imperial guards, this could well be a link to the Imperial side of things.

P.S.

What are the red lines through the kanji for please?

Many thanks

[Alowen]

Delibes, that’s an interesting tunic. Yes, definitely the same patch and you’ve cleared up where it was worn (shoulder). Isn’t that a Japanese National Defence Women’s Association Tasuki ?

Many thanks.

[Nick Komiya]

The man was just a radioman within an IJA artillery unit, nothing to do with the imperial guards. The patch is also not a military patch for the army, as all army uniform patches needed the Emperor's signature as an Imperial Edict and such an edict was never issued. As I said in the beginning, my guess is that it was a good luck charm from a Shrine. The example showing it on the arm may not be legitimate at all, so you should not draw any conclusions from that. I say it is more a religious icon like seen here, rather than anything military.

[Alowen]

I see. Thank you. Hopefully the mystery will be solved.

[Nick Komiya]

Thanks to a lead from my brother, which gave me the official name of this insignia as 応徴士徽章, Conscripted Laborer Patch, I was able to unearth all necessary details about this badge, which I will cover in a separate article in detail. In short, this was an insignia instituted on 10th August 1943 by the Ministry of Welfare to workers conscripted into wartime production service. In a factory consisting of regular employees as well as conscripted workers, only the latter were allowed to wear this patch, which was to be worn on the left chest of the work uniform (the example above, shown on the tunic sleeve is an incorrect postwar addition).

Attached below is the government gazette announcing this patch as well as a photo of it in wear.
Anyway, it has nothing to do with having been wounded nor being a reservist and is in the same league as the Kamikaze headband for female student factory workers.

At the end of the war, there were 6.16 million of such conscripted labor, also including Koreans, which is now a hot potato topic between Japan and Korea. In that context, Koreans treat this patch like the Jewish star patch of Nazi Germany, but it was worn by Japanese and Korean alike.

More on this later.