Japanese Roster Book?

[VietnamWarNut]

I saw this Japanese book and was wondering what it might be. I do not speak Japanese nor am able to read it, but it looks like it might be a roster of some sort? I'm trying to learn more about WW2 militaria and documents greatly interest me, so naturally this sort of book is in my wheel house of interests.

Analysis:
The war souvenir stamp is also interesting, I have not seen one of those before that look like that. Although I do not know Japanese, some of the sequences of characters look short enough to maybe be names? On some of the blank pages, there appears to be some scribbling, does anyone know what this could be? Maybe a personal annotation by the soldier who wrote in this? Or maybe they ran out of space on the pages with a template for writing, so they started writing on the blank pages? In some sequences of characters, there appears to be some fractions written down, like 2/11, 10/10, if anyone has an idea of what these fractions could be of, please share any thoughts!

In summary, I'm not sure what this could be, seems interesting and I thought it was worth a question about. So, if anyone knows what this is, or has any other input, please feel free to share!

Thanks for taking a look!

D.B

[tomp]

It looks like it at least started out life as a personal address book. The names with fractions look more unit based to me, but just my opinion. The capture stamp is really unusual, I have not seen one like that before. Unit ID (7016) points to capture in Bougainville. Soldier also wrote down his bayonet serial number, pretty neat.

Tom

[VietnamWarNut]

Thanks for the reply, Tom!
Is there anyway to tell what division the unit id is designating? Is it like the UNIS markings that the marines used?

[Nick Komiya]

The personal address book belonged to a Katsu Kiyonaga, a member of the 45th Field Antiaircraft Gun Battalion, a component of the 17th Army that ended up in Bougainville.

The addresses include women, and one such name is accompanied by a comment saying, "Comfort Bag", which must mean he meant to write back to the woman for sending him a gift bag of goodies.

Fractions like "2/11" normally indicate month and date in Japan, particularly here when all addresses are civilian.

Before the war, you needed such an address book for all the New Year cards.

[VietnamWarNut]

Thanks for the response, Nick!
I'm already learning so much from this forum!

[VietnamWarNut]

The personal address book belonged to a Katsu Kiyonaga, a member of the 45th Field Antiaircraft Gun Battalion, a component of the 17th Army that ended up in Bougainville.

The addresses include women, and one such name is accompanied by a comment saying, "Comfort Bag", which must mean he meant to write back to the woman for sending him a gift bag of goodies.

Fractions like "2/11" normally indicate month and date in Japan, particularly here when all addresses are civilian.

Before the war, you needed such an address book for all the New Year cards.

I tried to find info on the 45th anti aircraft battalion but I couldn't find anything, do you know which regiment or division they were in?

Does anyone know any sources I could find for more information on this unit?

[Rod]

The personal address book belonged to a Katsu Kiyonaga, a member of the 45th Field Antiaircraft Gun Battalion, a component of the 17th Army that ended up in Bougainville..

You can try to search for the 45th Field Anti Aircraft Battalion as a small unit history on JACAR, it would be with units controlled directly by the 17th Army headquarters. That's the only chance of finding anything more about this unit otherwise Nick gave you all there is to know.

I saw that address book for sale months back. It's pretty cool that it's unit marked but in my opinion overpriced for what it is. If it truly was a unit roster that was identified by a code name and number there would likely have been a list of soldier dog tag numbers with corresponding names. That would have been something I'd have jumped on in a heartbeat.

It's always sad to see items misrepresented like this and why it's important to research before buying.

[tomp]

I saw that this address book is on consignment, so maybe the owner won't budge on the price. To me, the unusual capture stamp and Bougainville connection would bump it up a bit, but I agree, still too high for what it is overall.


Tom