Unraveling the Mystery of an Unidentified Navy Dagger Design
Article about: Unraveling the Mystery of an Unidentified Navy Dagger Design About a week and a half ago, member Long Shot wrote me, asking me for help in identifying a navy-like dagger, however without the
Unraveling the Mystery of an Unidentified Navy Dagger Design
Unraveling the Mystery of an Unidentified Navy Dagger Design
About a week and a half ago, member Long Shot wrote me, asking me for help in identifying a navy-like dagger, however without the expected adornments on the scabbard. At that time, I told him I had no time to engage in a “needle-in-the-haystack type” of exercise combing through all government uniform regulations covering a span of 75 years (1870-1945). But this week, with some extra time on my hands, I decided to see whether I could narrow down the search through deduction and possibly pin down the ID.
Firstly, here is the dagger Long Shot asked me to ID. It is basically in navy configuration, but devoid of the cherry blossom and leaves that should adorn the scabbard throat and kojiri.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 03-28-2019 at 07:37 PM.
Adornments denote rank of the owner and thus when it is even devoid of decorative features expected of a Navy Ensign’s dagger, it has to be for a lower rank, but navy NCO’s did not get daggers, so that places the dagger outside the navy’s military rank system, yet the cherry blossom in the grip still identifies the organization as navy.
The only way a navy man below officer grade can possess a dagger is to be a non-combatant civil official, a so-called Gunzoku or civilian in navy employ.
All public servants, both civil and military were placed within a civil servant ranking grid that made military NCOs equivalent of Haninkan class civil servants. However, for the same Haninkan class, the civil servant counterpart was ranked slightly higher than a military Haninkan NCO (I guess, because they were better educated than their military counterparts). That is why army Haninkan Gunzoku were allowed to carry company grade officer swords, while the military counterpart got limited to a Type 95 sword at best.
For the navy, they maintained this higher status of a civil Haninkan by allowing him a dagger, but in a design that complied with the civilian hierarchy of design segmentation. The easiest way to demonstrate this is to see how rank segmentation was made in daggers for the Pacific Mandates, which were also based on the navy design.
As shown below in FIG. 1, the Haninkan rank had a dagger devoid of any embellishments. Almost identical to the dagger in question, except that the emblem in the grip was the insignia for the Pacific Mandate, a cherry blossom surrounded by palm fronds.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 03-28-2019 at 09:15 PM.
So the key target of the search could now be narrowly defined as "Navy Gunzoku with Haninkan rank". Thus I limited the scope of the detailed search to uniform regulations pertinent to those personnel, and “Bingo!”, those regulations certainly did tell the rest of the story.
As shown in FIG.2 below, Navy Gunzoku were first allowed to wear daggers from July 4th 1908. However, at this time, all Navy Gunzoku ranks were to carry a dagger without any navy rank embellishments on the scabbard.
Then Navy Gunzoku uniform regs got revised on 20th May 1914, which limited the earlier plain navy Gunzoku dagger design to Haninkan wear and created a unique arabesque embellishment to denote more senior Gunzoku ranks (Souninkan, Chokuninkan) equivalent to Navy Ensigns and above.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 03-28-2019 at 09:16 PM.
So the dagger in question would have been a navy Haninkan Gunzoku dagger from May 1914, but could have been worn also by higher ranks earlier since July 1908.
However, this practice was not carried over into WW2, but ended on 8th July 1931, as shown in FIG.3, when Haninkan as well as Koutohkan (Souninkan and Chokuninkan) were to carry identical daggers to those of navy officers.
The dagger design in question thus became obsolete in 1931, explaining why they are seldom encountered in the market today.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 03-28-2019 at 10:06 PM.
Another feature unique to the dagger in question is how the metal sleeves to the throat and kojiri form a closed-in lagoon rather than an open inlet in the WW2 style. Whether this was a feature unique to the 1908 Navy Gunzoku model or a simple variation, I cannot tell for the lack of further clues at this time.
Long Shot’s original public inquiry was posted on the WAF, but as I do not have posting rights there, unless I pay them just to post illustrations, I am responding in public here, instead. Please feel free to post in the WAF thread a link to this thread.
For the above reasons, I do not respond to questions raised at WAF. If you have inquiries in the future that require my help, please post them here instead.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 03-28-2019 at 07:34 PM.
Nick - thank you so much for spending your time to help unravel this mystery! When I first came upon this dirk I knew it was unusual but I quickly exhausted my available resources and came to a dead end. So, I reached out to you because this is the kind of "mystery in Japanese military history" that very few have the capability and understanding to solve and I truly appreciate your skills and efforts!
Guy has posted a link to your research in the WAF forum so hopefully future seekers can find this article and utilize this in identification of other similar such dirks in the future
Here’s another dagger which Geoff Ward had posted in the past, which is still pending ID. Now that I am on a roll, let’s get this piece of homework done while I’m still in the mood to read up on Navy regulations.
Before 1883, officers only wore swords, and daggers were only worn by officer candidates and academy students as well as musicians. The dagger for candidates and students already looked pretty much like the example shown, but the fittings were plain without the blossoms and leaves.
Then when they newly introduced daggers for officers in October 1883, they took that occasion to spruce up the candidate and student dagger by adding cherry blossoms and leaves on the sheath and the back-strap of the grip (The unique musician’s dagger carried over the old design). In terms of decorative embellishments, the candidate dagger left out the cherry blossom buds featured on the officer models.
The dagger that had been awaiting identification is such a 1883 Model dagger for a Lt. Aspirant. However, this model was discontinued in the 1914 regulation change, when all officer ranks down to and including candidates got to wear identical officer models.
So the dagger in question is a pre-WW1 dagger. Another mystery solved!
Unraveling the Mystery of an Unidentified Navy Dagger Design
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by nick komiya
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