Shots Fired in Anger

[Kiipu]

The following spoiler reflects the views of a serving U. S. infantry officer from 1947 and you are hereby forewarned that the language reflects the times.

 

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When you include the time spent in fencing drill and the effort of keeping these cheese knives maintained in the field, you have to concede that the Japs went to more trouble over their swords and bayonets than we did with hand-to-hand combat and kitchen inspections.  Every Jap who carried a sword also carried a silk cloth and a puff of very fine abrasive to polish and clean his blade, and he whiled away his idle hours by keeping a mirror surface on the steel.

 

Most of the better Japanese blades were hundreds of years old, handed down from early generations.  They were treasured accordingly.

 

This officer is wiping his blade, but not in the formal manner.  (There is a regular ritual for handling swords, a right and wrong way to draw, grasp, and re-insert them in the scabbard.)  Most likely he is eager to use this weapon, and maybe he’ll be foolish enough to try to close with it in the next assault he leads.  He’s pretty confident in its ability to kill, because he has cut the heads off of several Chinese prisoners.  One stroke to a head.

George, John B. Shots Fired in Anger. Plantersville, South Carolina: Small Arms Technical Publishing Company, 1947. Page 229.

[Kiipu]

An Internet search engine is your friend!  The illustration can be seen via the link below.  Back in the day, this book was mandatory reading.  Those were better days!

Shots Fired in Anger

[Stegel]

Thanks,

An interesting read.

[Kiipu]

  Quote

Long before the first American Indian took his first scalp, mankind’s various soldiery has had its favorite trophies.  In the Marauder campaigns, where trophies had to be carried, the Japanese individual battle flag was more treasured than a Japanese officer’s sword.  Following a firefight at Walawbum, I handed Pete Petito by Leica and immodestly posed for this snapshot.

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George, John B. Shots Fired in Anger. 2nd edition. National Rifle Association of America, 1981.  Quote taken from a picture caption between pages 490 and 491.