What were the effects of WWII on the Nihonto?

[Crusader22]

By this I mean, between the family blades taken to combat and lost, destroyed, or captured, and the dumping into Tokyo harbor of untold thousands of weapons, what impact did these events have on the indigenous Nihonto "population" in Japan, if you will allow me that phrasing, and the subsequent outlawing of weapons such as swords?

 

And what percentage ended up in US servicemen's hands and were brought back as souvenirs, knowing the esteem which IJA and IJN officer swords commanded quickly as US forces came into contact with the Japanese?

 

How successful were repatriation efforts, if any existed?

 

Al very speculative, I know.

 

Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

Ramble on!

 

Jeff

 

 

[John C]

Jeff:

I think the vast majority of swords provided for the Japanese military were purpose made for the war effort by various entities. Although there were some who took family blades into battle and others who donated family blades (primarily if they did not have a son to go to war), these were not the majority. 

The biggest impact would have been the law to disarm the civilian population after the war and make them turn in their weapons. But MacArthur understood the cultural significance of the sword and made allowances in certain cases. This law, therefore, was tempered somewhat by efforts to declare certain blades as national treasures or important to Japanese culture. Many examples of petitions exist where citizens are trying to get their family heirlooms declared as important to the Japanese culture in order to keep them. Were some national treasures destroyed? Most likely. The most telling pic is probably the one shown below. How many national treasures are in that pile? We will never know.

It is also important to note that we relinquished military rule in 1952, allowing the Japanese to keep their swords as long as they were registered (torokusho). Many of the sword smiths were still alive and were able to teach sword making once again.

 

John C.

[Bruce Pennington]

You can read a bit about this from the actual post-WWII Army documents posted in our Downloads section - WWII US Govt Archived Documents and Swords

 

Richard Fuller estimates that over 2,000,000 swords were taken by the Allies (includes Russia and China) at the end of the war.  US military documented 661,621.  Of these, "372,609 were dispersed as trophies, to museums, and technical use... The remaining 289,012 were destroyed."  Many nihonto were retained by locals, and/or returned to them, but many obviously never were.  Houses were raided, but many citizens hid swords in roofs and under floors.

 

I have seen no numbers on how many were brought, donated, or bought for the war.  There were at least 2 big public campaigns to get private swords for the war, but haven't seen anything that described their success.

 

You'll have to use your imagination for the rest.  I personally doubt many families donated/sold real National Treasure level swords.  Most likely the stuff we see that was mass produced during the big war eras of old.  But they were still nihonto.

[Crusader22]

Thank you, good info to look through. Just an idle thought I had, always wondered.

 

Jeff

[reinhard]

It is due to the efforts of three men after WWII that Nihon-To as a cultural heritage of Japan is still alive.

At first pacific high command had decided, that all Japanese swords are potential weapons and had to be destroyed.

Homma Junji and Sato Kanzan persuaded US liaison officer Col. C.V. Cadwell to intervene.

It was Col. Cadwell who finally succeeded in persuading his superiors to acknowlede TRUE Nihon-to as cultural heritage of Japan and worth of preserving.

I guess General MacArthur was busy with many other tasks and probably didn't care much about exotic swords.

 

reinhard