It's more than WW2. Japan colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945, and Manchuria from 1932-1945. The Japanese police were quite active in these times, and their retreat in 1945 was rather precipitous. In addition, Korea nationalists fought with the communist Chinese against the Japanese throughout WW2 (and indeed previously)
Given this mixed history, I'm unsurprised that a Japanese, or Japanese-style, blade, would turn up in Korea in the 1950s.
My 0.00002 cents,
F
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