Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - multi-cultural

Lee · 14th July 2009, 09:24 AM

Poor yari! At least I know it is in capable hands for what restoration can be done.

A few weeks ago, this past July 4th, our local town museum has a special WWII artifacts display, much of it belonging to a local collector, who was also present to interpret it. While he has collected much of it over the years, the core of the collection was things his father had brought back from the Pacific theater. Among his father's souvenirs were a gunto damaged near the tip by a projectile and a curious spear, the shaft also damaged by projectile, which his father told him had come to no longer be needed by a Japanese master sergeant on the beach at the battle of Saipan. This was not a typical yari, the blade was more leaf shaped in the form of a typical generic spear. The pole was interesting as it had two steel ferrules with screw joints, so that the pole could be broken down for transport. The workmanship was quite good and the look was very much WWII machine shop to me, and I do not mean an American machine shop. I only add this as it seems to be a credible second-hand account of a member of the Japanese military having carried a spear into combat in WWII. Perhaps he was not alone in having a spear and perhaps this is how your yari got out to the islands and came to meet the fate of its second (or third) life.

14th July 2009, 09:24 AM	#25
Lee EAAF Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Upstate New York, USA Posts: 891	Poor yari! Poor yari! At least I know it is in capable hands for what restoration can be done. A few weeks ago, this past July 4th, our local town museum has a special WWII artifacts display, much of it belonging to a local collector, who was also present to interpret it. While he has collected much of it over the years, the core of the collection was things his father had brought back from the Pacific theater. Among his father's souvenirs were a gunto damaged near the tip by a projectile and a curious spear, the shaft also damaged by projectile, which his father told him had come to no longer be needed by a Japanese master sergeant on the beach at the battle of Saipan. This was not a typical yari, the blade was more leaf shaped in the form of a typical generic spear. The pole was interesting as it had two steel ferrules with screw joints, so that the pole could be broken down for transport. The workmanship was quite good and the look was very much WWII machine shop to me, and I do not mean an American machine shop. I only add this as it seems to be a credible second-hand account of a member of the Japanese military having carried a spear into combat in WWII. Perhaps he was not alone in having a spear and perhaps this is how your yari got out to the islands and came to meet the fate of its second (or third) life.