Arisaka T99

[Jim Keenan]

There is no question that U.S. occupying forces allowed Japanese depot workers to grind off the crest prior to formally surrendering the weapons. This was in accordance with MacArthur's desire not to offend the Emperor, whose personal symbol the "mum" was (and is).

As to stories of army personnel in the middle of battle grinding crests off captured weapons, I must, with all due respect, digest a large grain of salt. As to the other story that Japanese soldiers preparing for a battle they knew they would lose, spent a lot of time grinding off crests. That takes a whole salt block.

And why? In the middle of the war, no one was worrying about the Emperor's honor or the honor of any Japanese. The only good Japanese was a dead one, from the Emperor on down.

Weapons taken from field depots after the surrender would probably have been treated the same as weapons taken from homeland depots, so rifles sent back from Okinawa may very well have been "ground". It is also possible that weapons scavenged after the surrender would have been ground in accordance with Mac's directive. But those weapons would not have been captured in battle or picked in the middle of combat.

Jim