Picture of the Day - Miscellaneous

[Shinpachi]

A very interesting picture, Geo.

In the late morning of July 26 1945, 2 Ki-51s flown by Sgt Isao Tokunaga and Corporal Toshiro Ohmura of IJA Alor Setar airfield in Malaya attacked the British Eastern Fleet off-shore Phuket. Tokunaga gave up attack because his attacking angle was too low. Ohmura aimed at the escort carrier HMS Ameer but was shot down. This is Japanese side record.

According to British side description about HMS Sussex on 26 July 1945,
"Her Task Force was attacked by 2 "Val" suicides (Mitsubishi type 99 dive-bombers): one was shot down by escort carrier Ameer and the second by Sussex. However, this latter one bounced on the surface of the sea and impacted the cruiser's hull above the waterline, causing a 2? metre dent. Later in the same day Sussex downed another aircraft."

The airframe imprint left on the hull would have been made by Corporal Ohmura as Sgt Tokunaga gave up attack to rejoin another attack in the same day.

 

[fubar57]

Good stuff Shinpachi.

​

 

[fubar57]

Mitsubishi F1M2

 

[Gnomey]

Nice shots shinpachi!

 

[Shinpachi]

Thanks for a fantastic pic, Geo

Kenji Takahashi as a sandwich man in Tokyo circa 1948.
He was a second son of former IJN General Sankichi Takahashi and sung in a song at the time.

His father Sankichi circa 1935

Data source: Wiki and 高橋健二さんという人 - 犬と歩けば 希望にあたる♪


Song "Sandwich Man of the Town"
Lyric : Tetsuo Miyagawa
Music: Tadashi Yoshida
Song: Koji Tsuruta

See my tailcoat and Lloyd's glasses
Swallow will laugh if I cry
Looking up the sky I feel tears
Sandwich Man Sandwich Man
I am a clown of the town
I walk with a smile today too

Everyone knows the lamentation
This world is filled with sorrow
It is a man who does not cry
Sandwich Man Sandwich Man
I am a clown of the town
I hold a placard today too

See my shadow on the side walk
I will shake my shoulders to laugh
If I lost my dream no more life
Sandwich Man Sandwich Man
I am a clown of the town
I walk with breeze in my chest

 

[fubar57]

Reading the words to the song, it sounds like that was a dishonourable job but a job is a job

 

[Shinpachi]

Agreed, Geo.

The song was to encourage him, and people, if they had another dream.
It says "A loser should not be a loser forever."
Popular songs reflect the social conditions of the day.

 

[Shinpachi]

They hated conditions like this.

Not in Okinawa but Tokyo

Source: ★★★ 「カメラがとらえた戦後の日本」写真の1945-1989 より ★★★ (丸亀・宇多津・多度津) - 旅行のクチコミサイト フォートラベル

 

[Shinpachi]

Homeless kids in Kobe city circa 1947.

Osaka station and black market on the left circa 1946.

Surveillance by the occupation troops.

Free meal service by the volunteers (Yakuza or communists).

 

[michaelmaltby]

... fantastic insight into the times, Shin. Must understand (and respect) the past to firmly grasp the present.

 

[Shinpachi]

Thanks MM.

After Sankichi Takahashi - former IJN admiral was released as class-A war criminal in the late 1940s, he asked his son Kenji "You could be an able worker for a leading company in Hokkaido. I know You have your own life but why did you want to become a sandwich man ?"

Kenji: "I had been deported my office as a son of war-criminal when the war was over. I was going to commit suicide within a week but, on the 6th day, I found hope to live as a sandwich man with my new friends there."

He disappeared in the 1950s and even his family did not hear from him again. Granddaughter of his friend has introduced these pictures on the internet.

Source:
高橋健二さんという人 - 犬と歩けば 希望にあたる♪

 

[vikingBerserker]

Wow, awesome information!

I wonder what happened to him.

 

[fubar57]

Ok, I need some answers on this one. Various captions say " FM-2/F4F Wildcat/F6F Hellcat crashes/crash-lands aboard an unknown escort carrier ca. 1943/1944. Note all the sparks" I don't know my FM-2 from my F4F but I'm going with FM-2 ca. 1944. As far as I know, U.S. carriers had wood decks so those are probably splinters. V30 is on the side of the aircraft so we should be able to find the carrier name

 

[Wurger]

 

[Shinpachi]

I wonder what happened to him.

No clues.
He would have been tired of being spotlighted so much.

 

[Shinpachi]

An article introduced in the LIFE May 9, 1938 issue.


"... THIS IS BUBBLE GUM'S WAR IN CHINA

The course of the war in China may be very confusing to adult Americans but it is becoming very clear and familiar to myriad American youngsters who are bubble-gum chewers. The reason appear in the illustrations on these pages. These drawings, printed in vivid color, are given away by Gum, Inc. of Philadelphia with every slab of its "Blony" bubble gum. The buyer collects or swaps the cards. He blows the gum out of his mouth into huge balloon-like bubbles (see opposite).

Giving war-picture cards away is old candy-trade practice but cards have usually related old-hat history like the massacre of Custer's men. Gum, Inc. gets its wars hot off the battlefield, is satisfied with nothing older than a slaughter in Nanking. The cards are executed by Gum, Inc.'s advertising counsel, George Maull, a Sunday-school teacher, who lends a peaceful tone to the otherwise martial cards by printing on each the motto: "To know the HORRORS OF WAR is to want PEACE." It is no fault of Mr. Maull's that children now ask for the products as "War Gum."

On the back of each cards are detailed captions, quoted here, which are very specific about destruction and are anti-Japanese because Mr. Maull feels America is anti-Japanese. But some future historian may trace a cause for a U.S.-Japanese war to the fact that the generation which was pre-adolescent in America in 1938 had received severe anti-Japanese prejudices through its curious liking for blowing bubbles with Blony gum."

Facts in 1937 would have been like these pictures and captions, except Shanghai was mistakenly bombed by Chiang Kai-shek.

Source: LIFE

 

[Wayne Little]

Excellent series of Pics Shinpachi...

 

[fubar57]

Cool

 

[fubar57]

I could find no info other than "Grey Nurse Squadron Spitfires awaiting disposal" Two sets of eyes............?

 

[Wurger]