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Japanese navy canteen translation request

938 views 13 replies 5 participants last post by  104056 
#1 ·
Hello, picked up this neat Japanese Special Naval landing forces canteen at a yard sale today, I'm really more of a bayonet collector but this really appealed to me because someone has both painted and sewn some markings onto the strap and the canteen cover itself, I'm guessing they are unit markings but I'm no expert, can anyone confirm? Thanks!


-TheYardbird
 
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#2 ·
There is no such thing as special naval landing force canteens or special naval landing force items for that matter. This would be akin to calling a regular Type 99 rifle an "imperial guard rifle". The markings do not indicate usage by SNLF let alone IJN infantry. The large markings say "furu 31" and the strap also has 31 with what appears to be a name, but the characters do not spell any name I am familiar with.
 
#8 ·
Maybe I did not phrase my response in an easy way to understand. Special naval landing forces are just a small part of the IJN's ground organization, in the Pacific War they deployed a little over 20 units, of which most saw action in 1942 before being disbanded shortly afterwards. In contrast, the IJN had at least 400 base forces, guard, air defense, construction units, etc in the Pacific. These accounted for far more of the IJN's ground presence, and while not serving purely as infantry, all these units maintained some form of armed component. Allied intelligence was well aware of this, but as time goes on history is forgotten and collectors have grown to worship the SNLF while more or less forgetting the others. Now all of these armed personnel on the ground more or less had the same equipment, which was a mix of regular naval items and a few naval ground-specific items, leaning increasingly towards the former as the war progressed. Items like lace up boots, khaki puttees and khaki wool field caps are a few examples of items intended for naval ground use. Canteens, breadbags, cotton caps, etc are just navy, but could be issued to ground troops too. Long story short, there's not any items the IJN actually referred to as "special naval landing force" items, at best it might be classified as ground use. This particular canteen being used by SNLF is another story, but the possibility of that is minute, especially given how little the SNLF accounted for the IJN's ground forces let alone the entire IJN.
 
#9 ·
I'm sorry, I had based the SNLF thing off of a few very similar canteens IMA had listed for sale some time ago (although 2 of them appear more khaki and with an unpainted cap.) I'm somewhat more familiar with the canteen system using straps, so when I saw those listings I had figured That was what it was, my mistake.
 
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