My Grandfather recently passed away and while going through his things, we stumbled across this flag. I don't know its history, other than what I can recollect from when my grandfather showed it to me 20+ years ago. He traded another Air Force Officer a German Luger for this flag, which he claimed was taken off a Kamikaze pilot, whose plane didn't explode on impact.
Anyway, I'm sure that there can't be many of these in existence and thought I'd ask some of you thoughtful folks if you'd be willing to help me learn more about it and perhaps be able to connect with someone for whom it holds a greater significance than it does as a war relic on my wall.
edit: added more pictures to the album with more closeups of the kanji since there seems to be a few interested folks. thanks!
日本第一大軍神 actually means, "Japan's number one military god." "Military god" (gunshin) were soldiers killed in battle turned into heroes by the military to boost popular morale and excitement on the home front. I can't read the full name of the man in question (which is the bottom half of the kanji on the right side), but the first half of the right side is a popular cheer civilians gave to soldiers. Something like, We pray for good war fortune for you (but really meaning, we hope you come back home alive). Usually a soldier going to the front would get this flag from his home town with everyone from his town signing their name and maybe some words of encouragement. Sometimes towns would send the flag later to the soldier already at the front. But I don't see any yearbook-style scribbling on the flag.
Anyways, there have been several examples of US universities returning these kinds of flags to the surviving families of these soldiers in Japan. Maybe there is a US organization that can help with that? You don't have to return it - and it might be a moot point anyways if there is no real identifiable information - but it might be a nice thing to do.
The right side of the flag I believe says "Perpetual luck to Kawakami Muranaga, from Kawakami (something else I can't read)." Likely it's just a family benediction, i.e. "Good luck Bob" -Your Father John
Thanks. I've found out quite a bit via google, but didn't want to start down a path of google investigation without any knowledge of the Japanese from which to start.
Another friend noted the name Kawakami and google search of that name turned up this guy, who I've found quoted heavily in texts speaking about the general the led the first Kamikaze missions at Iwo Jima.
That being said, this is exactly the rabbit hole I'm hoping to avoid by asking here. I'm making huge leaps of logic obviously. I have no doubt as to its authenticity, as far as I can tell, those are indeed real blood stains. However, my grandfather could have been lied to and it could be a good luck flag from a soldier, which seem to be very common as opposed to a Kamikaze pilot, which from what I can tell, are very rare..