Original Japanese WWII Hand-Painted Silk Good Luck Flag with Lots of Signatures - Great Translation Potential - 29 x 39 ½”

Original Item. Only One Available. This is a heavily-worn example of a Japanese Good Luck flag, with the names of dozens of Japanese friends and family of the departing soldier. There are likely also some well wishes as well but we have not been able to translate any due to the heavy creasing. This example is not translated and has heavy wear which makes it difficult to translate. This would be a fantastic research project for someone!

The flag measures roughly 29 x 39 1/2” and retains remnants of both of its original corner reinforcements, which appear to be paper. The tie strings are entirely gone. This example was certainly a battlefield pickup, and is a really tremendous piece.

From our preliminary analysis, we believe that the majority of the writing on the flag are names of friends and family, as we could not find any complete well wishes that were translatable. Some of the names include Yasuo Onishi Nobuyohara, Shinjiro Okada, Yoshikazu Honda, Tehachiro Matsuba, Masatsugu Morinaka, Shiro Nakamura, Ishihami Hisashi, Miyamoto Toyosuke, Keizo Naniwa, Naoyuki Ishigami, and Toyosuke Miyamoto.

The flag is made of what appears to be rayon cloth, an early form of synthetic cloth made from wood, with the red "sun" dyed piece sewn into the middle. The flag is in fair overall condition and is the real deal. There is heavy tearing in one corner and there are tons of very small holes across the flag as shown, especially in the sun. This is a really fantastic battlefield pickup. The writing is still somewhat legible, and this would make a fine display piece for a wall or glass table. These are getting harder and harder to find in any condition.

The Good Luck Flag
Known as hinomaru yosegaki (日の丸 寄せ書き) in the Japanese language, was a traditional gift for Japanese servicemen deployed during the military campaigns of the Empire of Japan, though most notably during World War II.

The flag given to a soldier was a national flag signed by friends and family, often with short messages wishing the soldier victory, safety, and good luck.
The Japanese call their country's flag hinomaru, which translates literally to "sun-round", referencing the red circle on a white field. When the hinomaru was signed, the Japanese characters were usually written vertically, and radiated outward from the edge of the red circle. This practice is referenced in the second term, yosegaki, meaning "sideways-writing".

The phrase hinomaru-yosegaki can be interpreted as "To write sideways around the red sun", describing the appearance of the signed flag. This particular example completely unique is written in old KANJI the writing are mainly Japanese names of this soldier's family and friends with quotes and phrases.