Autographed good luck flag carried by Japanese soldier Momiyama Kazuo

Place Oceania: New Guinea1, Wewak
Accession Number REL34921
Collection type Heraldry
Object type Flag
Physical description Cardboard, Cotton, Rayon
Maker Unknown
Place made Japan
Date made c 1940-1945
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Description

Printed rayon Japanese national flag with a pair of cotton ties at each corner of the hoist, reinforced with triangles of gold card. The right side of the flag has two rows of large black ink characters which translate 'We pray for your good fortune in battle'. The flag was presented to Momiyama Kazuo by his fellow workers at the Maekawa Fine Machinery [Factory]. Their signatures appear on the flag together with one of the factory's board members, Sugimoto Kitaro, as well as Army lieutenant, Suzuki Takashi.

History / Summary

Associated with the service of S3014 Able Seaman Walter Frederick Sainty, who was born in Sydney in 1919. Sainty was already a member of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve when he was mobilised for service in July 1937, and taken on strength on 27 August 1939. After training as a gunner he was posted, in October 1941 to the destroyer HMAS Vendetta, part of a group of ships taken out of reserve for wartime service and affectionately known to their crews as the 'scrap iron flotilla'. Sainty's service in Vendetta included running supplies to relieve the besieged Rats of Tobruk and participation in the Battle of Matapan. Towards the end of 1942 he volunteered to act as a DEMS gunner. These men remained part of the RANR but were placed on defensively equipped merchant ships to protect them from enemy raids by air or sea. They were posted to merchant ships from a variety of Allied nations. Sainty's first posting was to the small Australian coastal passenger ship 'Canberra', operating in Queensland waters. In March 1943 he transferred to the Norwegian registered 'Tai Ping Yang'. He remained in this ship until January 1944. After further gunnery training in Sydney he was posted in August 1945 to SS River Fitzroy, the first Australian built freighter to be converted to a troopship, followed by a posting to her sister ship SS River Murchison between October 1945 and January 1946. Sainty was discharged from the Navy the following month. The Japanese flag is thought to have been given to him by one of the Australian troops transported from Wewak by the River Fitzroy. A photograph in the collection, 095886, shows the gun crew of the ship, of which Sainty was a member, taken on 3 September 1945.