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SACO Chinese/Japanese Dagger USMC


kanemono
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Here are several items that are part of a SACO group that belonged to a Marine who served in Calcutta, The Yangtze Unit, Hankow and Shanghai from March 1945 to October 1945. I also have his medals and will post them later when I receive his records from St. Louis. The knuckle knife is interesting since it is made from the hilt of a Japanese dress sword and the blade and scabbard of Chinese Nationalist dagger. The sword pommel has his name, date and an EGA. His belt and hat insignia are also included.

SACO, Sino-American Cooperative Organization, was a U.S. Naval Group which operated during World War II behind Japanese lines in China. Some of the men who walked the seemingly endless berms around the flooded rice fields declared that they had joined a Rice Paddy Navy. SACO consisted of 2,964 American (Navy, Army, and Marine) servicemen, 97,000 organized Chinese guerrillas, and 20,000 “individualists” who included rival pirate groups as well as lone-wolf saboteurs.

Aided by the Chinese Government, SACO supplied the Fleet with regular weather reports from many occupied areas in the Far East by the end of 1942. The group successfully rescued 76 downed aviators. 71,000 Japanese were killed as the result of actions by and information from SACO.

The American casualty rate was noteworthy, three were captured and only five were killed. Unknown to most of the Americans was that each was “protected” by a Chinese, usually unseen, who considered the loss of his charge a great dishonor to his own family and ancestors.

 

 

 

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USMarineCorps

Very interesting piece. The EGA seems to be a post WW-II piece though so I can't stop wondering how it got there...

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I believe the EGA is from a tie tac, it is just like one a friend of mine bought in the 1950's. My guess is that he had a jeweler engrave and add the EGA to the pommel to commemorate his time in WW2. SACO reunions started in the 1950's. The large SACO enameled medal with the group was awarded to SACO veterans in 1974.

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