Occupied Japan License Plate

[otter42]

Here's a neat one I had never seen before. I also picked up a 1958 Germany Occupation plate with this one. I have never seen a Japanese Occupation plate before. I looked on the net and found they were only used for a few short years.

 

[Bob Hudson]

Time to revisit this one after 12 years or so: this pair of Occupied Japan license plates has details written on the back and it says this style was issued in 1948 and 1949.

 

This set was used on a 1933 Packard V-12 Model 1006 Limousine.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bob Hudson]

The Packard looked something like this:

 

[Bob Hudson]

The back of the occupation plates say this series was issued in 1948 and used into 1949. A new dated series was issued in 1949 - found this example online:

 

[Bob Hudson]

You can buy a reproduction of the 46-48 plates with numbers of your choice:

 

[Bob Hudson]

It appears that in 1949 8th Army announced that vehicles with these 1946-48 JAPOC plates could re-register them in 1949 and that a new style of plate was also being issued for vehicles not previously registered.

 

Pacific Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 31, 1949

YOKOHAMA, March 31—Plans to re-register automobiles of persons authorized to use JAPOC license plates, and to issue new license plates and Quartermaster gasoline station permits during April are being completed, Headquarters Eighth Army lias announced.

 

These plates were issued by the Provost Marshal Office for privately-owned vehicles.

 

[sgtdorango]

Thats very interesting, ive had a few occupation of germany plates over the years but never seen an occupation of japan plate👍🏻....mike

[Bob Hudson]

I read somewhere  (actually at http://koreanwarcollectibles.net/1950-us-forces-in-occupied-japan-license-plate-korean-war-era-rare-all-original.html ) that these early occupation plates were sponge-painted as were most Japanese plates of that era and the paint has not held up well over the decades. This set is better than most because it's been carefully stored away by its original owners.

[huey]

My brother was in the  occupation of japan 1946 to 47,  He was in yokohama with the army.  He had a picture of an army jeep that was painted black with ford car bumpers and other civilian parts on it.      I was in Korea 4 times with the army flying all over south korea.  gahm-sah  hahm-nee-dah  Thank you

[Bob Hudson]

11 hours ago, huey said:

gahm-sah  hahm-nee-dah

 

You're welcome.

[Backtheattack]

Great, would be glad to own the car and the plate.

[Bob Hudson]

On 12/3/2020 at 7:06 AM, Backtheattack said:

Great, would be glad to own the car and the plate.

 

I talked to the widow and she loved that car: imagine being a Sergeant and running around occupied Japan in those wheels? 

 

[mikie]

If a sergeant got to drive that, imagine what his superiors drove! 

Dad had his points at the end of the war. They guys heading home were asked to volunteer for occupation duty, but Dad wanted to get as far away from anything Japanese as he could get. One of his best buddies decided to go and used to tell us stories about how good he had things over there.  Wish I could remember some of his stories but that was close to 40 years ago. 

[Deloshogg]

Just found this, very interesting and helpful, thank you for sharing all this.

The plates would change again into 1950 and so forth to the 1970s where for us on Okinawa 71 to 76 where my father's plate was in kanji and with a code to denote his facility area (where his office of supply was located) of Machinato and further south our housing area of Machinato (both the base and housing were built up upon the the former Imperial Army air field of Machinato). These plates like those of the 1950s had an "E" for Exempt denoting that they were the private vehicles of military personnel.

The process of going to the office of the Provost Marshall continued into the 70s where my Father, each year had to go to the office of to get his new plates for each successive year, for us this was south of the city Naha, where in the port of, was the office of the Provost Marshall where my Father had to apply for, pay a nominal fee and was handed a pair of new plates for the new year to place upon his car our car and in this case was a Dodge Dart:)

Back to the old plates of 1948 and until the mid 50s, each year the color of the plate changed to visually denote the year the plate was good for. 1949 was the first year the number of the year was included onto (embossed) the plate in the lower right hand corner. Thus 1948 was the last year that no year date or stamp was made upon the occupation plates.