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Japanese Dog Tag-Need Better Eyes


otter42
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Have been trying to figure out what the soldier wrote on this dog tag and who he was.  One side looks like "Whats his name". On the other side it looks like, "Japanese Dog Tag", "1/4 Sonkovick or Sankovick", "45",  "FA BN", "HBOARAS".  Help with my bad eyes please. I looked for him on NARA but couldn't find him. Also any help with the translation of the Japanese would be greatly appreciated.  If I can take better pics let me know, thanks in advance. 

 

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Eric Queen

It's not a dog tag. It's a permission card to be out, like a pass. Gaishutsu Shou 外出證

 

Card number 272

 

Unit number 1532 of the " I " () regiment. The Japanese used kanji to represent regiment (and perhaps higher) numbers for security reasons I assume.

I certainly am not an expert on it. The best person to ask would be Rod at WMF.

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Looks like Unit 15311 to me, for the Manila Army Air Depot, under the 14th Army.  At the very least, this tag came from the Philippines.  

 

 

Tom

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Rod from the World militaria forum was very helpful,  this is what he shared with me:

Your pass says (kanji "code name" and number read thus) "i"15311. It's the code for the (Philippines) 4th Air Army's Manila Army Air Depot, with 8,689 personnel employed. These men would have become irregular infantry and transport soldiers after the 4th Air Army was demobilized for lack of aircraft. 

One more thing. The "i" code name is the Southern Expeditionary Army's code name, it's complicated but the 4th Air Army and the 14th Area Army in the Philippines both had different code names. The Southern Expeditionary Army's headquarters was deployed in the Philippines for a while so that may have had something to do with it. 

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