The Japanese Flag Story

                                                    The Japanese Flag Story

2000

A true story written about a gift I received

Written in 2013 and Re-written 9/15/2016

Howard Yasgar

 

    It was 1995 when I met Russel Kapes.

    Russel  came to our company looking for parts for a military generator set.

    I thought Russel was a pretty interesting guy.

    Russel  told me that his business was driving all around the country buying all kinds of  government surplus including aircraft parts and industrial fittings.

    He said that he bought anything that he was able to sell at aircraft flea markets.

   When Russel first walked into our office in Miami, I thought he looked a little scruffy,

Other than that he was a pleasant enough looking fellow, about five foot six inches tall, slightly overweight, with wavy brown hair, just his clothing appeared a little dirty.

    Russel later told me that he was thirty five years old and  a confirmed bachelor.

    He said that he lived in a house trailer that was located on property he owned on a rural road on the outskirts of Naples Florida. (See the Russel Kapes story)

    Russel said he never did any laundry, he said that every two weeks he went into a Goodwill store in Naples, and he bought all new clean second hand clothing, then he threw his clothing he was wearing into the trash.

    One day,  Russel came to see us with a surprise.

    It was a beautiful white silk Japanese flag with a big red sun right in the middle of it.

    The flag was  two feet wide and eighteen inches tall, and it had all kinds of Japanese writing on it.

    I asked Russel where he  found it.

    He said he didn’t find it, he had bought it as a gift for us.

    Russel said he recently had a booth at a flea market,  and right next to him was a WW2 war veteran who also had a booth.

    The veteran told Russel quite a story, he said that he was aboard the USS Missouri on September 2 1945 when Japan officially surrendered, ending WW2.

    Russel said the fellow told him that he had personally taken the Japanese flag off the ship.

    He said he had kept the flag for over 50 years never showing it to anyone.

    The flag was in a zip lock bag with a 3 x 5 card that had the veterans name and home town on it.

    Russel thought it was a good story and because the flag was so unique, he had bought it for us.

    I spread the flag out on a desk, it certainly was interesting, it had all kinds of Japanese writing on it.

    However unfortunately no one at our company spoke Japanese so we joked around about it.

    Someone suggested that perhaps it was food menu.  

    I wanted to get ahold of the veteran to ask him about the flag, so I spent several evenings on Google trying to run down the name and the town that was on the 3 x 5 card.

    I looked every which way, but I never found anything even close.

    As various people came by our office I always asked if they read Japanese,  I was always hoping someone possibly could translate the Japanese writing on the flag.

    Finally we decided to have the flag framed so we could hang it up, and display it.

    The frame shop said an item that was as beautiful as our Japanese flag needed to be

specially mounted, it needed to be mounted in a “Museum quality” manner

    Well $300.00 later we had a beautifully museum quality Japanese flag mounted in a gold metal frame.

    We hung the flag up in our office, but as no one spoke Japanese we wondered if we had hung it right side up.

    Because none of us spoke Japanese, we didn’t know if we hung the flag right side up.

    It was truly a beautiful flag and we assumed that Russel must have paid quite a bit for it.

    We all thought that the flag might have some WW2 historical value.  If we only could find someone who spoke Japanese and could translate it for us.

    One day, I was discussing the Japanese flag with a friend in who lived in Minnesota.

    He suggested that I look on Google, or that I search on Ebay to see if there was any information available.

    It was a good idea and I wondered why we hadn’t thought of doing that a long time ago.

    Well, I looked, on the internet, and in a way I’m sorry I did.

    There were plenty of similar Japanese flags for sale on Ebay.

    It appears that every single Japanese soldier that went to fight in the war had one.

    All the  Japanese writing on it were  family members wishing him well.

    We learned that it was not really a  historical item, and it appears that our cost of framing was more than the value of the flag.

    Well, it’s Russel’s thought behind it, that counted.

    It’s still a beautiful flag.