I was recently watching a documentary with my dad and at the end it said macaruther had all the katanas gathered up and dumped in Tokyo bay, was it just military issued sword or was it all the family air looms and such, also how many survived?
From what I remember reading/hearing they tried to collect and destroy all of them. In some cases they burned them and/or drove over them with bull dozers. Fortunatly they didn't get them all.
How cool it would be at those times to get ahold of one of those..I remember seeing a documentary on how they made those from back then..really interesting.
found this reply to the same question...source forum, thehighroad.org.. I worked with one of the engineers that was involved in dumping weapons in Tokyo Bay. It was part of a set of land reclamation projects for industries and the US Navy. The dumped weapons were buried in rubble and dirt in the process of making harbor-front islands. No way to recover any of the weapons.
The US Army emptied at least one warehouses full of unused Katanas; many were inferior swords. A great many Katanas found their way to the US as souvenirs. Others were brought to the US because if the swords were not in Japan, the spirits of their owners (warriors) would forever wander the earth (wander Japan.)
Since I picked up this Saipan Katana, I've had some serious ghost problems with the ghost actually poking me awake, black forms floating across the room, and rattling, T.V. apparisions. My wife even talks to it and asks it for help in returning objects that disappear. Saipan Banzai Sword Semper Fi, BOb
I might point out that the Japanese themselves had already eliminated most of the swords of antiquity in a period in their history called "The Great Sword Hunt". Samuari that refused to hand over their weapons were referred to by the Japanese themselves as 'Ronin', their activities in the countryside giving rise to about a million cheap Japanese Karate movies.:ninja: Therefore, I surmise that most of the katanas dumped would have been military issue. All the really valuable pieces were already in museums, or on display in the homes of rich decendants.
This is a mish-mash of Japanese history. Ronin("masterless Samurai") had been around long before Toyotomi Hideyoshi's "Great Sword Hunt" in 1585-1588(sources vary on it's beginning), and did not just spring into existence with it's declaration. The "Great Sword Hunt" was instigated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to keep weapons, not just swords, out of the hands of the peasants. It was later expanded, in 1591, with his "Edict on Changing Status", of which, one part forbade the hiring of Ronin. The effect of these actions freed Hideyoshi from having to worry about peasant uprisings, since, by that time, he controlled all of Japan. For in 1592, Hideyoshi embarked on his next great venture, the invasion of Korea.
I know of a bloke down here who collects bayonets and some swords, he found a fairly beat up katana on eBay for 100 bucks...he took it to a mate of his who knows swords, removing the handle they found markings which confirmed the sword was a WW2 Japanese sword that was over 500 years old