Kiwi Medals

The late war and rather desperate innovation of the Type 4 hand grenade. These grenades were invented in late 1944 in response to Japan’s collapsing raw material supplies. The US submarine and air blockade had run the Japs out of steel at this point. The weapon is pretty simple, a ceramic or porcelain vase shape, with a crimped 5 second detonator made from a blasting cap. These were handed out to all the home defence organizations as well as to troops out in the inner chain of islands like Iwo Jima and Saipan. The style varies a lot because it was left to the individual pottery to decide.

This entry was posted on March 2, 2020 at 4:07 PM and is filed under Grenades with tags Empire of Japan, Grenades, WW2. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.