Armées

22081501 — Tokyo 1904-05. Two b.w. photographic post cards commemmo- rating the gathering of the leading Japanese military comm- anders of the Russo-Japanese War each 14 x 9 cm. very good versos used with period cancelled Japanese stamps messages. Two post cards: The first is Printed in black and white over a gold & green background with chrysanthemums on the border area with two Japanese flags at the top both hand-colored in red: The Japanese Battle flag with the standard Hi-no- Maru Red sun on white field. It shows the eight Japanese top Japanese military commanders with captions in English & Japanese naming each: Kuroki Nozu Yamagata Oyama Oku Nogi Kodama & Kawamura. This was done from a photograph taken at the General Head-Quarters of the Manchurian Armies in Mukden command. It was then issued by the Department of Communications as a souvenir of the Army Review held in Tokyo after the Russo-Japanese war and printed by Tokyo Printing Co. and has a 4 sen red stamp. The second is the same basic photograph but the whole card is only the photo of these men in close-up. The person who sent the card to a friend in America has written a brief note dated May 30th 1907 on the front with his penned names of the principals under each. In red ink he has also written: " Mr. Taft the U.S. War Secretary said that Japan and the United States will always be friends." It has a 3 and 4 sen pair of red cancelled stamps on the verso. A very nice set there are very few if any other photographs of all of the great Japan- ese Commanders of the Russo-Japanese war. unknown