Mums

[rice 123]

how did some rifles make it back to the states without the mums being ground off?

Information

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[Eaglelord17]

Some were captured in combat, others came through other countries (say Thailand, China, etc.), and apparently the Japanese relaxed the removing of the mum several years after WWII, so if it was left in a warehouse then discovered say 5-10 years later they were generally untouched.

Those surplused before WWII were also generally left intact (so things like the Type 30 Arisaka).

[Bill Hollinger]

The reasoning with the Japanese people was the chrysanthemum was a symbol of the emperor and surrendering a rifle with an intact chrysanthemum was equivalent to the emperor surrendering. If a surrendered rifle had the chrysanthemum removed or defaced then the rifle did not represent the emperor.

It has been told many times over the years that a captured rifle has the "mum" intact where the surrendered rifle has a defaced "mum". As stated above, this is by no means 100%.

[Eaglelord17]

Oh another thing to add, the exact reason for removing the mum is still much debated. I have put a link I find fairly well written and provides a good bit of knowledge towards as to why this was done as there has been no 100% conclusive answer. I have heard of Americans on their way to the US with unground rifles being ordered to take chisels and the like to the crest, so it wasn't just a Japanese thing (and it also means that captured rifles didn't 100% of the time have the crest left intact).

http://www.gunboards.com/sites/banza...MissingMum.htm

[ireload2]

I read one account that Douglas MacArthur had been in France and saw how the French venerated any memorabilia connected to Napoleon and he hated it.
According to the account he was determined to get rid of references to the emperor and that included the confiscation of all those swords. In addition they defaced the mums on the rifles that did not take the long Higgins boat ride out into the ocean. The rifles captured during the island campaigns were back in the US in some cases before the war ended. MacArthur did not have command authority over the US Navy or Marine Corp.