Damaged unit flags as a mark of honor

Every army of the world likes to see equipment clean, tidy and repaired if damaged. But there was one exception: unit flags. In some armies damaged, torn flag was a symbol of veteran battle-tested regiment. That’s why damaged flags were not replaced and sometimes even not repaired of battle damage.

 

State color and color-bearer of USA 8th Pennsylvania Reserves, 37th Regiment, circa 1865

 

 

Flag of the 114th French Infantry Regiment in Paris, 14 July 1917

 

Imperial Japanese Army went to the extreme of this practice. They forbade any repair of the unit flags no matter the reason. As a result, some flags turned into tatters despite all the care of them. Sometimes only fringes remained of the banner.

 

Regimental flag of IJA 13th Cavalry Regiment, 1933

1910s postcard, showing regimental flags of the Japanese Army 4th Division. Damaged flags are proudly shown on the top

You can read excellent research on Imperial Japanese Army and Navy flags here: https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/japanese-militaria/banner-golden-brocade-647336/

The best part from this research is below: “As we have seen, the flags may have become total rags, having seen hell but also better days, but the army nonetheless demanded that the bearer had to have fairytale-like qualities of purity to deserve bearing the banner or whatever remained of it. Regimental Standard bearers were generally selected from newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenants (rarely 1st Lt), who took turns 1 year at a time. They had to be from the top of the class, of upright character, good-looking and tall. An unwritten rule (perhaps not to embarrass the man selected for this honor) was that only men still without carnal knowledge of a woman could be allowed. As such, frequent patrons of army bordellos were absolutely out of the question as candidates.”