Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1225

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

0.1 linear_foot (1 volume)

Preferred Citation:

Scrap book : Teikoku Renshū Kantai Shōwa 11-nen tobei shiryō, 1923-1936, Ms. Coll. 1225, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1923-1936 (inclusive)

Form:

Postcards, Scrapbooks, and Printed ephemera

Abstract:

The Training Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Renshū Kantai, operated from 1903 to 1940. Graduates of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy would spend several months in training deployment throughout the Pacific Ocean and beyond, occasionally venturing as far as the Mediterranean Sea or the East Coast of the United States. This scrapbook (digital facsimile) represents the collected travel ephemera and training manuals of an unidentified member of the June 9-November 3, 1936 transpacific cruise, during which the ships Yakumo and Iwate under the command of Vice-Admiral Zengo Yoshida traveled from Yokosuka to New York and back again.

The Training Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Renshū Kantai 練習艦隊, operated from 1903 to 1940, with only a brief hiatus during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Graduates of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy (Kaigun Heigakkō 海軍兵学校)—and from 1921 onward, graduates of the Naval Engineering Academy (Kaigun Kikan Gakkō 海軍機関学校) and the Naval Paymasters Academy (Kaigun Keiri Gakkō 海軍経理学校)—would spend several months in training deployment largely throughout the Pacific Ocean and beyond, with their near-annual cruises occasionally venturing as far as the Mediterranean Sea or the East Coast of the United States.

This scrapbook represents the collected travel ephemera and training manuals of an unidentified member of the 1936 cruise, in which members of the 63rd graduating class of the Naval Academy, the 44th class of the Engineering Academy, and the 23rd class of the Paymasters Academy traveled on the ships Yakumo 八雲 and Iwate 磐手 under the command of Vice-Admiral Zengo Yoshida 吉田善吾.

A fuller account of the 1936 cruise is documented in a commemorative publication printed by Teikoku Kaigunsha in 1937, entitled Shōwa Jūichinendo Renshū Kantai junkō kinen 昭和十一年度練習艦隊巡航記念 ("Commemoration of the Cruise of the Shōwa 11 [1936] Training Fleet"). This "cruise book" provides portraits of the crew and its commanders, photographic records of the crew's graduation ceremony and their ship life and daily activities in and around their ports-of-call, a complete crewman manifest of both the Yakumo and Iwate, and color maps (including observed meteorological data) of the cruise's itinerary.

The Yakumo and Iwate took a preliminary journey through East Asia from March 19 to May 9, 1936, through the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea, starting at Etajima in Hiroshima Bay, and making stops at Incheon, Korea, Dalian, Lüshun, and Shanghai in China, with several additional stops along the coast of Japan before reaching Yokosuka, Kanagawa. After a month's rest, the ships departed Yokosuka on June 9, 1936, bound directly for Seattle, which they reached on June 30 and departed on July 6. They traveled southward along the coast, making stops at San Francisco (July 10-14), Los Angeles (July 16-20), and Balboa, Panama (August 3-5). After crossing north through the Panama Canal, the ships made stops at Colón, Panama (August 5-6) and Havana, Cuba (August 11-13), before entering the Atlantic Ocean proper and making stops at Baltimore (August 18-23) and a final stop at New York (August 25-September 2), before the travel back to Japan through the Panama Canal and across the South Pacific.

This scrapbook (digital facsimile) compiles travel ephemera and training manuals of an unidentified member of the 1936 cruise of the Renshū Kantai to the United States and to Central America. The scrapbook contains materials only from the second leg of the cruise and is arranged in roughly the chronological order of the cruise's travel itinerary from Seattle through New York (June 30-September 2, 1936). Materials from the preliminary cruise throughout East Asia and from the journey homeward from New York, back through the Panama Canal and through the South Pacific, are not represented.

The materials consist largely of English-language picture postcards along with pamphlets, brochures, and travel maps published in the United States (with some Spanish items some from Central America). Some of these items suggest a keen interest in hydrological infrastructure. The Japanese language materials consist of commemorative publications and welcome declarations prepared by Japanese living in America, as well mimeographed information booklets about Cuba (including a list of helpful phrases in Spanish) prepared for the crewmen.