JAPANESE TANTO, BELT, AND FLAG CAPTURED BY A PT BOAT OFFICER (3)

JAPANESE TANTO, BELT, AND FLAG CAPTURED BY A PT BOAT OFFICER (3)
Three Japanese military relics captured by an American PT boat officer who served aboard the ill-fated PT-44, destroyed Dec. 12, 1942 by the Japanese destroyers KAWAKAZE and SUZUKAZE resulting in the loss of all but two crewmen - including two who had transferred to the vessel only a few weeks earlier from the famous PT-109 which would later be commanded by John F. Kennedy. Included in the lot is: a Koto tanto, 8.5 in. blade, 13.25 in. overall, wood grip and scabbard, the blade very good and still bearing a keen edge; a sweat-stained Japanese 'senninbari' or thousand stitch belt, a 37 x 6.5 in. padded cotton sewn closed at both ends with an 8 in. opening at the bottom. Within is contained three printed messages and a printed packet still containing a small bit of symbolic rice, the separate cloth inside bears 1,000 red knots. The knots would each be sewn by a different woman and the belt was then given as an amulet to soldiers on their way to war; and a 33 x 20 in. two-piece Japanese national flag, stained. These historic relics originate from the untouched footlocker of PT-44 boat officer and Navy aviator Lt. Charles M. Melhorn. He and a fellow PT-44 crewman were plucked from the water by PT-40 and PT-109, President John F. Kennedy's future command, following his ship's destruction. Melhorn would later become a Navy aviator, leading the torpedo bomber attack that sunk the battleship HARUNA and earning Melhorn the Navy Cross.