Kaikosha

Kaikosha (偕行社, Kaikōsha^?) is a Japanese organization of retired military servicemen whose membership is open to former commissioned officers of the JASDF and JGSDF as well as commissioned officers, warrant officers, officer cadets, and high-ranking civil servants who served in the Imperial Japanese Army. Since 1 February 2011 Kaikosha has been a non-profit organization described under Japanese law as a public interest foundation (公益財団法人).

The original Kaikosha was founded before World War II as an organization exclusively of active-duty commissioned officers and warrant officers in the Imperial Japanese Army for mutual aid, friendship, and academic research, but was re-founded after the war to represent formerly high-ranking army officials.

The organization’s name means “let’s go together” or “we shall fight this war side by side,” and derives from a line in an old Chinese poem recorded in the Book of Odes.

On 15 February 1877 not long after the formation of the Imperial Japanese Army a Kaikosha was founded in Kudan in Tokyo as a meeting place for officers and as a reception hall. After that Kaikosha groups cropped up at divisional headquarters across the country. Kaikosha was soon incorporated and set about providing aid to wounded soldiers, supporting temples that consecrated war dead, publishing academic research and essays on military topics, and fostering friendships among fellow officers both in active service and in the reserves. These activities were funded by membership fees.

Kaikosha was a major organization and also a sort of company that engaged in the manufacture and sale of military equipment, especially clothing, for officers. In addition to the basic tailor-made clothes, Kaikosha sold ready-made clothes that became popular at the time of World War II. Tags were attached to Kaikosha-made clothing upon which a symbol such as a cherry blossom or pentagram was emblazed across the letters “Kaikosha,” “Rikugun Kaikosha Gunjubu,” “Kudan Kaikosha,” or “Osaka Kaikosha Shuhobu.” Kaikosha stores also sold every variety of uniform, as well as military caps, gloves, boots, sabres, pistols, holsters, binoculars, and memorabilia from military exercises and parades, among other things. All these Kaikosha-made good were widely used by military officers.

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