The Observer
18 09.01.22 News
Mystery of the ‘battle
fl ag trophy’ and the
Royal Court founder
When George Devine’s
family found a Japanese
military heirloom
among his things, it led
to a three-year quest
for answers, reports
Harriet Sherwood
“I am not a man for soldiering,
although I do tolerably well at it in a
very minor role. But there is nothing
about it that pleases me, and much
that offends ... It is a corrupter of mor-
als in the widest sense and a gross
waste of man’s time and effort.”
These words were written by
George Devine , the actor and found-
ing artistic director of the Royal Court
theatre, in a letter to his wife from
Burma, where he served in the second
world war. The views he expressed
refl ected what his family – and many
in the arts world – regarded as his
essential humanity and compassion.
So, half a century after his death,
they were shocked to discover among
his possessions an item that appeared
to be a trophy taken from the body
of a Japanese soldier. A battered suit-
case discovered in a neglected cup-
board contained medals, chess pieces,
eyeglass lenses – “pieces of him”, said
his great-grandson, George Pritchard.
But it also held “something utterly out
of place: a piece of someone else”.
The item was a Japanese flag
inscribed with good luck messages
by the soldier’s relatives, neighbours
and community figures. Yosegaki
hinomaru were carried into battle bytheir recipients, and were believed to
hold the owner’s spirit. Who did this
fl ag belong to, and how did it end up
in Devine’s suitcase?
A three-year search for answers to
these questions is the subject of a doc-
umentary, Hinomaru: Homecoming of
a Flag , made by Pritchard, which won
best short documentary at the Tokyo
International Short Film Festival
last month.
“We didn’t really know what it was
when we found it, but once we started
researching we began to realise its
signifi cance,” Pritchard, 26, told the
Observer. “It was a shock. It was out
of character. It defi nitely threw things
for us in the way we viewed him. So I
needed to get to the bottom of it, and
fi gure out what actually happened.”
During the war, Devine was a cap-
tain in the Royal Artillery based in