Order of the Scottish Samurai

“The Sword and the Chrysanthemum” by Paul Martin Part9 : Should Japanese Art Swords Taken After WWII Constitute War Loot? | BUDO JAPAN - Japanese martial-arts Text by Paul Martin Paul Martin and his Kamon(Photo/Steve Morin)Each installment of this series is available for a limited time only—don’t miss it!(Publication period: July 14, 2026 – August 13, 2026) In recent times, there have been many cases of loote……

The first OSS Samurai Award was awarded to Ronnie Watt Karate Instructor by Lord Provost Jim Wyness 1994 Based on Thomas Blake Glover the Scottish Samurai.

The Award was donated by Hector Emslie Golfers (Scotland )Ltd.

The OSS is an non profit organisation and has now over 400 awardees
world wide.

There is a Scotsman buried in Japan whose grave is still visited by people who have never heard of Scotland. 🏮

His name was Thomas Blake Glover, and he was born in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, the son of a coastguard. He arrived in Nagasaki in 1859, aged twenty one, into a country that had been sealed off from the world for two centuries and was about to tear itself apart deciding whether to open.

Glover chose a side, and he chose the losing one, right up until it won. He smuggled young Japanese rebels out of the country so they could study in Britain, at enormous personal risk. Those men came home and became the founders of modern Japan. He sold ships and arms to the clans who would overthrow the sh**un. He built the first slip dock, brought in the first steam locomotive, opened one of the first coal mines. The shipyard he helped create became Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The brewery he founded became Kirin, and if you look closely at a Kirin bottle, the mythical creature on the label is said by many to wear Glover's own moustache. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

The Japanese did not treat him as a foreign merchant. They gave him the Order of the Rising Sun. They call him the Scottish Samurai. Glover House in Nagasaki draws millions of visitors, and most of them assume he was Japanese.

He never came home. He married a Japanese woman, raised his children there, and died in Tokyo in 1911.

We send our people out and we lose track of them, and then one day we find out that a coastguard's son from the Aberdeenshire coast quietly helped build an empire on the other side of the earth.

From Ronnie Watt OSS Founding President
Arranged by Graham Guyan DL OSS Ambassador and Animals in War Association.

Robin McPherson Headmaster of Robert Gordon’s College was awarded
The OSS ,Bun Bu Ryo Do Medal for Literary Studies and Military Studies by HRH King Temple MacDonald Jamela 11 Oola of Odual Kingdom in Rivers State,OSS Great Taisho and HRH Favour Macdonald Jamala OSS Taisho.

Congratulations Robin for all you have achieved at RGC from all at the OSS Awarding Body

From Ronnie Watt OSS Founding President
Arranged by Graham Guyan DL OSS Ambassador,High Chief of the Odula Kingdom in River States.

Congratulations to Robin MacPherson RGC Headmaster OSS Taisho.
Robin was awarded a very special commemorative trophy for a lasting friendship between Nigeria and RGC by HRH King Temple MacDonald Jamala 11 Oola of Odual Kingdom in Rivers State. OSS Great Taisho ,HRH Favour Macdonald Jamala OSS Taisho.
and Augustine Jamala OSS Taisho Director of Education Odula Kingdom River States Nigeria

Thanks to (Retired Flight Major) Dan Montgomery OSS Taisho for a fantastic tour of Robert Gordons College

The sudden bankruptcy of Zentoshin, an Osaka-based credit-payment processor, has ensnared its clients — mainly bars, clubs and restaurants, with many now asking customers to pay in cash or with a QR code payment.

In June 1942, a Japanese Navy pilot was rushed into emergency surgery for appendicitis.

That appendix saved his life.

His name was Mitsuo Fuchida — the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor six months earlier, where anti-aircraft fire tore through his plane and nearly cut a control cable.

Because of the surgery, he couldn't fly at the Battle of Midway.

He was still recovering below deck when American dive bombers set his carrier, the Akagi, ablaze.

An explosion threw him from a ladder as he escaped the burning ship, breaking both his ankles.

Those broken ankles ended his combat flying forever — and being stuck behind a desk kept him alive through the years when nearly all of Japan's carrier pilots were killed.

By the end of the war, nearly every airman he had led over Pearl Harbor was dead.

But his strangest escape was still coming.

In August 1945, Fuchida was in Hiroshima for a military conference — and was ordered back to Tokyo the day before the atomic bomb fell.

He returned the day AFTER the blast with a damage-assessment team.

Every other member of that team later died of radiation sickness.
Fuchida never even got sick.

He lived to 73, convinced his life had been spared for a reason.

In 1950, he found that reason: the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor became a Christian, and spent the rest of his life as a missionary

Much of it traveling across America, preaching in the very country he once bombed.

He even became a U.S. permanent resident.

When he died in 1976, he was remembered not as the man who started the Pacific War — but as a man of peace.

Congratulations Pastor Joe Ochei OSS Taisho.

Joe was inaugurated today as the 110th president of the Rotary Club of Aberdeen.

Delighted tae be back at Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🎉 I sold my shows oot last year and would love to again. If you're looking for Scots folksongs, this is the show for you!

📍Ukrainian Community Centre
🗓️ Fri 21 / Sun 23 August
⏰ 18:00 / 19:30
💰 £20/17
🎟️ Tickets → https://bit.ly/fringeif