The Patriotic Women’s Association Distinguished Service Badge is a special merit badge awarded by the Patriotic Women’s Association or Aikoku Fujinkai. The Distinguished Service Badge (or Special Merit Badge) was the highest award.
The Patriotic Women’s Association is the oldest of the women’s associations. It was founded on March 2, 1901 by Okumara Ioko and operated under the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
By 1940, the Association had close to 6,500,000 members in Japan and overseas. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, there were Aikoku Fujinkai branches in Canada, the United States and Brazil, as well as in different territories occupied by the Japanese armed forces. In February 1942, the Asssociation merged with the Greater Japanese Women’s Association for Protection of the Country and the Greater Japan Federation of Women’s Associations into a new association which was called the Greater Japanese Women’s Association.
The Aikoku Fujinkai Distinguished Service Badge Design
The medal is struck in silver and has red, white, blue, orange, green, pink and yellow enamels. It measures 33.5 mm (wide) x 47 mm (high), including its cherry blossom suspension.
The medal is suspended from a silver-gilt bar with pinback and has a bow-tied ribbon with silver-gilt tassels at either end. The badge was awarded in a hard-shelled case made of balsa wood with a black lacquer finish. The box has gilt characters on the lid.
Other badges were as follow:
- Member Rosette Badge, in yellow, blue and black enamels.
- Regular Member Badge, in silver with no enamels.
- Special Member Badge, bronze with yellow enamel.
- Honor Member Badge, bronze with light blue or white enamel.
- First Class Exceptional Merit Badge, bronze with colored enamels.
- Second and Third Class Merit Badges, bronze with a red star.
- Patron Badge, in reddish bronze with no enamels.
