Home-made watch fob.
Obverse engraved
海南島紀念品 - Hainan Island Souvenir
日 inside circle
卅一〇元〇 - 310元0
reverse engraved
小田宣撫班長恵存 - Xiao Tian, Squad Leader of the Pacification Aquad
中日親善 - Sino-Japanese Friendship
馬井會長霍召南教贈 - Presented by Chairman Huo Zhaonan of Majing Association
Hainan Island lies midway between French Indochina and British Hong Kong, occupying a position south of the Leizhou Peninsula across the Strait of Hainan. It is also near Kwangchowan, a French-leased territory on the southern coast of China. The Hainan Island has an area of 33,920 square kilometres (13,100 sq mi), and had a population of 2,200,000 at the time. The island was guarded by two security regiments, six guard battalions, and a self-defense corps, under the command of Yu Hanmou, who was in charge of peace preservation in Guangdong Province.
The Japanese Navy, after the capture of Canton (Guangzhou) in 1938, had maintained a formidable blockade all along the coast of south, central and north China. However, loopholes were found in the southern end of the blockade line. These included the supply route to Chiang Kai-shek with Hong Kong and Northern French Indochina as relay points and direct routes through Hainan Island and Kwangchowan. Because of these loopholes, as well as the necessity to conduct air operations deep into the interior of China, as far as the Kunming area, the Japanese Navy came to feel the necessity of establishing air bases on Hainan Island. The Central Authorities of the Navy advocated for this move. Operations were carried out by the Special Naval Landing Forces with Army elements supporting them. Escorting a convoy, the South China Naval Force (Fifth Fleet) commanded by Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondō entered and anchored in Tsinghai Bay on the northern shore of Hainan Island at midnight on 9 February 1939 and carried out a successful landing.
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