Photograph of a leading Japanese fighter pilot, Saburo Sakai who was given a sennenbari by his fiancee, 1943 (c).
Sakai later wrote: ‘Few Japanese airmen had faith in their traditional talisman against enemy bullets but I thought of the hours my fiancee had stood on the streets in the cold weather soliciting stitches from those passing by and so, of course, I wore it wrapped around my middle when I flew on missions..’ 
From a collection of 563 loose photographs from the Burma Memorial Collection of Maj James Allan; associated with World War Two, Far East (1941-1945).