There's been various discussions on this forum about tanks visiting towns to raise money through War Bond sales, both in the UK and in north America. I've just found, to my surprise, that a tank week was held in Japan (specifically Tokyo and Yokohama) in July 1918. The Times of 16 July 1918 has this to say:
Among the big subscribers during Tank Week in Japan are the Taiwan Bank £20,000 the Yokohama Specie Bank £15,000 Barons Iwasaki and Furukawa, the Mitsui Gomei Kaisha, the Tokyo Marine Insurance Company, the Chosen Bank, the 15th Bank, and the Yasuda Bank £10,000 each. The total for Tokyo is £155,276. July 9 at Yokohama was the first day when foreigners subscribed. Their subscriptions amounted to £75,000.
This is from The Times of 29 July 1918:
Our Tokyo correspondent says that, while the totals from the Tokyo and Yokohama Tank Week are unequal to that of Shanghai, contributions are still coming in, the latest being £30,000 from Jardine Matheson and Co., which is the largest individual contribution and £10,000 from the Canton Insurance Co. The total now exceeds £350,000.
Does anyone know any more about this, please? Some of the specific questions that I'd like answers to are, was there a real tank involved, or just mock-ups? If there was a tank involved, where did it come from, Britain or the USA, and what happened to it? Is this connected to the Mark IV supplied to Japan? And was there also a tank week in Shanghai, as implied in the second article?
he only says "The IJA heard about the power of tank in the battle, they imported some tanks to know what is the tank. First, one British Mk.IV was imported in 1918."
Maybe contacting him will help your seach..
I then came across this...a MIV female imported in October 1918 so to late for the Tank week....
I saw that in a photo shows a Japanese Whippet fighting in northern China. It didn't have any of its MGs. I thought maybe the Japanese only wanted to use these tanks to frighten Chinese soldiers.