Imperial Palace Guards, an elite unit

Title: Imperial Palace Guards, an elite unit
Language: English
Year: 1961
Rights
Fulltext: The Imperial Palace Guards is a small unit comprising on ly 843 guardsmen, but is a co lorful combination of horses, motorcycles, police bands and even firemen. A newly ap pointed foreign envoy pro ceeding to the Imperial Pa lace in a horse-drawn carriage guarded by mounted Palace Guards in full dress is a fa miliar sight in Tokyo. These Palace Guards had been under the jurisdiction of Home Ministry before 1945, but they are now under the National Public Safety Com mission. Selection of the guards is a strict affair, and only one out of every ten ap plicants passes the screening. Since their assignments co ver a wide range, they are trained to do any job under any circumstances in addition to their principal duties. Veteran guardsmen with 10 years of service or more are found particularly in the First Guard and Second Guard Sec tions, which are directly as signed to the protection of all members of the Imperial Fa mily. The personnel of these two sections are judo experts who hold black-belt ranks of the 5th (Grade or above. They are also well trained in horse back-riding, tennis, skiing, rowing, etc. One of them, Guardsmen Hiroshi Wada, re presented Japan in the mo dern pentathlon event at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. It is expected that a Palace guardsmen will be among the Japanese participants in this event at the forthcoming Tokyo Olympics. * * * 22 Panorama