Type 97 hand grenade

The Type 97 hand grenade was the main grenade used by Japanese forces during the Second World War. It was more or less just the earlier multi-purpose Type 91 grenade with the attachment socket for a propellant canister deleted from the base, preventing it from being used as a rifle grenade or light mortar projectile as the Type 91 could be, and with the 7-8 second fuze replaced with a 4-5 second fuze to prevent the grenade being thrown back.

Many Type 91s were retrofitted with this fuze: they were further modified by having their base threading drilled out, and had blobs of welding flux added to the lip at the top of the base so they would not physically fit inside a mortar or rifle grenade launcher. For identification, the bases of these grenades were painted white: any grenade that appears to be a Type 97 but has a white base with a hollow in it is actually a modified Type 91. Without a white base but with a visible recessed socket, it is a regular Type 91. With a white base and no hollow, it is an error, as no grenades were marked in this way.

The grenade still suffered from the same bizarre fuze design as the Type 91, extreme variations in fuze burn time, and was still not particularly effective compared to other WW2 designs due to its small explosive content and cylindrical body which made throwing it uphill a hazardous activity.

The Type 97 High-Explosive Fragmentation hand grenade can be seen in the following films and video games used by the following actors:

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Type 97 High-Explosive Fragmentation hand grenade (minus pin)

Film

Title	Actor	Character	Note	Date
The Fighting Seabees		Japanese soldiers		1944
Pride of the Marines		wounded Japanese soldier		1945
None But the Brave	Tatsuya Mihashi	Lt. Kuroki		1965
The Thin Red Line		Imperial Japanese soldiers		1998
Pearl Harbor	Michael Shannon	Lt. "Gooz" Wood		2001
		Imperial Japanese troops
Windtalkers		Imperial Japanese troops		2002
Letters from Iwo Jima		Imperial Japanese Army and Navy troops		2006
Death and Glory in Changde	Wenkang Yuan	Capt. Feng Baohua		2010
		Imperial Japanese troops
The Flowers of War		Imperial Japanese Army soldiers		2011
My Way	Dong-gun Jang	Kim Jun-Shik		2011
		Imperial Japanese troops
Oba: The Last Samurai		Part of booby traps		2011
Cold Steel (Bian di lang yan)	Tony Leung Ka Fai	Zhang Menzi		2011
	Victor Chen	A Gui
		Imperial Japanese troops
The Tiger: An Old Hunter's Tale		Imperial Japanese soldiers		2015
Hacksaw Ridge		Imperial Japanese soldiers		2016
The Eight Hundred		Imperial Japanese soldiers and sailors		2020
		Chinese soldiers

Television

Title/Episode	Actor	Character	Note	Date
Gilligan's Island	Bob Denver	Gilligan	"So Sorry, My Island Now" (S01E15), "Diogenes, Won't You Please Go Home?" (S1E31)	1965
	Vito Scotti	Japanese soldier
	Alan Hale Jr.	The Skipper	"Diogenes, Won't You Please Go Home?" (S1E31)
The Pacific		Imperial Japanese troops		2010

Video Games

Game Title	Referred as	Mods	Note	Release Date
Deadly Dozen Pacific Theater				2002
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun				2003
Hidden & Dangerous 2	"Grenade typ 97"			2004
Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault				2004
The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific				2007
Call of Duty: World at War				2008
Call of Duty: World at War - Final Fronts				2008
Battlefield: 1943				2009
Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm	"Type 97 frag grenade"			2013
Far East War	"Type 97 hand grenade"			2013
Sniper Elite 4				2017
Yakuza Kiwami			Used in cutscene by Futoshi Shimano	2017
Yakuza Kiwami 2			Incorrectly depicted as an incendiary grenade	2018
Battlefield V	"Frag Grenade"		added with "War in the Pacific" (2019)	2018
Yakuza: Like a Dragon	"Incendiary Grenade"		Incorrectly depicted as an incendiary grenade	2020
Call of Duty: Vanguard	"Type 97"		Missing its horizontal grooves	2021
Enlisted				2021

Anime

Title	Character	Notation	Date
Momotaro: Sacred Sailors	Imperial Japanese army soldiers		1945