Nobuhito Takamatsunomiya

January 5, 1905 (age 82)

Tokyo, Japan

Prince Takamatsu received a commission as an ensign on 1 December 1925 and took up duties aboard the battleship Fusō. In 1930, he was promoted to lieutenant and attached to the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff in Tokyo. He became a squadron commander of cruiser Takao, two years later and subsequently was reassigned to the Fusō. He was promoted to the rank of commander on 15 November 1940 and finally to captain on 1 November 1942. From 1936 to 1945, he held various staff positions in the Naval General Staff Office in Tokyo. From the 1930s, Prince Takamatsu expressed grave reservations regarding Japanese aggression in Manchuria and the decision to wage war on the United States. In 1991, his wife Kikuko, Princess Takamatsu and an aide discovered a twenty-volume diary, written in Prince Takamatsu's own hand between 1934 and 1947. Despite opposition from the entrenched bureaucrats of the Imperial Household Agency, she gave the diary to the magazine Chūōkōron which published excerpts in 1995. The diary revealed that Prince Takamatsu bitterly opposed the Kwantung Army's incursions in Manchuria in September 1931, the expansion of the July 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident into a full-scale war of aggression against China and in November 1941 warned his brother, Hirohito that the Imperial Japanese Navy could not sustain hostilities for longer than two years against the United States. He urged Emperor Shōwa to seek peace after the Japanese naval defeat at the Battle of Midway in 1942; an intervention which apparently caused a severe rift between the brothers. After the Battle of Saipan in July 1944, Prince Takamatsu joined his mother Empress Teimei, his uncles Prince Higashikuni, Prince Asaka, former prime minister Konoe Fumimaro, and other aristocrats, in seeking the ouster of the prime minister, Tojo Hideki. After the end of WWII, Prince Takamatsu became the honorary president of various charitable, cultural and athletic organizations. He also served as a patron of the Japanese Red Cross Society (present day the Honorary President is Empress Michiko) and was a major contributor of the NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Token Hozon Kyokai or Society for the Preservation of the Japanese Sword). He also officiated the Honorary President of the Preparatory Committee for founding International Christian University (ICU) located in Mitaka, Tokyo. Prince Takamatsu died of lung cancer on February 3, 1987 at the Japanese Red Cross Medical Center (located in Shibuya, Tokyo). His remains were buried at Toshimagaoka Cemetery located in Bunkyō, Tokyo.

Nobuhito Takamatsunomiya Edit Profile

宣仁高松宮

military politician

Background

Prince Takamatsu was born on January 5, 1905 in Tokyo, Japan. He was the third son of Emperor Taisho (Yoshihito) and Empress Teimei (Sadako) and a younger brother of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito).

Education

Prince Takamatsu attended the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy from 1922 to 1925. The prince studied at the Naval Aviation School at Kasumigaura in 1927 and the Naval Gunnery School at Yokosuka in 1930 - 1931.

He graduated from the Naval Staff College in 1936.

Career

Prince Takamatsu received a commission as an ensign on 1 December 1925 and took up duties aboard the battleship Fusō. In 1930, he was promoted to lieutenant and attached to the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff in Tokyo. He became a squadron commander of cruiser Takao, two years later and subsequently was reassigned to the Fusō. He was promoted to the rank of commander on 15 November 1940 and finally to captain on 1 November 1942. From 1936 to 1945, he held various staff positions in the Naval General Staff Office in Tokyo.

From the 1930s, Prince Takamatsu expressed grave reservations regarding Japanese aggression in Manchuria and the decision to wage war on the United States. In 1991, his wife Kikuko, Princess Takamatsu and an aide discovered a twenty-volume diary, written in Prince Takamatsu's own hand between 1934 and 1947. Despite opposition from the entrenched bureaucrats of the Imperial Household Agency, she gave the diary to the magazine Chūōkōron which published excerpts in 1995.

The diary revealed that Prince Takamatsu bitterly opposed the Kwantung Army's incursions in Manchuria in September 1931, the expansion of the July 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident into a full-scale war of aggression against China and in November 1941 warned his brother, Hirohito that the Imperial Japanese Navy could not sustain hostilities for longer than two years against the United States. He urged Emperor Shōwa to seek peace after the Japanese naval defeat at the Battle of Midway in 1942; an intervention which apparently caused a severe rift between the brothers.

After the Battle of Saipan in July 1944, Prince Takamatsu joined his mother Empress Teimei, his uncles Prince Higashikuni, Prince Asaka, former prime minister Konoe Fumimaro, and other aristocrats, in seeking the ouster of the prime minister, Tojo Hideki.

After the end of WWII, Prince Takamatsu became the honorary president of various charitable, cultural and athletic organizations. He also served as a patron of the Japanese Red Cross Society (present day the Honorary President is Empress Michiko) and was a major contributor of the NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Token Hozon Kyokai or Society for the Preservation of the Japanese Sword). He also officiated the Honorary President of the Preparatory Committee for founding International Christian University (ICU) located in Mitaka, Tokyo.

Prince Takamatsu died of lung cancer on February 3, 1987 at the Japanese Red Cross Medical Center (located in Shibuya, Tokyo). His remains were buried at Toshimagaoka Cemetery located in Bunkyō, Tokyo.

Connections

On 4 February 1930, Prince Takamatsu married Kikuko Tokugawa (26 December 1911 – 18 December 2004), the second daughter of Yoshihisa Tokugawa (peer). The bride was a granddaughter of Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the last Shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate, and a granddaughter of the late Prince Arisugawa Takehito. Prince and Princess Takamatsu had no children.

Father:: Emperor Taishō
Mother:: Empress Teimei
Spouse:: Kikuko Tokugawa
Brother:: Prince Hirohito
Brother:: Prince Chichibu

References

Takamatsunomiya to shusen kosaku: Wahei o kikyu shita nobuhito shinno no taiheiyo senso. Japanese
2014

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