Nobuhito, Prince Takamatsu


Nobuhito, Prince Takamatsu was the third son of Emperor Taishō and Empress Teimei and a younger brother of Emperor Shōwa. He became heir to the Takamatsu-no-miya, one of the four shinnōke or branches of the imperial family entitled to inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne in default of a direct heir. From the mid-1920s until the end of World War II, Prince Takamatsu pursued a career in the Japanese Imperial Navy, eventually rising to the rank of captain. Following the war, the prince became patron or honorary president of various organizations in the fields of international cultural exchange, the arts, sports, and medicine. He is mainly remembered for his philanthropic activities as a member of the Imperial House of Japan.

Early life

Nobuhito was born at the Aoyama Palace in Tokyo to then-Crown Prince Yoshihito and Crown Princess Sadako. His childhood appellation was Teru-no-miya. Like his elder brothers, Prince Hirohito and Prince Yasuhito, he attended the boy's elementary and secondary departments of the Peers' School. When Prince Arisugawa Takehito, the tenth head of the collateral imperial house of Arisugawa-no-miya, died without a male heir, Emperor Taishō placed Prince Nobuhito in the house. The name of the house reverted to the original Takamatsu-no-miya. The new Prince Takamatsu was a fourth cousin, four times removed of Prince Takehito.

Military service

Prince Takamatsu attended the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy from 1922 to 1924. He received a commission as an ensign on 1 December 1925 and took up duties aboard the battleship Fusō. He was promoted to sub-lieutenant the following year after completing the course of study at the Torpedo School. The prince studied at the Naval Aviation School at Kasumigaura in 1927 and the Naval Gunnery School at Yokosuka in 1930–1931. 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. Prince Takamatsu graduated from the Naval Staff College in 1936, after having been promoted to lieutenant commander on 15 November 1935. 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.

Marriage

On 4 February 1930, Prince Takamatsu married Kikuko Tokugawa, the second daughter of Yoshihisa Tokugawa. The bride was a granddaughter of Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the last shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate, and a granddaughter of the late Prince Takehito Arisugawa. Shortly after the wedding, Prince and Princess Takamatsu embarked upon a world tour to Europe and then across the United States so as to strengthen the goodwill and understanding between Japan and those nations. Prince Iesato Tokugawa was the uncle of Prince and Princess Takamatsu. Prince Tokugawa allied with Prince and Princess Takamatsu on many international goodwill projects.
Prince and Princess Takamatsu had no children.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10281, Berlin, Prinz Takamatsu mit seiner Gattin.jpg|alt=|thumb|1930: Prince and Princess Takamatsu visit Berlin, Germany during their World Tour

Second World War

From the 1930s, Prince Takamatsu expressed grave reservations regarding Japanese aggression in Manchuria and the decision to wage war on the United States.
After the Battle of Saipan in July 1944, Prince Takamatsu joined his mother Empress Teimei, his uncles Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni and Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, former prime minister Konoe Fumimaro, and other aristocrats, in seeking the ouster of the prime minister Hideki Tojo.

After the surrender

After the surrender of Japan, Prince Takamatsu entertained many American officers at his residence during their occupation of Japan. His role in the post-war years was largely ceremonial and he became the honorary president of various charitable, cultural and athletic organizations including the Japan Fine Arts Society, the Denmark-Japan Society, the France-Japan Society, the Tofu Society for the Welfare of Leprosy Patients, the Sericulture Association, the Japan Basketball Association, and the Saise Welfare Society. He also served as a patron of the Japanese Red Cross Society and was a major contributor of the NBTHK. He also officiated the Honorary President of the Preparatory Committee for founding International Christian University located in Mitaka, Tokyo.
Known for his outgoing nature, Nobuhito was said to have "slipped away from his guards and walk freely" before the war and "frequently came without any escort to drinking places in Ginza" after the war. In 1970, Prince Takamatsu became the first member of the imperial family to visit South Korea after Japan's colonial rule over Korea ended in 1945. He garnered criticism in 1973 when it was announced that he would privately visit vessels of the Maritime Self-Defense Force. The engagement was canceled due to the backlash.
In 1975, the Bungei Shunjū literary magazine published a long interview with Takamatsu in which he told of the warning he made to his brother Hirohito after the Battle of Midway when he realized Japan's defeat was inevitable; "I said, we now have to think about how to end the war. I expressed this left and right".
Prince Takamatsu died of lung cancer on 3 February 1987, at the Japanese Red Cross Medical Center. He had been diagnosed with the disease in July 1986. His remains were buried at Toshimagaoka Cemetery located in Bunkyō, Tokyo.

Diary

In 1991 the prince's wife Kikuko, Princess Takamatsu and an aide discovered a twenty-volume diary, written in Prince Takamatsu's own hand between 1921 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 in full was published from 1995 to 1997, in eight volumes.
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 the Second Sino-Japanese War 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 his eldest brother, 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.

Honours

National honours

Patrilineal descent

;Imperial House of Japan
  1. Descent prior to Keitai is unclear to modern historians, but traditionally traced back patrilineally to Emperor Jimmu
  2. Emperor Keitai, ca. 450–534
  3. Emperor Kinmei, 509–571
  4. Emperor Bidatsu, 538–585
  5. Prince Oshisaka, ca. 556–???
  6. Emperor Jomei, 593–641
  7. Emperor Tenji, 626–671
  8. Prince Shiki, ???–716
  9. Emperor Kōnin, 709–786
  10. Emperor Kanmu, 737–806
  11. Emperor Saga, 786–842
  12. Emperor Ninmyō, 810–850
  13. Emperor Kōkō, 830–867
  14. Emperor Uda, 867–931
  15. Emperor Daigo, 885–930
  16. Emperor Murakami, 926–967
  17. Emperor En'yū, 959–991
  18. Emperor Ichijō, 980–1011
  19. Emperor Go-Suzaku, 1009–1045
  20. Emperor Go-Sanjō, 1034–1073
  21. Emperor Shirakawa, 1053–1129
  22. Emperor Horikawa, 1079–1107
  23. Emperor Toba, 1103–1156
  24. Emperor Go-Shirakawa, 1127–1192
  25. Emperor Takakura, 1161–1181
  26. Emperor Go-Toba, 1180–1239
  27. Emperor Tsuchimikado, 1196–1231
  28. Emperor Go-Saga, 1220–1272
  29. Emperor Go-Fukakusa, 1243–1304
  30. Emperor Fushimi, 1265–1317
  31. Emperor Go-Fushimi, 1288–1336
  32. Emperor Kōgon, 1313–1364
  33. Emperor Sukō, 1334–1398
  34. Prince Yoshihito Fushimi, 1351–1416
  35. Prince Sadafusa Fushimi, 1372–1456
  36. Emperor Go-Hanazono, 1419–1471
  37. Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado, 1442–1500
  38. Emperor Go-Kashiwabara, 1464–1526
  39. Emperor Go-Nara, 1495–1557
  40. Emperor Ōgimachi, 1517–1593
  41. Prince Masahito, 1552–1586
  42. Emperor Go-Yōzei, 1572–1617
  43. Emperor Go-Mizunoo, 1596–1680
  44. Emperor Reigen, 1654–1732
  45. Emperor Higashiyama, 1675–1710
  46. Prince Naohito Kanin, 1704–1753
  47. Prince Sukehito Kanin, 1733–1794
  48. Emperor Kōkaku, 1771–1840
  49. Emperor Ninkō, 1800–1846
  50. Emperor Kōmei, 1831–1867
  51. Emperor Meiji, 1852–1912
  52. Emperor Taishō, 1879–1926
  53. Nobuhito, Prince Takamatsu