Prince Chichibu
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His Imperial Highness Prince Chichibu (Yasuhito) of Japan (25 June 1902 - 4 January 1953) (jp: 秩父宮 雍仁, Chichibu no miya Yasuhito Shinnō), also known as Prince Yasuhito, was the second son of the Taisho Emperor and a younger brother of the Emperor Shōwa. As a member of the Japanese imperial family, he was the patron of several sporting, medical, and international exchange organizations. Before and after World War II, the English-speaking prince and his wife attempted to foster good relations between Japan and the United Kingdom and enjoyed a good rapport with the British Royal Family. However, like the other Japanese imperial princes of his generation, he was an active-duty officer in the Japanese Imperial Army.
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[edit] Background and Family
Born at Aoyama Detached Palace in Tokyo, the second son of the then-Crown Prince Yoshihito (later Emperor Taishō) and Crown Princess Sadako (later Empress Teimei), the prince was originally titled Atsu no miya (Prince Atsu). He and his elder brother were separated from their parents and entrusted to the care a respected ex-naval officer, Count Sumiyoshi Kawamura and his wife. After Kawamura died in 1904, however, the young princes rejoined their partents at the Tōgū-goshu (crown prince's residence) on the grounds of the Akasaka estate. He attended the elementary and secondary departments of the Gakushuin (or Peers' School) along with Prince Hirohito, and his younger brother, Prince Nobuhito (born in 1905). (A fourth brother, Prince Takahito, was born in 1915). Prince Chichibu enrolled in the Central Military Preparatory School in 1917 and then in the Imperial Military Academy in 1922.
On 26 May 1922, Emperor Taishō granted his second son the title Chichibu no miya and the authorization to start a new branch of the imperial family. In 1925, the Prince went to Great Britain to study at Magdalen College, Oxford University. He returned to Japan in January 1927 following the death of Emperor Taishō, who for some time had suffered from debilitating physical and mental ill-health. Until the birth of his nephew Crown Prince Akihito in December 1933, Prince Chichibu was heir presumptive to the Chrysanthemum throne.
Chichibunomiya rugby stadium was named after the Prince, who loved watching rugby from his time at Oxford.
[edit] Marriage
On 28 September 1928, he married Miss Matsudaira Setsuko (9 September 1909 - 25 August 1995), the daughter of Matsudaira Yasuhito, sometime Japanese ambassador to the United States and later Great Britain (and still later, imperial household minister), and his wife, the former Nabeshima Nobuko. Although technically born a commoner, the new princess was a scion of the Matsudaira of Aizu, a cadet branch of the Tokugawa shogunate. Her paternal grandfather was, Matsudaira Katamori, the last daimyo of Aizu, who had been created a viscount in the new kazoku in 1884. Prince and Princess Chichibu had no children.
[edit] Military career
Prince Chichibu received his commission as a second lieutenant in the infantry in October 1922 and was assigned to the First Imperial Guard Division. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1925 and became a captain in 1930. He received a promotion to the rank of major and assigned to command the Third Infantry Regiment stationed at Hirosaki in August 1935. He was subsequently posted to Army General Staff at Tokyo in December 1936; appointed battalion commander of Thirty-First Infantry Regiment in August 1937; promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1938; and finally to colonel in August 1939. The prince retired from active duty after being diagnosed with tuberculosis in June 1940. He spent most of World War II convalescing at a villa in Gotemba, Shizuoka prefecture, on the eastern foot of Mount Fuji.
Prince Chichibu was implicated, but never charged, in the abortive February 26 Incident. How much of a role he actually played in that event remains unclear. This coup was an attempt by some 1,400 mid-level army officers from the Kodoha (Imperial Way Faction) to seize control of central Tokyo, overthrow the civilian government, and prepare the country for immediate war with the Soviet Union. While the Japanese Imperial Army was highly factionalized in the 1930s and tried to use imperial princes as political pawns, there is little evidence that directly links the Prince to the organizers of the February 26 rebellion but it is clear that he was sympathetic to them. His sympathy to the Kodoha was well known as soon as 1932 when, after the assassination of prime minister Tsuyochi Inukai, he was reassigned, on the order of Hirohito, from Tokyo to a regional command in Hirosaki following many violent arguments with his brother about the suspension of the constitution and the implementation of direct imperial rule.
After the coup attempt, the prince and his wife were sent on a European tour which took several months. They represented Japan at the May 1937 coronation of Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey and subsequently visited Sweden and the Netherlands as the guests of King Gustav V and Queen Wilhelmina, respectively. This tour ended with the visit of Nuremberg by the prince alone. There he participated to Nazi celebrations and met Hitler, with whom he tried to boost relations. At Nuremberg castle, Hitler launched a scathing attack against Stalin, after which the prince privately said to his aide-de-camp Homma : "Hitler is an actor, it will be difficult to trust him." Nevertheless he remained convinced that the future of Japan was linked to Germany; and in 1938 and 1939, he had many quarrels with the Emperor about the opportunity to join a military alliance against Great Britain and the United States.
During the war, Yasuhito was implicated in many operations and was sent to Manchukuo before the Nomonhan incident and to Nanking after the rape. According to authors Peggy and Sterling Seagrave, the Prince led, from 1939 to 1945, the Golden Lily operation by which Japan stole the treasures of the invaded countries. However, his implication in Golden lily probably ended in 1940 as, that year, he fell ill of pulmonary tuberculosis and never really recovered.
Prince Chichibu died at Kugenuma on 4 January 1953. His remains were cremated and the ashes buried at Toshimagaoka Cemetery, Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, on 12 January 1953.
