Naruhiko Higashikuni
Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni (1887 – 1990) was anxtremely influential Japanese aristocrat, usually known as Prince Higashikuni, active in many of the secret political plots leading to World War Two in the Pacific. He was the uncle of, and an advisor to Emperor Hirohito, He was a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army, who commanded an army in the Second Sino-Japanese War and had headed aeronautical defelopment.
In 1945, he took on various senior posts and was briefly Prime Minister of Japan for the "surrender cabinet".
Military
His military assignments were:[1]
- Attached to 1st Division 1928-1929
- Commanding Officer 3rd Imperial Guards Regiment 1929-1930
- General staff (1930-1932)
- Commanding 5th Brigade (1932-1933)
- General Staff (1933-1934)
- Commanding 2nd Division (1934-1935)
- General Officer Commanding 5th Division (1937-1938)
- Head of Army Aeronautical Department, Ministry of War, 1938
- General Officer Commanding 2nd Army, China, 1941-1945
- Commander in Chief General Defence Command 1945
- Member of the Supreme War Council 1945
- Minister of War 1945
- Prime Minister 1945
Under Emperor Taisho
He accompanied the young Prince Hirohito on his 1921 trip to Europe. Also in 1921, while it has never been absolutely confirmed he was physically present, he definitely sponsored the meeting of Three Crows, a group of influential military attaches that named eleven more officers, the "Eleven Reliables", for further clandestine work.
Showa Period
On a strategic level, he was associated, in the low-key way of the Palace, with the Control Faction and Strike-South Faction. He may have had involvement in the Prayer Meeting Plot of 11 July 1933, in which the rebels were arrested before they could attack, with swords, the residence of Sadao Araki. In its aftermath, Araki agreed to restore some Strike-North Faction members to their posts, purge all Marxists from the palace and some academic posts. Two of Higashikuni's Three Crows allies, Tetsuzan Nagata and Toshiro Obata, were moved from the Army staff to field commands. Hideki Tojo formed a Committee for Investigations to monitor Army discipline and morale. [2] This was a blow to Higashikuni's allies.
World War II
He was realistic about the conflict, telling Hirohito, after the American victory at Guadalcanal, that the Imperial Japanese Army was going to learn a lesson as harsh as they had learned in the Nomohan Incident.[3]
Postwar
Higashikuni was named Prime Minister of Japa shortly after the surrender by Hirohito, who considered him a trustworthy novice in general political affairs. [4] He was unable to solve problems of the black market, and indeed may have reestablished an alliance among politicians, the civil service, and the underworld. His greatest priority, however, was the preservation of kokutai, and, to focus on that problem, he appointed the retired Kanji Ishiwara.[5]
It was reported that he was one of the Palace leaders who wanted Hirohito to abdicate. [6]
References
- ↑ Higashikuni, Naruhiko, Prince
- ↑ David Bergamini (1971), Japan's Imperial Conspiracy, Morrow, pp. 556-561
- ↑ Merion and Susie Harris (1991), Soldiers of the Sun: the Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army, Random House, p. 451
- ↑ Bix, p. 537
- ↑ Bix, p. 540
- ↑ John W. Dower (2000), Embracing defeat: Japan in the wake of World War II, W.W. Norton, p. 321