Prince Chichibu - Military Career

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 after graduation from the Army War College. He received a promotion to the rank of major and assigned to command the Thirty First Infantry Division stationed at Hirosaki, Aomori in August 1935.

Prince Chichibu has been implicated by some historians in the abortive 26 February Incident in 1936. How much of a role he actually played in that event remains unclear, but it was clear that he was sympathetic to the rebels and that his political sentiments were in agreement with them, i.e., replacement of the corrupt political party based government with a military dictatorship under direct control of the emperor. His sympathy to the Kodoha faction within the Imperial Japanese Army was well known at the time. After the assassination of prime minister Inukai Tsuyoshi in 1932, he had many violent arguments with his brother, Emperor Hirohito, 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 tour of Europe taking 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 Gustaf V and Queen Wilhelmina, respectively. This tour ended with the visit of Nuremberg in Germany by the prince alone. There he attended the Nuremberg rally and met Adolf Hitler, with whom he tried to boost relations. At Nuremberg castle, Hitler launched a scathing attack against Joseph Stalin, after which the prince privately said to his aide-de-camp Masaharu Homma: "Hitler is an actor, it will be difficult to trust him." Nevertheless he remained convinced that the future of Japan was linked to Nazi Germany; and in 1938 and 1939, he had many quarrels with the Emperor about the opportunity to join a military alliance with Germany against Great Britain and the United States.

Prince Chichibu Yasuhito was subsequently appointed battalion commander of Thirty-First Infantry Regiment in August 1937; promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1938; and finally to colonel in August 1939. During the war, he was involved in combat operations, and was sent to Manchukuo before the Nomonhan incident and to Nanjing after the Nanjing massacre. On 9 February 1939, Chichibu attended a lecture on bacteriological warfare, given by Shiro Ishii, in the War Ministry Grand Conference Hall in Tokyo. He also attended vivisection demonstrations by Ishii.

In a book about Yamashita's gold, authors Peggy and Sterling Seagrave postulated that Prince Chichibu led from 1937 to 1945 what the authors called the “Golden Lily (Kin no yuri) Operation” by which members of the Imperial Household allegedly were personally involved in stealing treasures from countries invaded by Japan during World War II. These allegations are contrary to the official version, as told in her memoirs by Princess Chichibu (Setsuko), according to which the prince retired from active duty after being diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis in June 1940, spent most of World War II convalescing as major general at his villa in Gotemba, Shizuoka prefecture, on the eastern foot of Mount Fuji and never really recovering from his illness.