Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (15 page)

Another naval officer who lectured at the Ogakumonjo was Hirohito's own uncle, Adm. Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu, an expert on German military theory. Prince Fushimi had spent his impressionable late teens studying in Imperial Germany, and had graduated from the Kiel Naval School in 1895. To Captain Ogasawara, supervising the Ogakumonjo, Prince Fushimi was a useful conduit to the imperial house, and thus a friend who should always be accommodated when the prince requested personal favors on behalf of his son's naval career. To Hirohito, Fushimi was merely the relative supervising the first stage of his naval training, which started in July 1916, and a familiar face since childhood.
⁷²
What Fushimi taught and what, if anything, Hirohito learned from him is not known.

Hirohito's army lecturers were two generals who had recently commanded troops in China during World War I and Gens. Ugaki Kazushige and Nara Takeji. With the exception of Nara (who had come out of the Artillery Section of the Bureau of Military Affairs) they had previously served as superintendent of the War College. General Ugaki had graduated in the first class of the reformed (German-style) Military Academy (1890) and from the War College in 1900. In 1917 he participated in planning the Siberian Expedition to stop the spread of the Russian Revolution and establish a buffer state in eastern Siberia. When Ugaki began his lectures at the Ogakumonjo, in April 1919, he was fifty-one years old and just
starting to rise in party politics under the patronage of Gen. Tanaka Giichi.
⁷³

Most important in influencing Hirohito on military issues was General Nara, an officer with a reputation for diplomatic skill. Nara, fifty-two, was appointed Hirohito's guide and adviser on military affairs on July 18, 1920, and stayed with him as chief military aide-de-camp until 1933. Nara had fought in the Russo-Japanese War, served in Germany, commanded the Japanese garrison at Tientsin, and worked in the Bureau of Military Affairs. He had also attended conferences of the League of Nations and in 1920 had chaired the committee to investigate the massacre, by Russian partisans, of more than six hundred Japanese civilian and military personnel at Nikolaevsk, on the Amur River.

Nara participated in the Ogakumonjo military lectures only during the prince's last term there, which began in September 1920. Acting on the request of
genr
Yamagata Aritomo, he drafted a seven-point guideline for the prince's future education, stressing that Hirohito should place emphasis on military affairs and take a deep interest in actually commanding the army and navy. “To achieve this goal,” wrote Nara, “he should practice commanding company-size units of the Imperial Guard.
Genr
Field Marshal Yamagata, citing the situation at the time of Emperor Meiji's youth, laid particular emphasis on this point.” Mastering horsemanship, cultivating the prince's interest in weapons, and giving him experience in firing them were some of Nara's other educational goals. In early October 1920 Nara had a trench dug inside the crown prince's compound so that Hirohito could practice firing machine guns. “I guided Lieutenant Kat
and was able to carry out most of this plan,” Nara wrote after World War II. “However, there was a view at court that the killing of living creatures would harm the moral sensibility of an emperor. Clearly the chamberlains did not like [the prince's] firing-line practice.”
⁷⁴

The curriculum of the Ogakumonjo was modeled on the War
and Naval Colleges, where military instructors taught lessons drawn mainly from the Russo-Japanese War. One lesson for all officers, and for the future commander in chief in particular, was the primacy of tactics over strategy. Thus military decisions taken to fight and win battles were stressed. The study of war as “an element of statecraft”—that is, decisions concerning whether to go to war and about the mobilization and allocation of forces, taken to attain the ultimate goals of war—was slighted by comparison.
⁷⁵
Hirohito's naval instructors impressed on him the notion that in war the purpose of a naval engagement was to win by hurling a large, powerful fleet into a single decisive battle such as the Battle of the Sea of Japan, considered the perfect model of a naval encounter. His army instructors taught him that infantry units were the core of the army. Hand-to-hand combat rather than firepower determined victory or defeat in battle. Artillery and cavalry (later tanks and aircraft) were to be developed and used mainly to support bayonet charges by the infantry.
⁷⁶

The daily routine of the school was highly regimented by Captain Ogasawara and Admiral T
g
. From Monday to Friday and half a day on Saturday, the routine seldom changed. The five aristocratic boys who were his classmates were awakened by their servants at 6:00
A.M
. and breakfasted together. When the crown prince, whose private quarters were on the second floor, above theirs, finished his morning preparations, he walked into a large, carpeted Western-style study (called the “class preparation room”), whereupon a bell rang, signaling the other boys to go upstairs and greet him. Filing into the study, where each boy had his assigned desk and attached bookcases, they lined up and bowed to the prince (who alone in all Japan wore the chrysanthemum crest on his cap). Then they all took seats for a short period of reading in preparation for class that lasted until around 7:45. At that point they excused themselves to Hirohito, returning to their separate rooms to put on their shoes and gather up their school equipment. Afterward they assem
bled with their teachers at the entrance to the Ogakumonjo classroom to await the prince's arrival, just as they had done when Hirohito attended the Peers' School.

Usually there were four morning hours of classroom instruction, followed by recess for lunch. In the back of the room, seats were set aside for guests who visited at different times. These were usually Captain Ogasawara, Admiral T
g
, various military aides, members of the imperial family, and officials of the Imperial Household Ministry.
⁷⁷
The tension generated by this constant monitoring of Hirohito's performance, which went on both inside and outside the classroom, can easily be imagined. At noon the prince took his classmates' bows and departed to eat alone or in the presence of a military aide. While he usually ate a Western-style meal, often topped off by a glass of milk, the other boys went off together to their dining hall for a Japanese-style meal. Only on occasional Saturdays were one or two members of the class allowed to lunch with him.

In the afternoons there would be one hour of formal classroom instruction, followed by physical exercises and military instruction. Then the boys would have an activity such as riding, tennis, Japanese fencing, or target practice with pistols. Although Hirohito was clumsy and certainly did not excel in any sport (including
sum
;
kend
; swimming, which he had practiced since kindergarten; and golf, which he took up later in life), he persisted in athletics, fiercely determined not to be outdone. Nagazumi Torahiko, his classmate through thirteen years of primary and middle school, remembers the seriousness and extreme diligence with which he pursued them all. When the afternoon session ended, the boys lined up again and bowed before Hirohito, whom they addressed, even at play, as
denka
(prince), while he called them by their surnames. A short period of free time was set aside for unsupervised play in the imperial garden after school hours. In the evenings there was more study and private visits to the prince by his military aides-de-camp, who taught him
how to read maps and played war-strategy games with him. As Hirohito grew older, his naval aide-de-camp had him read secret military plans and ask questions about them. By 9:30
P.M
. the school day ended and all the boys retired to bed.