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Japan's Prince Mikasa, uncle of Japanese Emperor Akihito, died of cardiac arrest at a Tokyo hospital at the age of 100 on Thursday, the Imperial Household Agency said.
He was the oldest member as well as the only living member with military experience in the imperial family.
Born on Dec. 2, 1915, he was the fourth son of Emperor Taisho, and served as an Imperial Japanese Army officer during the World War II. He had been stationed in Nanjing, China for a period of time.
Prince Mikasa in 1936 in Narashino, Japan. He graduated from the Military Staff College in 1941 and was posted to Nanjing, China, as an Imperial Japanese Army officer under a pseudonym in 1943. Photo: Asahi Shimbun/Getty
After the war ended, he embarked upon a career as a scholar and part-time lecturer in Middle Eastern studies.
In a book published in 1984 on his studies of ancient oriental history, he recalled his wartime experience and reflected upon the atrocities Japan committed during its invasive war against China.
"Even today I constantly feel the sting of conscience over my failure to fully grasp the criminality of war," he wrote in the book.
Prince Mikasa and his wife Princess Yuriko lay flowers at the cenotaph for atomic bomb victims during a peace memorial ceremony in Hiroshima in 1957. File photo: Kyodo
According to The Asahi Shimbun, from the standpoint of a historian, however, Mikasa expressed opposition to the move at meetings of scholars and in theses from around 1956, saying, “There are no historical grounds.”
Mikasa also expressed his honest thoughts on the war, in which he had served as a staff member of Japan’s military headquarters and in other posts.
In his book, “Teio to Haka to Minshu” (Monarch, grave and the public), published in 1956, he wrote, “The just cause of holy war was far from facts.”
(APD)
