Hirohito

Emperor of Japan (r. 1926-1989)

• Born: April 29, 1901
• Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
• Died: January 7, 1989
• Place of death: Tokyo, Japan

Emperor Hirohito, in an unprecedented imperial action, made the decision that ended World War II in the Pacific: to surrender Japan. Thereafter, he provided the symbolic leadership that facilitated the recovery of Japan from the devastation of the war, while first renouncing his divinity and then promulgating the new democratic constitution for his nation.

Early Life

Hirohito (hee-roh-hee-toh) was born barely three decades after the fall of the Tokugawa system that had ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867. His grandfather, posthumously known as Emperor Meiji, was the symbol of the new order that succeeded the feudal Tokugawa regime. As with emperors and heirs apparent of the time, the newborn was given the suffix “hito” (benevolence) and a name by which his reign would be known posthumously: Shōwa (Enlightened Peace). Again following custom, only a few months after birth, the infant was placed in the care of a trusted aristocratic family and eventually, a second.

Shōwa, as he should now be called, had an elitist education. In 1906, a private school was organized for him, his younger brother, and selected classmates. In 1908, he was sent to the Gakushuin or Peers’ School, an elementary school for aristocratic offspring, similar to Britain’s Eton. There, he came under the influence of Count Marusuke Nogi, a naval hero and Hirohito’s first role model. However, the direct influence was short-lived: In 1912, on the eve of Emperor Meiji’s funeral, Nogi and his wife committed ritual suicide to express their grief. This had a lasting impression on Hirohito and was said to be an important factor in leading him to question traditional military values.

After six years, Hirohito was graduated from the Gakushuin and became the sole pupil at a special school created for him. Although efforts were made to imbue him with military values, he gradually spent more time on science, especially marine biology, and while a teenager he discovered a new species of marine life.

By this time, his father (then known as Yoshihito, but subsequently as Emperor Taisho) was demonstrating erratic behavior, a result of mental illness, that would lead to his retirement from public life and in 1921 to the appointment of Hirohito as Prince Regent, assuming the duties of his father. These new responsibilities came soon after he returned from his 1921 tour abroad the first by a Japanese heir apparent. Years later, he would say his visit to Great Britain was the happiest time of his life.

In 1918, his engagement to Princess Nagako was announced. Despite her being the explicit choice of her fiancé, who customarily would not be consulted, and his mother, her selection was opposed by leaders of the Choshu clan, who expected to have one of their own be the empress-designate. The Choshu circulated information that Nagako had a genetic tendency for colorblindness, grounds for which the engagement could be terminated. Nevertheless, the Prince Regent and his supporters were insistent, and Nagako became his bride on January 26, 1924. Because the imperial line, in modern times, could pass only through the male side, disappointment was widespread when four daughters were born. Pressure grew that the emperor consider a concubine, but that issue was resolved when in 1933, a son, Akihito, was born. Later a second son and a fifth daughter joined the family, and Japan had its first deliberately monogamous emperor.

Life’s Work

At Emperor Taisho’s death, December 25, 1926, his eldest son, Hirohito, immediately succeeded him, although the formal ceremony of enthronement did not occur for nearly two years. During Taisho’s life, Japan had moved from a feudal society, similar to that of Europe centuries before, to a modern one, ranking just below the United States and Great Britain in many measures of industrial development. Major efforts were made to provide mass education, to generate capital for economic investment, and to organize a system whereby private and public management could be coordinated in pursuit of priorities established by the government. As would be the case throughout the twentieth century, the benefits of this modernization were dispersed unevenly among the population. Especially in rural areas, hardship continued to be common.

A principal motive for this drive to modernize was the desire not to be humiliated by the Western powers, as China and other Asian nations were. Japanese leaders were convinced that military prowess was essential to dissuade the Occidental nations from exploiting Japan. Japan had achieved remarkable success in creating a modern military apparatus. One indication of that was manifested in the naval conferences of the 1920’s, wherein Japan’s naval power was recognized as falling into a category just below that of the United States and the major European powers, excluding Germany, which was denied rearmament by the Treaty of Versailles. However, Japanese military leaders were offended that their nation had not been placed in the highest category.

Unmistakably in the 1920’s and continuing into the 1930’s, advocates of militarism, glorifying Japanese successes in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, promoted larger military expenditures and aggression on the Asian mainland. China was the main target of those ventures as Japanese militarists fabricated one “incident” after another with the intention of provoking the Japanese people to support a vengeful retaliation.

Thus, the new emperor Hirohito was confronted with a rising militarism that would eventually bring devastating destruction to his nation. His position was paradoxical: Symbolically, he had unlimited powers as a god-ruler, but, throughout most of recorded history, Japanese emperors had rarely exercised power. Instead, the power had been used in their name by various other officials, the shogun of the Tokugawa being an excellent example. Until the Meiji Restoration, emperors had for centuries resided in Kyōto, while effective governmental authority was wielded at Edo (now Tokyo), hundreds of miles away. It was customary before the Meiji Restoration for emperors to abdicate while relatively young and bestow the office on their, in many cases, minor sons. With Meiji, the emperor became more visible and increasingly informed about affairs of state. Whether the 1889 Meiji Constitution made Japan a constitutional monarchy is debatable. The document gave the nation the appearance of a parliamentary system, but Taisho certainly did not decide governmental policy. No emperor has wielded the powers attributed to Hirohito by British and American propaganda during World War II.

Hirohito, while a retiring personality, was aware of major actions leading up to and during World War II. Prince Kimmochi Saionji, who was for years the chief imperial adviser, concurred with Hirohito’s advice of moderation to the military. In several instances, Hirohito reportedly expressed reservations and even anger about actions taken or planned by the military. Given the imperial tradition, it is nearly inconceivable that the emperor would have directly countermanded decisions of duly authorized officials, although he did move swiftly to halt the attempted military coup of 1936 (Ni Ni Roku incident). In August, 1945, after two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan and faced with the inevitable invasion of the Japanese islands, the war cabinet deadlocked. Only then did the emperor decisively move to stop the war.

At the close of World War II, there was considerable sentiment in the victorious nations to try Hirohito for war crimes. Others contended that at least he should abdicate. These positions were founded on the view that even if he was not directly responsible for Japan’s military aggression, he was morally responsible. In his famous visit to U.S. General Douglas MacArthur in September, 1945, Hirohito voluntarily assumed responsibility for the war. The relative positions of the two men were dramatized in the photograph of the emperor in formal Western dress standing beside MacArthur in casual military attire with an open-shirt collar.

MacArthur chose not to bring Hirohito to trial or have him abdicate. It is unlikely that MacArthur did this because of a profound comprehension of the actually limited powers of Japanese emperors. Rather, MacArthur’s decision was motivated by his desire to use the emperor to develop popular support for conversion of the Japanese governing system and for rebuilding the economy. To have punished the emperor might have fomented widespread opposition to occupation programs.

The end of the war did not complete Hirohito’s remarkable efforts. In 1971 and 1975, he and the empress traveled abroad, to Europe and to the United States, respectively. These precedent-setting events, combined with his 1921 tour, secured his place as the first emperor to have direct knowledge of foreign nations. The wide television coverage of the later imperial tours abroad gave the Japanese far greater exposure to the royal family than was conceivable for any of his predecessors on the Chrysanthemum Throne. This was in line with a policy that Hirohito pursued with the end of World War II to make the imperial office more accessible to the Japanese populace. The reticent emperor was uncomfortable in his initial efforts to move among his subjects shortly after the war, but he persisted. The intention was not to make the imperial office as visible as the British monarch but to emphasize its human rather than divine status. Once that was established, imperial walkabouts were cut back. In later years, Hirohito’s public appearances were largely restricted to formal occasions, such as opening the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Hirohito thus continued as the symbol of the Japanese nation but with a human face and with far less mystery and reverence than his office accrued before Japan’s surrender.

Until near the end of his life, Hirohito pursued his youthful enthusiasm for marine biology, being recognized as an authority on the hydroza. Of the more than one dozen books that he published, some translated into English, four dealt with that topic.

Hirohito’s final years were occupied with the heavy ceremonial functions of his office, many of which dated from his earliest ancestors; presiding at the renowned New Year’s poetry reading, initiated by his grandfather; following sumo wrestling; and in general being a father figure for his people. He retained some distinctly non-Japanese habits for his generation, such as his love of golf and a daily breakfast of toast and eggs, two by-products of his 1921 visit to Great Britain. His funeral, however, was a reminder of the elaborate ritual associated over the centuries with the direct descendant of the Sun Goddess.

Significance

Hirohito lived longer and reigned longer than any of his 123 predecessors. Neither of these facts, however, was the major achievement of his reign that was his transformation of the imperial office. In transforming that role, he continued to be not only a primary symbol of Japanese nationhood but also a manifestation of the democratic principles of the postwar regime imposed by the occupation under MacArthur. Ironically, rather than using the democratic mechanism of a referendum to enact the new constitution, MacArthur had the emperor announce it. Years before, Hirohito had quietly indicated his preference for a more liberal system, reservations about imperial divinity, and an envy of the less restrictive manner of royal rule that he had observed in Great Britain. However, with the firm emphasis on duty and tradition in which he had been trained, he would never have initiated these changes. His duty was to serve.

Bibliography

Bergamini, David. Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy. New York: William Morrow, 1971. Bergamini, born in Japan and a prisoner of war in the Philippines, presents a massive (1,277-page) book that purports to demonstrate that Hirohito was the driving force behind Japanese militarism in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Few Japanologists concur.

Bix, Herbert P. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Bix debunks the myth that Hirohito was a mere figurehead by demonstrating how the emperor was a shrewd and engaged politician and military leader who encouraged Japan’s participation in war.

Harvey, Robert. American Shogun: General MacArthur, Emperor Hirohito, and the Drama of Modern Japan. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2006. Describes how American-Japanese relations were shaped by Hirohito and Douglas MacArthur both during and after World War II.

Kanroji, Osanaga. Hirohito: An Intimate Portrait of the Japanese Emperor. Los Angeles: Gateway, 1975. Kanroji was an imperial attendant for seventy years, retiring in 1959, and a classmate of Taisho at Peers’ School.

Manning, Paul. Hirohito: The War Years. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986. Focuses on the planning, conduct, and immediate aftermath of World War II. Assumes that Hirohito had a commanding role in that event. Appendix has a list of key figures who advised him.

Mosley, Leonard. Hirohito: Emperor of Japan. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. Perhaps the most readable and detailed biography in English, but misses the final quarter century of the subject’s life.

Packard, Jerrold M. Sons of Heaven: A Portrait of the Japanese Monarchy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1987. The last 250 pages concern Hirohito. Contains a seven-page bibliography, a list of all Japanese rulers, various documents pertaining to the imperial office, and the preface to a 1977 scientific paper by Hirohito.

Severns, Karen. Hirohito. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. Part of the World Leaders: Past and Present series, this work was written for young adults but is useful for a broad audience. Includes photographs and other graphic material on nearly every page. Names are given in Oriental fashion: family name first. An excellent starting point to examine Hirohito’s life.

Takeda, Kiyoko. The Dual-Image of the Japanese Emperor. New York: New York University Press, 1988. In less than two hundred pages, this book examines American, British, Canadian, Australian, and Chinese views of the Japanese emperor from 1942 to 1952. Also contains a chronology of this period.