ABSTRACT
When prince chichibu, Hirohito's younger brother, died in January, 1953, the Japanese press mourned the passing of ‘the Sportsman Prince’ and ‘the Personification of Democracy’ 1 . Almost nothing was said about his military career of twenty years (1920–40) and no one, reading the newspapers, could get the impression that there had been anything controversial in the life of this apparently quiet and loyal prince. Japanese reference books are silent, 2 on this subject, while histories of the period, even those critical of traditional institutions, usually do not mention Prince Chichibu at all. 3
