In the old days, it was generally accepted in Japan that women did not discuss politics. They were not supposed to comment or make judgments, and had to refrain from expressing opinions. I trusted the Prince, and believed that all would be well if I only did as he wished. But since the Prince became an invalid, I tried not to trouble him any more than necessary, and therefore had to make decisions and organize some things on my own.

War with America and Britain had just begun. Not only were US Ambassador Joseph Grew and British Ambassador Sir Robert Craigie envoys of countries we had personal connections with, but they and their wives were very good friends of ours. They were about to be repatriated, and we hated to end our friendship in this way. There was no question of being able to meet them and bid them a proper farewell.

It occurred to me that I could ask Shunichi KASE—who had served under my father, and was now head of the North American section of the American Affairs Bureau of the Foreign Ministry—to see the Grews and the Craigies on our behalf. Together with messages, I entrusted to Mr. Kase a jewel-box for Mrs. Grew to commemorate our long friendship, and for Lady Craigie some mutton I had managed to obtain in Gotemba and other foodstuffs, since they would be interned for some time yet.

When Mr. Kase arrived at the American Embassy, the Grews greeted him in their best clothes, and accepted my message and the jewel-box with tears in their eyes. They were apparently so overcome with emotion it was some time before they could speak. `We are deeply grateful for such kind treatment by the Imperial Family', said the Ambassador, finally. The Craigies, too, I heard, were delighted, and I believe Sir Robert said to Mr. Kase: `I did not know the details of the negotiations between Japan and America. If only I had known, I could have acted as an intermediary.' As for me, it was a great relief to have been able, thanks to Mr. Kase, to let the two Ambassadors and their wives know of the Prince's and my feelings.

About the end of January, 1942, it was decided to build a new annex for the Prince that would be light and airy and get plenty of sunshine, for unless he was forced to rest owing to a slight temperature, he passed the time reading in his study. It was not really a proper building, but more like a makeshift prefab, hurriedly put up with used timber, and had only a plywood tokonoma alcove. The main feature was the fact that the whole south side consisted of sliding glass doors, but even the six foot long screen in the bedroom painted by Joyo NOZAWA Joyo of Hirosaki did little to make the place—with its naked wiring—look less like a warehouse. The Prince felt badly about having new living quarters built for himself in wartime, but I wanted him to get better, and was determined to see that he had the best conditions towards this end.

The Prince moved into his new quarters on 5 April. At this time, besides reading, he used to enjoy working out problems in shogi—Japanese chess. He used to say that working out shogi problems was not only fun, and a solace, but helped him to keep up his powers of reasoning and made the time pass more quickly.

The Prince was also very fond of rakugo, the traditional art of comic story-telling. While convalescing in Gotemba, he frequently listened to it on the radio. This somehow became known, and the leading exponents of the art volunteered to take turns visiting us to entertain the Prince, who used to laugh so hard his glasses kept misting over. Each time he took them off to wipe them, he would turn around to see if I and the staff were laughing too.

When we were trying to find a house in Gotemba, I had been insistant that the Prince have a room with a view of Fuji so that he could see the mountain even while lying in bed. He never told me at the time in order to spare my feelings, but it turned out that climbing it once had been quite enough of the mountain for him, and he never wanted to climb it again. But the fact was, that gazing at the mountain from Gotemba, he said he began to see many aspects of Fuji he had never dreamed existed: the way it changed according to the season, and even in the space of a single day, the way its color and cloud-shapes changed moment by moment. It was a mountain you could never tire of observing. Indeed, he told me, there was something awesome and unapproachable about the way it soared, quietly aloof.

Of all the aspects of Mount Fuji—Fuji in early autumn, Fuji in winter, Fuji in spring—I think the Prince's favorite Fuji was its still snow-capped spring countenance.

The Takamatsus and Mikasas came frequently to visit their elder brother, always staying overnight, and brought news of the outside world to the Prince, who did not listen to the radio or read the papers since he knew how far removed from the-truth their reports were. Even when they referred to the Battle of Midway that June—the battle that led to Japan's defeat—the people were not told the true state of affairs. Prince Takamatsu, who was on the General Staff, felt it was essential for Japan to bring the war to a conclusion as soon as posible. Prince Takamatsu, in whom the Prince had every confidence, wrote frequent letters to his brother, as well as telephoning, and made many visits to Gotemba, keeping the Prince well informed regarding the progress of the war. And Prince Mikasa, who visited frequently with the Princess, kept him au fait with what the army officers were saying and thinking.

Although the Prince—a reluctant invalid at the foot of Mount Fuji—was forced to be merely an onlooker, he never ceased being anxious about Japan's future, and like the Emperor, was sick at heart.

About the middle of August, a dear friend came to see us—Lieutenant General Masaharu HOMMA, who although only 55 had been retired from his post as Commander-in-Chief, The Philippines, and sent back to Japan to be put on reserve.

'To think I am actually here visiting Your Highnesses!', said the General, his face lowered to hide his tears and his body shaking with emotion.

Having been the Prince's aide-de-camp, and knowing the Prince so well, he must have known how wretched this secluded life must be for the Prince. And the Prince knowing the circumstances of General Homma's being placed on reserve, could feel for him, too. There was no need for words between them on this memorable reunion. The General had a good grasp of world affairs, and we had heard that the personnel reshuffle was connected with his great anxiety to avoid the fighting on the mainland of Japan, which he knew would inevitably cause tremendous loss of life.

When General Honma was at the Philippine front, the Prince had sent him a fan with a painting of Fuji by the great Yokoyama Taikan. `Indeed, my cup runneth over', said the General. `Fancy being able to gaze like this at the beauty of the mountain, in the presence of Your Highnesses'. That day, Fuji soared majestically, in all its summer clarity, above the trailing clouds below.

General Homma came several times to visit the Prince, who enjoyed their conversations together so much. But, alas, the further possibility of that pleasure was to end with the end of the war. General Homma entered Sugamo Prison as a war criminal for having been C. in C. in the Philippines, and was taken to Manila in December 1945, where, charged with being responsible for the Bataan Death March, his life was ended on an execution ground, and he just faded away from this world like dew.

We, who knew so well what a gentle warrior he was, could do nothing to help him. Nothing but bow our heads, silently, toward Mount Fuji, and say a prayer.

We shed tears anew when we learned that in General Homma's diary, an entry in February 1946, addressed to his children, had included the words: `Your father bows every morning towards the Imperial Palace, and prays for the recovery of Prince Chichibu.' And still, whenever I think of General Homma—and all the others who died as a result of the war—I am filled with grief, even today.

At the end of September, 1942, Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, who was staying at the Numazu Imperial Villa down on the coast not far away, honored us with a visit for the first time since the Prince had fallen ill. The Prince had been without a fever for some time, had just had a haircut, and did not look at all emaciated. He was able to greet his mother outside the front entrance looking fit and well in his formal haori-hakama.

Because of the contagious nature of the Prince's illness, it had not been possible for the Emperor and Empress to visit him, and the Empress Dowager had also been prevented from visiting him for the same reason. The mother and son had so much to say to one another that it was as if a flood-gate had been opened, and the obvious joy of their meeting brought tears to my eyes. When it was time for her to leave, I was almost embarrassed by the profuseness with which Her Majesty thanked me for nursing and caring for her son.

That day, Fuji looked truly a Sacred Mountain—soaring in splendid majesty and elegance.

For some time afterwards, the Prince was without fever, and was able to walk as far as the summer-house. There, at the spot in the grounds with the best overall view of Fuji stands a statue of the Prince as mountaineer. It is by Fumio ASAKURA, who was Japan's leading sculptor, and was a wedding present from the Emperor. The Prince often lingered there, with his hand resting on the statue. I used to think it was not so much nostalgia for his mountaineering days, but nostalgia for his elder brother the Emperor that was probably in his mind—mixed with sadness for his inability to be of use to the sovereign, and grief that they could no longer meet.

Although it was not possible for Their Majesties to visit us themselves, they often sent their chief physician up to Gotemba from the Numazu Villa on their behalf with comforting messages.

Alas, the feverless period did not last long. From the middle of October, the Prince was running a temperature of 37 degrees centigrade.

From about April 1943, blackouts and firefighting drills had begun—in which I, too, participated—which brought home to us the gravity of the situation.

Although the Prince was running a temperature, I was required to deputize for the Empress on a tour involving three days in Shizuoka Prefecture and three days in Kanagawa Prefecture. Each of the Imperial Princesses was being sent by Her Majesty to visit all the naval hospitals to cheer up the patients. Because of the Prince's illness, I was sent to prefectures nearby, but even then I worried about him and always telephoned as soon as I had reached my lodgings. Previously, the Prince's condition had invariably worsened whenever I was away, but this time it fortunately did not. It was for their country, but oh, how it pained me to see all those sick and wounded servicemen!

On 5 June, there was a state funeral for Admiral Isoroku YAMAMOTO. The only happy occasion that year that I can recall was the wedding of the Emperor and Empress's eldest daughter Princess Shigeko to Prince Morihiro HIGASHIKUNI on 13 October, which I attended. Being wartime, everything was done very simply, but nevertheless the bride looked young and beautiful.

It was a nice change to be able to describe to the Prince, on my return, the details of such a joyful occasion and the great happiness of Their Majesties.

The Prince's health seemed to reflect the hopelessness of the military situation, and was worsening. There were no more walks, just complete bed rest. The poems he wrote then are dispirited with the hopelessness of ever being up and about.

I could not bring myself to read those poems until after the war, when he was better. He himself wrote about that period:

He was always thinking of others, and trying so hard not to cause anyone any trouble, trying not to disturb our sleep, always maintaining a stiff upper lip so as not to worry us by betraying his despair. If only he had let me share some of that despair!

From 2 January 1944, Dr. Denji Terao took over from Army Doctor Jun'ichi Nakamura as a member of the Prince's medical team. Dr. Terao was the Health Advisory Chief of the Anti-Tuberculosis Association, as well as being the man who developed the Terao Pneumothorax in 1934. As I explained earlier, when the lung is contracted, the point of entry of the disease is closed off, the discharge of bacilli stopped, and recovery begins. Pneumothorax treatment consists of removing the air from the pleural cavity so that it naturally contracts. It was decided to add this treatment to the general regimen of fresh air, rest, and nourishment he was already following.

Dr. Terao describes his first impression of the Gotemba Villa as follows:

Dr. Terao always seemed surprised that I never sat on a cushion, but I had my reasons. In one of his poems, the Prince had written,

The sound of my cough
  Changes, and I know that I
   Must be getting worse.
How my heart sinks... Being unable to take his pain upon me and suffer in his stead, I felt the least I could do was to inflict some discomfort upon myself in sympathy with his condition.

The Prince was no longer able to walk to his study, but spent all day in bed. In the morning he mainly read—books on law, art and literature. He rested in the afternoon, much of the time gazing at Mount Fuji. In the evening, he would often listen to the radio. His days were invariably spent like this until the war ended.

On 19 May the Prince suffered a severe spontaneous pneumothorax attack and nearly died of asphyxiation. Dr. Terao, in the presence of several consultants including Dr. Ryukichi Inada, the then foremost authority on tuberculosis, inserted a hypodermic needle and extracted the air that had invaded the pleural cavity through burst tissue, and saw the Prince through the crisis. To insert a needle into a royal chest was indeed a very bold step at that time, when princes and princesses might not even be vaccinated arbitrarily.

Six days after the emergency, the Prince's condition had more or less stabilized, except that water formed in the lungs, and had to be removed and replaced by air. Once more, artificial pneumothorax was indicated. Up until then, the thickened pleura of the Prince's left lung had prevented the details of his lung from being visible in X-rays, and it was assumed that adhesion would make pneumothorax impossible. But a spontaneous pneumothorax having occurred, the lung, as well as rupturing, had effectively contracted. Now, the bacilli in the Prince's sputum were diminishing daily.

On 22 July 1944, the Tdj6 cabinet withdrew, and General Kuniaki KOISO became Prime Minister. From mid-October, the Prince was able to get up, and only needed artificial pneumothorax occasionally.

By November, air-raid warnings could be heard daily, as B29s flew past in formation over the Villa. Saipan having surrendered, air raids on the Japanese mainland had become a possibility. Gotemba was on the flight path of the B29s as they made for Tokyo. They would come in over Suruga Bay, and fly over Mount Fuji and Hakone, and each time they passed overhead, we would instinctively fold our hands together and pray that casualties would be light. But each day the damage got worse and worse. Trains stopped so often that finally Dr. Endo, the Prince's head physician, moved to Gotemba.

In December, although the Prince donated over 223 trees from our cypress forest to the war effort, he would not allow us to obtain the necessary flour from the black market to mix with taro yams and ginger for his chest poultices. I would have gladly gone without food, clothing and shelter for his sake, and not to be able to get this necessity for him depressed me. But by now, the Prince's condition did not seem too bad, and the chief physician's cheerful countenance made me happier than anything.

However, the air raids continued without respite, and on 25 February 1945, fire bombs fell on the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, and part of the Emperor's residence and that of the Empress Dowager were burned. I paid a visit to Their Majesties on 6 March to enquire as to their welfare, and was happy to be able to assure those at home on my return that no one had been injured. What a relief it had been to find that the Empress Dowager was safe, and that the only damage she had sustained had been to the three-story tower of her palace, and the glass doors and sliding paper partitions. I hurried back to Gotemba to the wail of sirens.

But no sooner had I returned to Gotemba than there was an enormous air raid on Tokyo lasting from midnight on 9 March to the 10th, in which we heard that the official residence of the Imperial Household Minister had burned down. Fortunately, both my father and mother were safe. Ever since my father had been appointed to that post, realizing the gravity of his responsibilities, they had vacated the house in Shoto, and moved completely into the official residence. Being a single-minded man, devoted to duty, my father did not even consider evacuation, and therefore lost everything.

`So now I'm just an ordinary person, like everybody else', he said.

In January, 1941, he had lost, to an illness, his darling youngest son Jiro, the apple of his eye, not yet quite seventeen, whom we used to call `Ji' for short. After that, material loss meant little to him.

Iwo-jima had fallen on 17 March. And as if that was not enough, still they came, night and day—the B29s in formations a hundred, and two hundred strong. It broke our hearts to think of the havoc they would be wreaking far and wide.

As for the Prince's fight against his illness, there was not much cause for optimism although the crisis was over for the time being. Dr. Endö and Dr. Terao were kept busy administering the difficult artificial pneu-mothorax treatment and the drawing out of fluid from the chest.

Because of the daily air raids, visits by members of the Imperial Family became less frequent, although the Mikasas did manage to come in between raids. Prince Takamatsu was too busy with the pressure of work at Staff Headquarters to leave Tokyo, but wrote weekly.

On 7 April, the Kantaro Suzuki cabinet was formed. A month later, on 7 May, Germany surrendered unconditionally, and although Japan's defeat seemed certain to us, the militarists were all for making a stand on the homeland. Camouflage was applied to our roof, and a strong air raid shelter was made for us by soldiers from the Tokai Corps. It was dug in a spiral, like a snail's shell, with an escape shaft at the very end, and if necessary, the Prince would be carried to the inner-most recess on a stretcher. There was also a simpler shelter built by the Imperial Household.

Meanwhile, I worked hard growing vegetables. Even if we did not become self-sufficient, it helped to have something extra. But never having grown anything but roses, I found hoeing and tilling hard work indeed. Masako SHIRASU's husband made us an oven for baking bread, and we managed to make some tasty loaves out of a variety of grains and cereals.

About that time, Tokyo suffered another devastating air raid. It was on 25 May, and this time both the Emperor's Palace and that of the Empress Dowager were burned. Our residence, too, in Omote-machi, was reduced to ashes—except for part of the Japanese section—and two guards lost their lives. The Prince's Private Secretary came to see us, to apologize profoundly for having been unable to save the Prince's many prized books, among which were valuable foreign books and specialized volumes.

`Seven of us,' he said, `did our utmost to save the books, but, alas, they all burned to a crisp.'

What could seven men - or more - with buckets, hope to do against a bombing raid by over two hundred B29s!

The Prince thanked him and urged him not to worry about it any more. `It was something entirely beyond your control', he said.

Even after dealing such a fatal blow to Tokyo, the B29s did not stop their bombing. The Emperor and Empress moved into a residence which had escaped the fire. The Emperor's personal office was set up there too. I was finally able to get to Tokyo on 27 May, but instead of replying to my enquiries about the Palace fire, the Empress kept asking me about the Prince's health and thanking me for braving the air raids to come to see them, all she would speak about was her anxiety for all the people who had lost their homes and their loved ones.

The Ninomaru Gardens in the palace grounds, once so lovely with azaleas and irises, were a desolate ruin, and I missed the usual sound of murmuring water in the Fukiage Gardens in the north-western part of the estate. The once limpid stream, where fireflies used to flit about on summer evenings, seemed to be silently choking back its tears with sadness.

I met the Empress Dowager in her air-raid shelter. She, too, would not talk about the burning of her palace, but only spoke about the ordeal of the Japanese people.

`Take good care of Yasuhito', she said as I took leave of her, after assuring Her Majesty that her son's health was beginning to look a little better.

Lastly, I visited our Tokyo home. I was prepared for the worst, but the ruins looked even more pitiful than I had imagined. I had been instructed by the Prince not to refer to anything that was burned, but only to thank people and give them encouragement. He told me to find out the names of those guards who had lost their lives and arrange for someone to represent us at their funerals. In the midst of so much that was changed beyond recognition, it was comforting to find the age-old deodars and other trees still standing, albeit with their leaves somewhat singed.

On 4 June, my father, after apologizing personally to the Emperor, resigned his post as Imperial Household Minister to take responsibility for the Palace's destruction by fire. Soon after the end of the war, he sold his property in Shibuya Ward's Shoto district and moved to Senzoku. Even though not all of his property had been destroyed in the air raids and subsequent fires, the Emperor's Palace was gone, and His Majesty inconvenienced. My father felt it would not be proper to live to the same standard as before. I heard later that he let the Government of Tokyo have our old property at a price far below its value, which was so like my father, and it is now the official residence of the Governor.

By the 26th, the Prince was well enough to take walks in the grounds of our Villa, but Dr. Endo and Dr. Terao continued their medical supervision. Artificial pneumothorax had been suspended from the beginning of June, but there was no telling when it might become necessary again. Meanwhile, I worked in the vegetable garden every day, in my straw hat and monpe dungarees, ignoring the air-raid warnings.

On the 30th, no sooner had the air-raid siren gone than there were some very loud booms in the direction of Gotemba Station, only three kilometers to our east. It was obviously bombs. My helpers and I ran back to the house, and with all of us gathered around the Prince, we took refuge in the shelter for the first time. We later heard that several carrier-based aircraft had strafed the area around the railway station and dropped eight 50-kilogram bombs.

The Prince had begun thinking ever since July that the constant bombing by the American forces must be in preparation for some special assault. His assumption was unfortunately correct. On 6 August the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, followed by the one on Nagasaki on the 9th. Moreover, the USSR had entered the war against Japan, and earlier, on 21 June, Okinawa had fallen. An American attack on Japan's mainland would be next, and while the Japanese Army expected a swift attack by the Americans, by this time, I think most of the Japanese people had lost their will to fight.

From Prince Takamatsu's letters and his ADC's reports, I think the Prince was pretty much aware of how the war had changed, and how its end was taking shape.

On 15 August, at the very height of the summer heat, Prince and Princess Takamatsu arrived by car from Tokyo at about 11.30 in the morning. On looking back, I think the reason they came here, leaving Tokyo so early in the morning, was because Prince Takamatsu wanted to be with his brother, and could not bear the thought of listening without him to the important, historic, unprecedented broadcast by the Emperor to the people. Or it may have simply been that he felt his bedridden brother needed his support at this time.

The Prince sat up in bed, and we all gathered around him there to listen to the noon broadcast on his bedside radio. There was a lot of static, probably because of the mountains round about Gotemba, so we could not hear His Majesty's voice very clearly. But I remember my eyes filling with tears, both with relief that the war was over, and the multitude of thoughts that welled up in my mind. I cannot remember what the brothers said after the broadcast, or what the general feeling was. The Takamatsus had said they would have to return to Tokyo at once, so all I could think of was what to give them for lunch before they left.

That day, the Prince had to have a pneumothorax treatment and lung fluid extraction for the first time in three months. He was bound to have been affected by the great turning point in history.

But he felt fine the very next day. Prince Mikasa arrived, and spent the night with us, and in spite of the Prince's invalid condition, it transpired that we would have to leave immediately for Tokyo. I went first on the 19th to make arrangements, and the Prince followed two days later.

Excerpt from Princess Chichibu's The Imperial Drum: A Japanese Imperial Memoir, (See general references for full citation).