Text size

Princess Mikasa, the oldest member of Japan’s royal family and great-aunt of the emperor, died in a Tokyo hospital on Friday at the age of 101, the Imperial Household Agency said.

He had been hospitalized since March after suffering a stroke and pneumonia and was recovering following treatment in intensive care.

Born into an aristocratic family on June 4, 1923, Yuriko Takagi was 18 when she married the younger brother of wartime emperor Hirohito.

The couple had five children, two girls and three boys. She gave birth to her first daughter in 1944 during World War II.

According to Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the imperial couple’s house was burned down in an air raid and the woman had to stay in a shelter with her baby.

Hirohito, who served as Japan’s commander in chief during its brutal march through Asia in the 1930s and ’40s, surrendered in a speech in August 1945 after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Prince Mikasa, husband of Princess Mikasa, who died in 2016 at the age of 100, was in favor of the decision to end the war.

But younger officers who disagreed regularly came to the shelter to change their minds.

The Asahi Shimbun said Princess Mikasa recalled that the atmosphere was “very scary”, with “fiery arguments and tension, as if bullets were about to fly”.

For the princess who lost her home, the decades that followed were far from luxurious; While the family was struggling financially, she took on domestic duties.

“While I was raising my children, Japanese society was still in a difficult period,” she said in a statement released by the Imperial Household Agency on her 100th birthday.

“I remember with deep gratitude how many people, including my husband, always supported me,” the princess added.

Princess Misaka’s three sons also predeceased her; One of them died at the age of 47 while playing squash at the Canadian embassy.

Male-only succession rules mean Japan’s royal women cannot ascend to the throne and must give up their imperial status if they marry outside the family.

Princess Misaka has three grandchildren who remain princesses; Among them is Akiko, whose 2015 book about her studies at Oxford and an incident in which her diplomatic passport aroused suspicion at the airport was a hit in Japan.

The 101-year-old man’s death follows reports that his condition had begun to deteriorate since early November.

Prince Hisahito, the 18-year-old nephew of the current Emperor Naruhito, is the only young heir to the throne. Naruhito’s daughter, Princess Aiko, was barred from the throne under the Imperial Household Law, which has been in effect since 1947.