Kichisaburō Nomura

Infobox Military Person
name= Kichisaburō Nomura
lived=16 December 1877 – 8 May 1964 [Nishida, Imperial Japanese Navy ]
placeofbirth=Wakayama, Wakayama, Japan
placeofdeath=


caption=
nickname=
allegiance=Empire of Japan
serviceyears=1898-1937
branch=navy|Empire of Japan
rank=Admiral
commands="Yakumo"
1st Expeditionary Fleet, Vice Chief of the Navy General Staff, Kure Naval District, Yokosuka Naval District
unit=
battles=
awards=Order of the Rising Sun
laterwork=Supreme War Council (Japan)
Gakushuin Peer's school
Foreign Minister
Ambassador to the United States
Privy Council
Member of the House of Councilors

nihongo|Kichisaburō Nomura|野村 吉三郎|Nomura Kichisaburō|extra=16 December 1877 – 8 May 1964 was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy and was the ambassador to the United States at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Biography

Naval career

Nomura was born in Wakayama city, Wakayama prefecture. He graduated from the 26th class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1898, with a ranking of 2nd out of a class of 57 cadets. As a midshipman, he served on the corvette "Hiei" and battleship "Yashima". As a crewman, he made a voyage to the United States on the battleship "Mikasa" from 1901-1902.

As a lieutenant, he served on a large number of ships, including the gunboat "Maya", corvette "Kongō" and cruiser "Tokiwa". He served as chief navigator on the cruiser "Saien" (1904), and cruiser "Takachiho" during the Russo-Japanese War. After the war, he was chief navigator on the cruisers "Hashidate" and "Chitose". From March 1908, he was send as naval attaché to Austria. He was promoted to lieutenant commander in September 1908, and became naval attaché to Germany from 1910. He returned to Japan in May 1911, and became executive officer on the cruiser "Otowa" from September. From June 1912, he was assigned a number of staff roles and was promoted to commander in December 1913. During World War I, from 11 December 1914 until 1 June 1918, Nomura was naval attaché to the United States. While in the United States, he was promoted to captain.

On Nomura's return to Japan, he received his first command: the cruiser "Yakumo". However, only a month later, he was re-assigned back to assignments for the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff, including a trip to France was part of Japan's delegation to the Versailles Peace Treaty Conference. Following the conclusion of those negotiations, he returned to Washington DC to participate in the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922.

On 1 June 1922, Nomura was promoted to rear admiral. He served as chief of the 3rd section of the Navy General Staff, followed by Commander of the 1st Expeditionary Fleet, Director of the Education Bureau, and Vice Chief of the Navy General Staff. He was promoted to vice admiral on 1 December 1926.

On 11 June 1930, Nomura became Commander in Chief of the Kure Naval District. He was Commander in Chief of the Yokosuka Naval District from December 1930.

During the First Shanghai Incident (January 28 Incident) in 1932, he was once appointed as commander of the Japanese forces (army and navy) fighting in Shanghai. However, he was replaced by Kenkichi Ueda when the Japanese forces did not manage to win. Finally, Yoshinori Shirakawa was the Japanese commander winning the battle in Shanghai.

Nomura was promoted to full admiral on 1 March 1933.

From 1933-1937, Nomura served as Naval Councilor on the Supreme War Council, and resigned from active service in 1937.

Diplomatic career

After his retirement, Nomura was principal of the Gakushuin Peer's school from 1937-1939.

He was appointed Foreign Minister of Japan from 1939-1940 in the cabinet of Nobuyuki Abe.

On 27 November 1940, Nomura was sent as ambassador to the United States, replacing Kensuke Horinouchi (March 1941-July 1942). Through much of 1941, Ambassador Nomura negotiated with United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull in an attempt to prevent war from breaking out between Japan and the USA. Nomura and Hull attempted resolve issues including the Japanese conflict with China, the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, and the United States oil embargo against Japan. Nomura's repeated pleas to his superiors to offer the Americans meaningful concessions were rejected by his own government. [Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 421] On November 15, 1941, Nomura was joined by a "special envoy" to Washington, Saburō Kurusu. [Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept, p.358] Nomura and Kurusu were negotiating with Hull when Pearl Harbor was bombed on Sunday 7 December 1941.

After World War II, Nomura denied that he knew beforehand of the attack. [ Victor, The Pearl Harbor Myth] Reportedly Nomura and Kurusu had to personally decode the radioed message of Japan's breaking off the negotiations with the United States (which given the circumstances practically meant war), as its had been sent from Japan on Monday, December 8 and was received when the embassy's technical support staff was still on Sunday holiday. Nomura stated that this is why he had been unable to deliver the message until after the actual attack had taken place. [Stinnet, Day of Deceit] In his memoirs, Hull credited Nomura with having been sincere in trying to prevent war between Japan and the USA. [The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, II, p. 987]

On 20 August 1942, Nomura returned to Japan. He continued to serve in an unofficial capacity as an advisor to the government through World War II, and was appointed to the Privy Council (Japan) in May 1945.

Post-war political career

After the war, Nomura started a new career: He was hired by Konosuke Matsushita to work in his company as a general manager and was sent to manage Victor Company of Japan, which was owned by Matsushita. He was then invited by Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida to serve as a member of a committee studying rearmament of Japan.

In 1954, Nomura ran for the House of Councilors (upper house) and got elected by a landslide. In the late 1950s he was considered to be a strong candidate to head the Defense Agency by both Prime Ministers Ichirō Hatoyama and Nobusuke Kishi, but declined each offer expressing his belief in civilian control of armed forces. Nomura had been a civilian for nearly two decades by that time but he was still regarded by many as a retired admiral of the old Imperial Japanese navy.

Nomura was reelected to the upper house in 1960 and died in office in 1964.

References

Books

*cite book
last = Stinnett
first = Robert
authorlink =
year = 2000
title = Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor
publisher = Free Press (Touchstone edition)
location =
id = ISBN 0743201299
*cite book
last = Victor
first = George
authorlink =
year = 2007
title = The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable
publisher = Potomac Books
location =
id = ISBN 1597970425

External links

*cite web
last = Nishida
first = Hiroshi
url = http://homepage2.nifty.com/nishidah/e/px26.htm#a002
title = Materials of IJN: Nomura, Kichisaburo
work = Imperial Japanese Navy
accessdate = 2007-08-03

Notes