General Inoue Ikutaro/井上幾太郎 陸軍大将

Inoue Ikutaro /井上幾太郎; February 18, 1872 (January 10, 1872) - May 7, 1965/ was the first chief of the Army Aviation Department and chairman of the Imperial Military Reservist Association https://asiamedals.info/forums/imperial-military-reservist-association-badges.611/ .

Photo portrait that was taken in 1933.

He was born in Ashigawachi Village, Asa County, Yamaguchi Prefecture (formerly Mankura Village and Kusunoki Town , now Ashigawachi, Ube City). He was the second son of Seizo Inoue (a farmer). After attending Yamaguchi Kaidō School, he graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy (fourth class) in July 1893 (Meiji 26) and was assigned to the 5th Engineer Battalion. He became acquainted with the 5th Engineer Battalion's commander, Major Uehara Yusaku (later a Field Marshal and General). In March 1894, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Engineers. He served in the Sino-Japanese War , where he worked on laying telegraph lines between Busan and Seoul , and participated in the Yalu River Crossing Operation. In November 1895, he entered the Army Artillery School , where he developed an interest in fortress tactics. He graduated from the Army Artillery School in November 1896, and entered the Army War College (14th class) in December 1897. While he was a student at the Army War College, when the Boxer Rebellion broke out in July 1900, he was sent to war as the company commander the 5th Engineer Battalion , and achieved military success by blowing up the gates of Beijing , opening an assault route into the city. He returned to the Army War College in October of the same year, and graduated in December.

In February 1902, he became a member of the General Staff and aspired to study fortification tactics in the German Empire at his own expense. Thanks to the consideration of Major General Tamura Iyozo, Chief of the General Affairs Department of the General Staff, he was granted a grant of 1,000 yen per year for the three-year study period, and in June of the same year he traveled to Germany to study fortification in Berlin.

When the Russo-Japanese War broke out in February 1904, he cut short his privately funded studies after just under two years and returned to Japan in April of the same year. He served as a staff officer in the 3rd Army and proposed a tunnel-digging attack during the Siege of Port Arthur. After the war, he was stationed in Germany, served as a member of the General Staff (Fortifications Division), commander of the 10th Engineer Battalion, chief of the Engineering Division of the Military Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of the Army, and chief of the Military Affairs Division. In August 1916 , he was promoted to major general.

He served as Chief of the Army Transportation Department, attached to the Transportation Corps Headquarters (secretary of the Provisional Military Balloon Research Association), and the first Chief of the Aviation Department. In August 1920, he was promoted to lieutenant general, and served as commander of the 3rd Division, military councilor, and Chief of the Aviation Department. In February 1927, he was appointed Army General, and in March 1933, he was transferred to the reserve forces.

In February 1937, he became the last president of the Imperial Reservist Association. On November 28, 1947, he was provisionally banned from holding public office .​

 

General Inoue Ikutaro with his wife, November 1928.

 

Rare photo of general Inoue Ikutaro wearing Hungarian badge of the Magyar Frontharcos Szövetség /Frontline Soldiers' Society/.

 

This honorary badge was presented to the general on January 5, 1939, by the Honorary Chairman of the Hungarian-Japanese Friendship Society/Magyar-Nippon Társaság/ and Honorary Professor of Senshu University Dr. István Mezey /original photo was published in Az igazi Japán (The Real Japan) by István Mezey (that was issued by the Magyar-Nippon Társaság in 1939).​

 

Very interesting article that was published in Hungarian Journal Magyar Front (2008, Volume X Issue 2, pp. 10-13).

HUNGARIAN FLAG AND NATIVE SOIL TO THE JAPANESE FRONTLINE FIGHTERS
by Gergely Pál Sallay

The Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association maintained international relations with several countries’ veterans’ associa-tions during the 1930s and the early 1940s. A manifestation of those relationships was the regular participation of the representatives of foreign ex-servicemen’s organisations at the events arranged by the Frontline Fighters. An interesting aspect of those international relations can be captured on the pages of the 25 April 1942 issue of Magyar Katonaújság (Hungarian Military Journal).

The article gives account of a Japanese-Hungarian comrades’ celebration that took place on 19 April 1942, in the Magyar Művelődés Háza (House of Hungarian Culture) in Budapest, with the participation of Japanese diplomats, the representatives of the Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association and the Magyar—Nippon Társaság (Hungarian—Japanese Society). The Japanese diplomatic corps was represented by Ambassador Toshitaka Okubo, Major General Wataro Yoshinaka, Japanese Military Attaché to Budapest, and his adjutant, Major Kenichi Nakamura. Lieutenant General (ret.) József v. Takách-Tolvay, leader of the Hungarian Frontline Fighters, as well as Royal Prince József Ferenc v. Habsburg, Chairman of the Magyar-Nippon Társaság, also took part in the event. In his opening speech, the Habsburg celebrity commemorated the help provided by the Japanese military authorities to Hungarian prisoners-of-war in Siberia in 1920, and he stressed that virtues such as respect for the ancestors; self-sacrifice; and the heroism of women characterized both Hungarians and the Japanese.

On the occasion of the event, Lieutenant General v. Takách-Tolvay offered the Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ gift of a flag to the Japanese comrades, which was presented by a group of Frontline Fighters to Major General Yoshinaka. Subsequently, it was the turn of Dr. Imre Rajczy, Secretary-General of the Magyar Nemzeti Diákszövetség (Hungarian National Association of Students), to offer Ambassador Okubo a handful of native soil: the witness of a thousand years of Hungarian history – and ―a token of the two nations’ friendship and their prospec-tive victory. To understand these big words, tinged with a flavour of propaganda, it should be pointed out here that Hungary and Japan were joined both by the Anti-Comintern Pact and the Tripartite Pact in the period, as well as the Hungarian-Japanese Agreement of Friendship and Intellectual Cooperation, which was signed in November 1938. (It was also in that spirit that the abovementioned Ambassador Okubo was awarded the Grand Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit in March 1942, ― on the occasion of the taking of Singapore, a great victory of the friendly Japanese nation.)

As part of the ceremony, the Japanese Ambassador gave thanks for both the Frontline Fighters’ flag and the sample of Hungarian native soil, and he expressed his hope that links between the two countries would become still closer in the future and that they would last forever. In his closing speech, Elemér Kertész, Vice-President of the Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association, referred to the joint efforts of the two nations of soldiers in the Second World War. In a picture (above) illustrating the cited article, all the aforementioned celebrities can be seen, in front of a row of Frontline Fighters holding flags.

The men behind the table (from left to right) are Major Kenichi Nakamura, adjutant of the Japanese Military Attaché to Budapest; (most likely) Dr. Imre Rajczy, Secretary-General of the Magyar Nemzeti Diákszövetség (Hungarian National Association of Students); Toshitaka Okubo, Imperial Japanese Ambassador to Budapest; Royal Prince József Ferenc v. Habsburg (standing); Lieutenant General (ret.) József v. Takách-Tolvay, President of the Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association; Major General Wataro Yoshinaka, Japanese Military Attaché to Budapest; and Elemér Kertész, Vice-President of the Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association.

A series of photographs about the same event was published on the pages of the wartime edition almanac of the Frontline Fighters, titled A frontharcos eszme szolgálatában. Owing to those pictures, it is possible to find out more about the participants of the ceremony and also to observe what the flag looked like exactly. One of the photographs (on page 10), showing the dignitaries standing behind the long table, proves that Isao Suido, Counsellor of the Imperial Japanese Embassy in Budapest, was also present at the event. He is seen standing on the left of Elemér Kertész in civilian clothes.

In another picture (at right) the moment of handing over the flag to the Japanese Military Attaché is captured.

A third image (page 10, bottom) portrays both the obverse and reverse of the swallow-tailed flag. On the obverse the Hungarian coat-of-arms and the emblem of the Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association (both in the center) are surrounded by the Hungarian words A FRONTHARCOS BARTÁRSIASSÁGÉRT / MAGYAR TŰZHAR-COS SZÖVETSÉG / 1942 (For frontline fighters’ comradeship / Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association / 1942), whereas the reverse shows Japanese characters (of the same meaning) and a large red disk (a symbol of the rising sun) in the center. The Hungarian side, i.e. the obverse of the flag was framed by national-colour trimmings.

The aforementioned almanac of the Frontline Fighters also contains a two-page article on the history of the Hungarian association’s relations with Japan. Although in the text there is no mention of the event discussed above (the book must have been published in 1942, not long after the occasion took place), the article gives account of other interesting details of contacts between the two countries’ veterans’ associations. Such a remarkable piece of information regards Dr. István Mezey’s trip to Japan in 1938-1939. Dr. István Mezey was a lawyer by profession who, besides working for the Royal Hungarian Ministry of Education, was founder and later chairman of the Magyar-Nippon Társaság and honorary professor of Senshu University, Tokyo. In the late 1930s, he did not only travel to the Far East as the representative of the Ministry of Education, but also as the Vice-President of the Section of the Frontline Fighters of the 8th District of Budapest. He had been charged by President v. Takách-Tolvay and Vice-President Elemér Kertész to personally contact the leaders of the Imperial Japanese Veterans’ Association (Nippon Teikoku Zaigo Gunjinkai) on behalf of the Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association. Dr. Mezey was to present the Association’s Badges of Honour to His Imperial Highness Prince Kan’in (Kotohito), Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff and Patron of the Imperial Japanese Veterans’ Association, and to Lieutenant General Inoue, President of the Association. Dr. Mezey met Lieutenant General Inoue on 5 January 1939. On that occasion, a group photograph (page 12) was taken, which is also featured in the Frontline Fighters’ almanac and portrays, among others General Inoue sitting beside Dr. István Mezey and wearing the Badge of Honour of the Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association on his uniform. The man in civilian clothes on the left of the Japanese general holds the case of the badge in his hands. (A few days later, Dr. Mezey met HIH Prince Kan’in, too. Presumably, the Badge of Honour was handed over to him, as well.) Unfortunately, the quality of all four photographs is rather poor, due to the printing technique of the period. Nevertheless, their value as primary sources is unquestionable. On the strength of a document preserved in the Hungarian Military History Archives, the Imperial Japanese Veterans’ Association also awarded their Badge of Honour to the Hungarian Association in late 1941. The donation of the Hungarian flag to the Japanese veterans was to return that kindness, in fact – at least according to the cited source, which is indeed a letter of invitation to the discussed comrades’ celebration, dated 11 April 1942, signed by Elemér Kertész and József Takách-Tolvay, and sent to the Presidential Department of the Royal Hungarian Ministry of Defence. (The officers, NCOs and other ranks employed by the Ministry could visit the event free of charge.)

It would be interesting to know whether the donated flag reached the Far Eastern country in those days. If it did, might it still be preserved somewhere today? The same question applies to the mutually awarded Hungarian and the Japanese Badges of Honour. The questions may never be answered, but the above introduced events might still attract the attention of those interested in the history and foreign relations of the Hungarian Frontline Fighters’ Association.​

 

Another rare photo of General Inoue Ikutaro with a foreign badge.

This time he is wearing the Honorary NS-Reichskriegerbund /National Socialist Reich Veterans' League/ badge.

 

In 1938, all remaining German veterans’ groups were forcibly merged into the NS-Reichskriegerbund, making it the sole, state-directed veterans’ organization of the Third Reich; only the Nationalsozialistische Kriegsopferversorgung, NSKOV /National Socialist War Victim's Care/ retained a separate function. A Führer order renamed the group NS-Reichskriegerbund „Kyffhäuser“, completing its full integration into the Nazi organizational system. After World War II, the NS-Reichskriegerbund was dissolved by Allied order in 1945, and a new, depoliticized Kyffhäuserbund was re-established in West Germany in 1952 as a veterans’ and shooting-sports association.​

Interestingly the badge that we see on the general is not described in the official brochure "Der NS.-Reichskriegerbund: Was Jeder von ihm wissen muss /National Socialist Reich Veterans' League: What Everyone Should Know About It/ that was published in Berlin in 1938.

 

Photo from "Aeronautical Photo Album", May 1933. Note an Imperial Japan Aviation Association stamp https://asiamedals.info/forums/imperial-greater-japan-aviation-association-badges.736/.