|Born||15 Jun 1880| |Died||5 Jan 1947| Contributor: C. Peter
Chen Osami Nagano was born in 1880. As a naval officer, he
established a strong record in administration. He studied in the
United States during the 1910s and was naval attaché to the US
between 1920 and 1923. In Dec 1935, he represented Japan as the
chief delegate at the Second London Naval Conference. Between
May 1936 and Jun 1937 he was the Navy Minister under Prime
Minister Koki Hirota. In Dec 1937, he was named commander in
chief of the First Fleet and the Combined Fleet. From Apr 1941
to Feb 1944, he was chief of the Navy General Staff. Although he
was a proponent of a southward expansion, he was against a war
against the United States; he deduced that if even Japan was to
take over British and Dutch colonies in Asia, the isolationist
United States still would not enter the war against Japan,
leaving Japan to establish her empire without the interference
from the industrial giant. However, like he had done so a number
of times before, he entru