Late Emperor’s funeral prepared one year before passing

March 18, 2018

Tokyo- Secret work to prepare for late Japanese Emperor Hirohito's funeral started about one year before his demise in 1989, a former cabinet member revealed in his recently published memoir.

Nobuo Ishihara, 91, who was deputy chief cabinet secretary at that time, writes in the book that the government decided to launch the project after the then Emperor's disease got worse.

Everyone who knew about the funeral preparation or was involved in the project was ordered to remain silent on it to avoid a severe public backlash, according to the memoir.

Ishihara found it necessary to start the preparatory work early because 20-30 top-quality logs of Japanese cypress needed to be procured to build the main facility for the "Taiso no Rei" funeral.

Deciding to use trees that were planted in Taiwan by the government in the Meiji period and about to be cut down, Ishihara made a proposal to then Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita that a major contractor temporarily shoulder logging costs and bring the logs into Japan on its responsibility so as to prevent the secret project from becoming public knowledge through the government's budget allocation for the material procurement. Jiji Press