Lieutenant General Gaishi Nagaoka/長岡外史陸軍中将

Medals of Asia

Gaishi Nagaoka (長岡外史, May 13, 1858 - April 21 , 1933) Japanese air force commander and pioneer of aviation, whose mustache measured 20 inches from tip to tip, was born Suō Province in 1858. His father, San'emon Hori (堀三右衛門, Hori Sanemon), was an adopted son of Nanyo Nagaoka (長岡南陽, Nagaoka Nanyō) who was a feudal retainer of Tokuyama Domain. After studying at Meirinkan, he graduated from the Imperial Military Academy in 1878 and from the Army War College in 1885 as a first class student. In the Russo-Japanese War, he won a crushing victory in the Battle of Tsushima. He also persuaded Aritomo Yamagata and the navy to carry out the successful Karafuto Sakusen. As a result, this operation had a great influence on the cession of southern Sakhalin in the Treaty of Portsmouth. He taught students from the Qing dynasty, and Chiang Kai-shek, who later became President of the Republic of China, looked up to him as his teacher. In May 1924, he was elected to the House of Representatives in the 15th general election from the Yamaguchi 7th district. Died of a bladder tumour at Keio University Hospital in 1933. He was 74 years old.

Foreign News: Badge of Honor
Time
Monday, May 08, 1933

"Fifty years ago when Gaishi Nagaoka was a young officer at the Military Staff College in Tokyo what he had on his upper lip was just a mustache, not to be mentioned in the same breath with the vast and magnificent brush of His Majesty Umberto I, King of Italy. Time passed. Umberto died. Gaishi Nagaoka became a Major, then a Colonel, then a General and his mustache grew & grew. By the time he retired from active service in 1915 to become the smiling white-winged father of Japanese aviation it was no longer a mustache but a religion, a white plume of honor that he had flaunted bravely under the enemy's guns in the Russo-Japanese War and swept low in homage before his Emperor.

In recent years a view of General Nagaoka's mustache, like a view of Fujiyama, was an honor accorded all distinguished visitors. The Lindberghs were photographed beside it. In full bloom it stretched over 20 inches from tip to tip, one-third as much as the General spanned from top to toe. Last week Gaishi Nagaoka, 75, died of bladder trouble in Keio University Hospital in Tokyo. According to the Japanese law his body was washed and prepared for cremation. But not his white plume, not his badge of honor. To his death bed came his son and reverently clipped the mustaches away. They were bound with white silk, laid on a satin cushion in a separate casket and buried with all honor in a separate burial mound."