When Takarabe was courting the daughter of Admiral Yamamoto Gonnohyōe, his close friend Takeo Hirose approached the admiral and requested that he refuse to allow his daughter to marry Takarabe. "Since Takarabe is a man of great talent and intelligence, he is destined to one day become an admiral. However, if he is married to your daughter, people will say that his advancement was due to family connections, rather than his abilities." However, Yamamoto ignored Hirose and allowed Takarabe to marry his daughter. As Hirose had predicted, with each promotion and advancement Takarabe later made in his career, he had enemies and detractors who attributed it to his family ties, and who called him “the princeling” behind his back.[2]
Returning to attend navigational training in Japan, Takarabe was promoted to lieutenant in 1894 and assigned to the cruiser Takao during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), eventually becoming chief navigator.
During the Russo-Japanese War, Takarabe served on the Imperial General Headquarters, formulating strategy and tactics. In 1905 he was promoted to captain, and after the end of the war, spent six months in England in 1907.
From September 1907 to September 1908, Takarabe was captain of the cruiser Soya, and from September–December 1908 captain of the battleshipFuji. He served as chief of staff of the IJN 1st fleet in 1909, and became Vice Minister of the Navy on his promotion to rear admiral in December 1909.
Takarabe was promoted to full admiral in November 1919. He became commander in chief of the Yokosuka Naval District from July 1922.
In the aftermath of the 1923 Kantō Massacre, in which mainly ethnic Koreans were lynched and killed by Japanese mobs, Takarabe praised the mobs for their "martial spirit," and describing them as a successful result of military conscription.[3]: 114
Takarabe was Navy Minister again from 11 June 1924 to 20 April 1927 in the cabinet of Prime Minister Katō Takaaki and first cabinet of Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijirō, and once more from 2 July 1929 to 18 November 1929 in the cabinet of Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi.
From 1929–1930, Takarabe was on the Japanese delegation at the London Naval Treaty negotiations. Takarabe was considered a political moderate, and was a leading member of the Treaty Faction within the Imperial Japanese Navy. He strongly opposed the growing militarization of Japan, and sought to maintain diplomatic ties with Great Britain in hopes of reviving the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. His support of the London Treaty and disarmament led Takarabe to be branded a “traitor” by the rightists and by the Fleet Faction members of the Navy, and also led to an assassination attempt.
Goldstein, Erik (1994). The Washington Conference, 1921–22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Harbor. Routledge. ISBN0-7146-4136-7.
Schencking, J. Charles (2005). Making Waves: Politics, Propaganda, And The Emergence Of The Imperial Japanese Navy, 1868–1922. Stanford University Press. ISBN0-8047-4977-9.
