[2] He attended the Gakushuin Peers’ School, and subsequently graduated 35th out of 45 cadets at the 14th class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy.

[1] Along with Akiyama Saneyuki and Satō Tetsutarō, Ogasawara was a close confidant of Fleet Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō and an early proponent of the naval strategies of Alfred Thayer Mahan.

When Admiral Suzuki Kantarō, then an instructor at the Naval Staff College, confessed that the English language original of Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History was too difficult for him to understand, and further complained that the existing Japanese translation was written in archaic, florid prose barely legible to naval cadets, Ogasawara, then a lieutenant commander, was assigned by Navy Chief of Staff Itō Sukeyuki to write a new translation.

The work was used to win public support for increases in the naval budget and copies were distributed to secondary schools across the empire.

Ogasawara used his own experiences in the Battle of the Yalu River validate Mahan’s concept of the command of the sea, and the Triple Intervention as an example of Japan’s maritime vulnerability.