He was an early pioneer, then a fighter pilot, with the Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun Kōkū Hombu, the aeronautical service of the Japanese Imperial Navy.

In August 1944 he assumed command of the Imperial Naval forces present on the island of Iwo Jima, and died in combat against the US Marines on March 26, 1945.

Passionate about the world of aviation, Rinosuke attended the course for pilots students of the Japanese Imperial Navy on 1 December 1917.

[2] In July 1926, he was involved in an accident during a test flight on a fighter that caused him serious fractures to the femur and other injuries to both the skull and the face.

Three years later, on 1 December 1933, he became an executive officer at the Sasebo Air Group and on 1 November 1934, he was assigned to the General Staff of the 1st Aircraft Division.

He was then sent to the South Pacific theater, where he took part in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and the subsequent fighting in the long and exhausting campaign of Guadalcanal, in command of the 1st Attack Force.

[6] Despite the differences of opinion with the commander in chief, the men of Ichimaru actively collaborated in the defense and built 135 casemates.

Admiral Ichimaru is believed to have been killed by a barrage of machine gun fire on March 26,[10] while trying to abandon the cave in which he had taken refuge.

[1] In the final days of the battle, Ichimaru wrote a letter addressed to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,[10] in which Ichimaru charged Roosevelt with vilifying pre-war Japan, and justified the decision of the Japanese government to enter the war as a reaction to the policy put in place by the United States that forced Japan on the offensive.

The letter was placed in the stomach band of his communications officer, and an English version entrusted to Lieutenant Commander Kunio Akada.

Approximately a century has elapsed since Nippon, after Commodore Perry's entry to Shimoda, became widely affiliated with the countries of the world.

Though you may use the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour as your primary material for propaganda, I believe you, of all persons, know best that you left Nippon no other method in order to save herself from self-destruction.

Emperor Meiji's "The four seas of the world that are united in brotherhood will know no high waves nor wind" (composed during the Russo-Japanese War) won the appraisal of your uncle, Theodore Roosevelt as you yourself know.

Though we, at the time, are externally taken by your air raids and shelling backed by your material superiority, spiritually we are burning with delight and enjoying the peace of mind.

This peacefulness of mind, the common universal stigma of the Nippon-jin, burning with fervour in the upholding of the Imperial Doctrine may be impossible for you and Churchill to understand.

In order to attain this end, countless machinations were used to cajole the yellow races, and to finally deprive them of any strength.

Nippon in retaliation to your imperialism tried to free the oriental nations from your punitive bonds, only to be faced by your dogged opposition.

Studying the condition of the never ending racial struggle resulting from mutual misunderstanding of the European countries, it is not difficult to feel the need of the everlasting universal peace.

It is beyond my imagination of how you can slander Hitler's program and at the same time cooperate with Stalin's "Soviet Russia" which has as its principal aim the "socialization" of the World at large.

Upon the attainment of your barbaric world monopoly never forget to retain in your mind the failure of your predecessor President Wilson at his heights.

The television network NHK TV organized a meeting in which the sword was presented to the admiral's widow, Sueko.