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.