JAPANESE ADM. TOGO SEES USS UTAH BEING BUILT IN PHILADELPHIA

Admiral Count Togo

On this date 100 years ago today,  Admiral Count Heichachiro Togo, Japanese Naval Hero in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, in the battle of the Sea of Japan, that decimated the Russian Naval fleet, visited the Navy shipyards in Philadelphia. His visit was highly celebrated. He was treated both as a hero, and royalty, as he toured the United States, principally, Naval sites. He was at a dinner hosted by President Taft, where overtures of a Japanese and American arbitration treaty were made.  

His visit had its irony: He became chief tutor to Emperor Hirohito, Japanese Emperor during World War II; of greater irony was the fact that he landed in the United States aboard the Lusitania, whose sinking in 1915, shifted American neutrality; the ultimate irony may be that he toured the completion of the USS Utah, that would be bombed in Pearl Harbor, a little over 30 years later, by the Empire of Japan, and in whose wreckage 54 men are still entombed.

From the New York Times:

TOGO SEES NEW SHIPS.

 Much Impressed by War Craft Building in Philadelphia.

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 10. -- Admiral Count Togo to-day inspected the battleships Utah and Arkansas, which are being built for our navy by the New York Shipbuilding Company on the Delaware River. In the slip next to the American ships he saw the Morena, the large battleship which is being built for the Argentine Government. She has a displacement of 28,000 tons and is the largest man-of-war yet undertaken.
  The ships made a deep impression upon the Japanese Admiral, and he looked enviously at the young naval officers at his side, whose future on the sea is yet before them.

USS Utah hit by torpedo in Pearl Harbor

   A formal call on Mayor Reyburn at City Hall, which was returned half and hour later br the Mayor, began a day of  activity from Admiral Togo. He inspected the Philadelphia Naval Yard and saw the battleship Minnesota in dry dock and the Kearsarge a few yards away. He was entertained at luncheon by Capt. A.W. Grant, Commandant of the Philadelphia Naval Yard. All the naval officers stationed hear were present. After an exchange of toasts to the Emperor of Japan and the President of the United States, the Marine Band played strains from the Japanese National anthem and "The Star Spangled Banner." The party then sailed up the Delaware to the ships yards, where a salute of nineteen guns were fired. The Japanese Admiral for the first time since this tour began soke of the oppressive heat.
  On the trip up the Delaware River Admiral Togo talked with the naval officers in the partry about the Japanese who have been educated at Annapolis. The Admiral said that almost all these officers had won distinction in Japan.
  A change in the itinerary of Admiral Togo will enable him to see the fleet now manoeuvring (sic) off Provincetown, Mass. When his party arrives in Boston Thursday, Aug 17, the Admiral will call upon the Mayor. He will then proceed onm a torpedo boat destroyer to Provincetown, where he will visit the fleet. After being entertained at luncheon on board the battleship Connecticut, the flagship of the squadron, the party will return to Boston, and on Friday visit the Navy Yard.