High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Tanin Yamaya was a naval theorist and admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during the early twentieth century. His is a direct ancestor of Japanese Crown Princess Masako. Born to a samurai household in Morioka in Mutsu Province (present day Iwate prefecture), Yamaya graduated from the 12th class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1886. He was 5th out of 19 cadets. As a midshipman, he served on the ironclad warship Fus . After a number of shipboard assignments, including a posting to the cruiser Naniwa, he was assigned in 1891 to Itsukushima on an overseas tour to France, returning over a year later in May 1892. Promoted to lieutenant, he was chief navigator on the corvette Yamato.