Princess Mikasa, the oldest member of Japan’s royal family and the emperor’s great-aunt, died Friday at the age of 101 in a Tokyo hospital, the Imperial Household Agency announced.

She had been hospitalized since March after suffering a stroke and pneumonia and was recovering there following intensive care treatment.

Born Yuriko Takagi into an aristocratic family on June 4, 1923, the princess was 18 when she married the younger brother of War Emperor Hirohito.

The couple had five children – two girls and three boys. She gave birth to her first daughter in 1944 during World War II.

The imperial couple’s home burned down in an air raid and she was forced to stay in a shelter with her baby, according to Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun.

Hirohito, who was Japan’s commander-in-chief during its brutal march across Asia in the 1930s and 1940s, surrendered in a speech in August 1945, after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.