Kenji Hatanaka † Jirō Shiizaki † Masataka Ida Takeo Sasaki
48-615: Kantarō Suzuki Kōichi Kido Shizuichi Tanaka Takeshi Mori † The Kyūjō incident ( 宮城事件 , Kyūjō Jiken ) was an attempted military coup d'état in the Empire of Japan at the end of the Second World War . It happened on the night of 14–15 August 1945, just before the announcement of Japan's surrender to the Allies . The coup was attempted by the Staff Office of
96-457: A Colonel Saburo Hayashi in a washroom and asked about "the possibility of attacking a large American convoy rumored to be outside of Tokyo." Hayashi dashed Anami's suggestion by reaffirming the Imperial decision while noting the presence of the convoy was only a rumor. Finally, his brother-in-law Lieutenant Colonel Masahiko Takeshita confronted Anami, first suggesting Anami resign, which would topple
144-549: A dagger, and then shot himself. In Hatanaka's pocket was his death poem : "I have nothing to regret now that the dark clouds have disappeared from the reign of the Emperor." Citations Bibliography Kantar%C5%8D Suzuki Baron Kantarō Suzuki ( 鈴木 貫太郎 , 18 January 1868 – 17 April 1948 ) was a Japanese admiral and politician. He was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy , member and final leader of
192-473: A false set of orders created by his co-conspirators, which would greatly increase the strength of the forces occupying the Imperial Palace and Imperial Household Ministry , and "protecting" the emperor. The palace police were disarmed and all the entrances blocked. Over the course of the night, Hatanaka's rebels captured and detained eighteen people, including Ministry staff and NHK workers sent to record
240-525: A message that read, "I—with my death—humbly apologize to the Emperor for the great crime." Whether the crime involved losing the war, the coup, or both, remains unclear. At some time after 01:00, Hatanaka and his men surrounded the palace. Hatanaka, Shiizaki, Ida, and Captain Shigetarō Uehara (of the Air Force Academy) went to the office of Lt. General Takeshi Mori to ask him to join the coup. Mori
288-693: The Battle of the Yellow Sea . During the pivotal Battle of Tsushima , Suzuki was commander of Destroyer Division 4 under the IJN 2nd Fleet , which assisted in sinking the Russian battleship Navarin . After the war, Suzuki was promoted to captain on 28 September 1907 and commanded the destroyer Akashi (1908), followed by the cruiser Soya (1909), battleship Shikishima (1911) and cruiser Tsukuba (1912). Promoted to rear admiral on 23 May 1913 and assigned to command
336-646: The Eastern District Army and the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army to move forward with the action. Due to their failure to convince the remaining army to oust the Imperial House of Japan , they committed suicide . As a result, the communiqué of the intent for a Japanese surrender continued as planned. On 26 July 1945 (Berlin time), the Potsdam Conference issued a declaration on
384-518: The Eastern District Army , Hatanaka finally gave up. He gathered his officers and walked out of the NHK studio. At dawn, Tanaka learned that the palace had been invaded. He went there and confronted the rebellious officers, berating them for acting contrary to the spirit of the Japanese army. He convinced them to return to their barracks. By 08:00, the rebellion was entirely dismantled, having succeeded in holding
432-524: The February 26 Incident in 1936; the would-be assassin's bullet remained inside his body for the rest of his life, and was only revealed upon his cremation . Suzuki was opposed to Japan's war with the United States, before and throughout World War II . On 7 April 1945, Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso resigned and Suzuki was appointed to take his place at the age of seventy-seven. He simultaneously held
480-592: The Imperial Rule Assistance Association and the 29th prime minister of Japan from 7 April to 17 August 1945. Suzuki was born on 18 January 1868, in Izumi Province (present-day Sakai, Osaka ), the first son of local governor ( daikan ) of Sekiyado Domain Suzuki Yoshinori. He grew up in the city of Sekiyado, Shimōsa Province (present-day Noda , Chiba Prefecture ). Suzuki entered
528-523: The Maizuru Naval District . Suzuki became Vice Minister of the Navy from 1914 to 1917, during World War I . Promoted to vice admiral on 1 June 1917, he brought the cruisers Asama and Iwate to San Francisco in early 1918 with 1,000 cadets, and was received by U.S. Navy Rear Admiral William Fullam . The Japanese cruisers then proceeded to South America . After stints as Commandant of
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#1732872210087576-702: The Ministry of War of Japan and many from the Imperial Guard to stop the move to surrender. The officers murdered Lieutenant General Takeshi Mori of the First Imperial Guards Division and attempted to counterfeit an order to the effect of permitting their occupation of the Tokyo Imperial Palace ( Kyūjō ). They attempted to place Emperor Hirohito under house arrest, using the 2nd Brigade Imperial Guard Infantry. They failed to persuade
624-726: The surrender of Japan , yet the cabinet council which was supposed to be held at the same time did not concur. Also, the Supreme Council for the Direction of War tangled with the problem of protection for the Kokutai. After these proceedings, some Army officers decided that a coup d'état was needed for protection of the Kokutai. At this time, the core group of these officers had already prepared some troops in Tokyo ( 兵力 使用 計画 , heiryoku shiyō keikaku , literally "military force usage plan"). Late on
672-522: The 14th class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1884, graduating 13th of 45 cadets in 1887. Suzuki served on the corvettes Tsukuba , Tenryū and cruiser Takachiho as a midshipman . On being commissioned as ensign , he served on the corvette Amagi , cruiser Takao , corvette Jingei , ironclad Kongō , and gunboat Maya . After his promotion to lieutenant on 21 December 1892, he served as chief navigator on
720-672: The Air program. In 1960, the station was purchased by the Far East Broadcasting Company . In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis , the station served as a temporary relay of the Voice of America . During the 1970s, a Missions Engineering 250 kW transmitter was added to the station along with log periodic antennas. FEBC closed the station down in July 1994. The 50 kW transmitter
768-647: The HQ of the Air General Army , where its commander, Masakazu Kawabe (the brother of Torashirō), also signed. This written accord by the most senior officers in the Army, in addition to Anami's announcement, acted as a formidable firebreak against any attempt to incite a coup d'état in Tokyo. Around 21:30 on 14 August, Hatanaka's rebels set their plan into motion. The Second Regiment of the First Imperial Guards had entered
816-613: The Imperial Conference on the night of 13-14 August at which the surrender finally was decided, Anami had two conversations in which he expressed opposition to the surrender. He asked Yoshijirō Umezu , the Chief of the Army General Staff, if "the war should be continued even at the risk of launching a coup d'état", to which Umezu concluded, "There is nothing we can do now but to comply with the Emperor's decision." Anami then confronted
864-557: The Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, Commander of the IJN 2nd Fleet , then the IJN 3rd Fleet , then Kure Naval District , he became a full admiral on 3 August 1923. Suzuki became Commander in Chief of Combined Fleet in 1924. After serving as Chief of Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff from 15 April 1925 to 22 January 1929, he retired and accepted the position as Privy Councillor and Grand Chamberlain from 1929 to 1936. Suzuki narrowly escaped assassination in
912-817: The Japanese Imperial court. In the council the Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki , the Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai , and the Minister for Foreign Affairs Shigenori Tōgō suggested to Hirohito that the Japanese should accept the Potsdam Declaration and unconditionally surrender. After the closure of the air-raid shelter session, Suzuki mustered the Supreme Council for the Direction of War again, now as an Imperial Conference , which Emperor Hirohito attended. From midnight of 10 August,
960-490: The Potsdam Declaration. General Anami refused to say whether he would help the young officers in treason. As much as they needed his support, Hatanaka and the other rebels decided they had no choice but to continue planning and to attempt a coup d'état on their own. Hatanaka spent much of 13 August and the morning of 14 August gathering allies, seeking support from the higher-ups in the Ministry, and refining his plot. Shortly after
1008-462: The Second Regiment of the First Imperial Guards, discovered that the Army did not support this rebellion, and he ordered Hatanaka to leave the palace grounds. Just before 05:00, as his rebels continued their search, Hatanaka went to NHK studios, and, brandishing a pistol, tried desperately to get some airtime to explain his actions. A little over an hour later, after receiving a telephone call from
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#17328722100871056-590: The archaic organization and layout of the Imperial House Ministry. Many of the names of the rooms were unrecognizable to the rebels. The rebels did find the chamberlain Yoshihiro Tokugawa . Although Hatanaka threatened to disembowel him with a samurai sword , Tokugawa lied and told them he did not know where the recordings or men were. During their search, the rebels cut nearly all of the telephone wires, severing communications between their prisoners on
1104-548: The authority of the sovereignty of the Japanese government and the Emperor would be subordinated to the headquarters of the Allies, a military occupational system that was also applied to the fallen German Reich . The Ministry of Foreign Affairs interpreted this sentence as restricting sovereignty, but the Japanese Army interpreted it more as enslavement. From 3 o'clock the attendees of the imperial families council basically agreed to
1152-420: The conference convened in an underground bomb shelter. Hirohito agreed with the opinion of Tōgō, resulting in the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. Subsequently, the Japanese envoy to Switzerland and Sweden communicated the decision to the Allies . The War Ministry knew the decision of the conference and stirred up a fierce reaction from many officers who intended continued resistance. At 9 o'clock, in
1200-586: The corvettes Kaimon , Hiei , and Kongō . Suzuki served in the First Sino-Japanese War , commanding a torpedo boat and participated in a night torpedo assault in the Battle of Weihaiwei in 1895. Afterwards, he was promoted to lieutenant commander on 28 June 1898 after graduation from the Naval Staff College and assigned to a number of staff positions including that of naval attaché to Germany from 1901 to 1903. On his return, he
1248-479: The government; then suggesting he support the coup . To the first, Anami noted that the fall of the government would not stop the Imperial edict, while to the second, he replied that he wished to go to the Army Ministry first. At the Army Ministry, Anami announced compliance with the Imperial edict. Then a group of senior army officers including Anami gathered in a nearby room. All those present were concerned about
1296-492: The last days and hours and gave him the blind optimism to move ahead with the plan, despite having little support from his superiors. Having set all the pieces into position, Hatanaka and his co-conspirators decided that the Guard would take over the palace at 02:00. The hours until then were spent in continued attempts to convince their superiors in the Army to join the coup. At about the same time, General Anami killed himself , leaving
1344-590: The last." Vice Minister of War Tadaichi Wakamatsu was also present and helped draft the document. It was signed by all the most important officers present. The signatories were Minister of War Anami, Chief of the Army General Staff Umezu, commander of the 1st General Army Field Marshal Hajime Sugiyama , commander of the 2nd General Army Field Marshal Shunroku Hata and Inspector-General of Military Training Kenji Doihara . When Umezu voiced concern about air units causing trouble, Wakamatsu went next door to
1392-623: The military faction of the cabinet, who desired to continue the war in hopes of negotiating a more favorable peace agreement. Part of this faction attempted to assassinate Suzuki twice in the Kyūjō Incident on the morning of 15 August 1945. After the surrender of Japan became public, Suzuki resigned and Prince Higashikuni became the next prime minister. Suzuki was the Chairman of the Privy Council from 7 August 1944 to 7 June 1945 and again after
1440-515: The night of 12 August 1945, Major Kenji Hatanaka , along with Lieutenant Colonels Masataka Ida , Masahiko Takeshita (Anami's brother-in-law), and Masao Inaba , and Colonel Okikatsu Arao , the Chief of the Military Affairs Section, spoke to Anami (the army minister and "most powerful figure in Japan besides the Emperor himself"), and asked him to do whatever he could to prevent acceptance of
1488-572: The other ministers were not ready to accept the declaration. On 9 August 1945, the Japanese government, responding to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , to the declaration of war by the Soviet Union and to the effective loss of the Pacific and Asian-mainland territories, decided to accept the Potsdam Declaration. On the same day the Supreme Council for the Direction of War opened before
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1536-541: The palace grounds and the outside world. At about the same time, in Yokohama , Kanagawa Prefecture , another group of Hatanaka's rebels led by Captain Takeo Sasaki went to Prime Minister Suzuki's office, intent on killing him. When they found it empty, they machine-gunned the office and set the building on fire, then left for his home. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu had warned Suzuki, and he escaped minutes before
1584-412: The palace grounds for much of the night but failing to find the recordings. Hatanaka, on a motorcycle, and Shiizaki, on horseback, rode through the streets, tossing leaflets that explained their motives and their actions. Within an hour before the emperor's surrender broadcast , sometime around 11:00, on 15 August, Hatanaka placed his pistol to his forehead, and shot himself. Shiizaki stabbed himself with
1632-439: The palace grounds, doubling the strength of the battalion already stationed there, presumably to provide extra protection against Hatanaka's rebellion. But Hatanaka, along with Lt. Col. Jirō Shiizaki , convinced the commander of the Second Regiment, Colonel Toyojirō Haga, of their cause, by telling him (untruthfully) that Anami, Umezu, and the commanders of the Eastern District Army and Imperial Guards Divisions were all in on
1680-506: The plan. Hatanaka also went to the office of General Shizuichi Tanaka , commander of the Eastern region of the army, to try to persuade him to join the coup. Tanaka refused, and ordered Hatanaka to go home. Hatanaka ignored the order. Originally, Hatanaka hoped that simply occupying the palace and showing the beginnings of a rebellion would inspire the rest of the Army to rise up against the move to surrender. This notion guided him through much of
1728-725: The portfolios for Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Greater East Asia . Prime Minister Suzuki contributed to the final peace negotiations with the Allied Powers in World War II. He was involved in calling two unprecedented imperial conferences which helped resolve the split within the Japanese Imperial Cabinet over the Potsdam Declaration . He outlined the terms to Emperor Hirohito who had already agreed to accept unconditional surrender . This went strongly against
1776-539: The possibility of a coup d'état to prevent the surrender—some of those present may have even been considering launching one. After a silence, General Torashirō Kawabe , Deputy Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff , proposed that all senior officers present sign an agreement to carry out the emperor's order of surrender—"The Army will act in accordance with the Imperial Decision to
1824-594: The session held at the Ministry of War, the staff officers complained to the Minister Korechika Anami , and not all of them heeded Anami's explanations. After midnight on 12 August a San Francisco radio station ( KGEI ) relayed the reply from the Allies , and there was a suggestion that the Allies had decided, against the requisition for the protection of the Kokutai from the Imperial Japanese government, that
1872-420: The surrender of Japan from 15 December 1945 to 13 June 1946. Suzuki died of natural causes on 17 April, 1948. His grave is in his home town of Noda, Chiba. One of his two sons became director of Japan's immigration service, while the other was a successful lawyer. From the corresponding Japanese Misplaced Pages article KGEI KGEI was a shortwave radio station founded by General Electric in 1939. It
1920-564: The surrender speech. The rebels, led by Hatanaka, spent the next several hours fruitlessly searching for Imperial Household Minister Sōtarō Ishiwata [ ja ] , Lord of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido , and the recordings of the surrender speech. The two men were hiding in the "bank vault", a large chamber underneath the Imperial Palace. The search was made more difficult by a blackout in response to Allied bombings, and by
1968-522: The terms for the surrender of Japan. When the Potsdam Declaration was received in Japan over shortwave, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Shigenori Tōgō brought a copy to the Emperor of Japan , Hirohito. After going over the declaration point by point, the emperor asked Tōgō if those terms "were the most reasonable to be expected in the circumstances". Tōgō said that they were. The emperor said, "I agree. In principle they are acceptable." In late July, however,
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2016-417: The would-be assassins arrived. After setting fire to Suzuki's home, they went to the estate of Kiichirō Hiranuma to assassinate him. Hiranuma escaped through a side gate and the rebels burned his house as well. Suzuki spent the rest of August under police protection, spending each night in a different bed. Around 03:00, Hatanaka was informed by Lieutenant Colonel Masataka Ida that the Eastern District Army
2064-448: Was built with reinforced concrete construction designed to withstand bombs. Prior to World War II , the station aired isolationist programs such as those of Charles Lindbergh along with International News Service bulletins. During World War II, General Douglas MacArthur 's "I have returned" speech was aired by KGEI. During the years of 1954 and 1955, the station was used to air Stanford University 's International University of
2112-515: Was donated to the Christian missionary organization SIM for use in Liberia . However, it was destroyed during an attack on the facility shortly after its installation there. The 250 kW transmitter was also donated to a Christian organization, Project Aurora and was moved to Alaska. The transmitter building was sold to Fully Alive Church, who eventually sold the building to Silicon Valley Clean Water,
2160-512: Was in a meeting with his brother-in-law, Michinori Shiraishi . The cooperation of Mori, as commander of the 1st Imperial Guards Division, was crucial. When Mori refused to side with Hatanaka, Hatanaka murdered him, fearing Mori would order the Guards to stop the rebellion. Uehara killed Shiraishi. These were the only two murders of the night. Hatanaka then used General Mori's official stamp to authorize Imperial Guards Division Strategic Order No. 584,
2208-410: Was on its way to the palace to stop him, and that he should give up. Finally, seeing his plan collapsing around him, Hatanaka pleaded with Tatsuhiko Takashima [ ja ] , Chief of Staff of the Eastern District Army , to be given at least ten minutes on the air on NHK radio, to explain to the people of Japan what he was trying to accomplish and why. He was refused. Colonel Haga, commander of
2256-634: Was promoted to commander on 26 September 1903. He came to be known as the leading torpedo warfare expert in the Imperial Japanese Navy. During the Russo-Japanese War , Suzuki commanded Destroyer Division 2 in 1904, which picked up survivors of the Port Arthur Blockade Squadron during the Battle of Port Arthur . He was appointed executive officer of the cruiser Kasuga on 26 February 1904, aboard which he participated in
2304-572: Was purchased by the Far East Broadcasting Company in 1960. KGEI was founded by GE in 1939 at the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island with the call sign W6XBE, before changing to KGEI in August 1939. The station at this time had a 50 kW GE transmitter. In 1941, the station was relocated to Redwood City, California , following the end of exposition, right next door to today's KNBR . The transmitter building
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