It could not be true.
On August 15, 1945, at exactly noon, Japanese citizens who turned on their radios leaned forward, ears straining, and stared at one another in disbelief. They were told that none other than Emperor Hirohito himself would address them. It had never happened before.
Seconds passed, and then a thin, deliberate voice slipped into millions of homes. “To my subjects,” he began. “After carefully considering the situation in the world, we have decided to accept the joint declaration of the United States, Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union.”
The declaration he referred to was the Allies’ demand for Japan’s unconditional surrender, agreed upon at Potsdam three weeks earlier.
“The enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel weapon,” Hirohito continued. “Its power to do harm is incalculable, and it has already inflicted incalculable damage. Should we continue to fight, it would lead not only to the annihilation of our nation but also to the destruction of human civilization.”
This historic broadcast is remembered as “The Voice of the Emperor.” Earlier in August, American atomic bombs had reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to rubble. Days later, Hirohito’s chief chamberlain and diarist, Michiji Tajima, placed in his hands the first photographs of the obliterated cities. “This is no longer war,” the emperor said quietly. “It is annihilation.”
The speech had been recorded on two phonograph discs the day before, in a secure room within the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Once recorded, the discs were hidden to prevent anyone from tampering with them.
It was a wise precaution. That very night, several hundred rebellious officers and soldiers—having learned of the recording—moved to stop the broadcast. Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun, must not surrender.
Led by Major Kenji Hatanaka, a charismatic and forceful 33-year-old, the rebels stormed the palace in the early hours of August 15. Hatanaka believed the emperor had been misled by his advisers.
In the chaos that followed, members of the Imperial Guard aided the insurgents. Amid shouts and the clash of boots, they broke into the broadcasting studio, hoping to seize the discs—only to find nothing. “We must find the records before sunrise, or all is lost!” Hatanaka barked to his men.
For two frantic hours they searched the palace’s maze of corridors and staircases. “Hand over the phonograph records!” they shouted. Some became hopelessly lost. Eventually, the intruders were driven out. At dawn, Hatanaka tried to rally reinforcements, but it was too late.
That morning, as the clock neared noon, a desperate Hatanaka wandered the streets of Tokyo, handing out leaflets telling his side of the story. When the last leaflet was gone, he shot himself in the head. “I act for the future of the empire and the honor of the emperor. May my death be understood,” read his final words.
Colonel Jirō Shiizaki died alongside him. Eyewitnesses recalled the two men standing at attention before pulling their triggers simultaneously—an act rooted in the samurai code of honor. Hatanaka had donned white gloves, a symbolic gesture to show his conscience was clear.
The episode, known as the Kyūjō Incident, was long suppressed in both Japan and the West because it did not fit the image of a united people, loyal without question to the emperor. In truth, many Japanese would have preferred to fight to the death rather than surrender.
What if Hatanaka had succeeded in stopping the broadcast? No one can know for certain, but the surrender might well have been delayed, bringing further suffering—and perhaps even dividing Japan into two states, one Soviet-controlled in the north and the other under American control in the south, as in Korea.
In 1945, the Japanese regarded Hirohito as divine. By war’s end, he had been emperor for 19 years. Remote and aloof, he had lived behind the palace walls, never addressing his people directly—until now.
“It became clear to me that the people must hear it from me directly,” he later wrote. “I knew the decision (to surrender) would cause anger, grief, and perhaps hatred. But if it could save millions of lives, it was a burden I must bear.”
The speech was delivered in archaic court language that many Japanese struggled to understand, and the word “surrender” was carefully avoided. “We gathered the students in front of the school loudspeaker at noon,” recalled one teacher. “We knew something momentous was coming. The voice that finally broke the silence was slow and almost sacred, and we froze. We could not grasp the words, but the gravity was unmistakable. Afterwards we simply stood there, and some began to cry.”
Japan had 72 million people in 1945, but few owned radios. Key announcements and wartime propaganda were broadcast to the public through loudspeakers in towns and villages.
Hirohito trembled when the speech was over. Yet by accepting defeat and, as he put it, “enduring the unendurable,” he saved both his country and himself. Japan came under American occupation, but instead of putting him on trial, the Allies allowed him to remain as emperor—now without political power.
It was the best course, argued General Douglas MacArthur, supreme Allied commander in Japan until 1951: “Had we deposed the emperor and abolished the imperial system, Japan would have been thrown into chaos, making reconstruction far more difficult.”
Hirohito left no autobiography, but in March 1946 he dictated a “monologue” to his five closest aides in which he sought to clear himself. He claimed that all decisions regarding war and peace had been made by others and that he bore no responsibility for the tragedy that had befallen Japan and the world.
Historians have long debated his role. While it is true that Japan’s war machine was driven by forces beyond his direct control, available evidence shows that he accepted the war—and approved key decisions, including Japan’s surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
As historian Herbert P. Bix writes in Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan: “Hirohito was not merely a spectator. He was an active participant who enabled the Japanese military to wage total war.”
The story does not end with his broadcast. Isolated Japanese units continued fighting even after August 15. The formal surrender took place only on September 2, aboard the battleship USS Missouri. Even then, some forces carried on, partly due to poor communication with Tokyo, partly because they were determined to fight to the last.
In one remarkable case, soldier Hiroo Onoda did not surrender until 1974. Discovered in the Philippine jungle, he refused to lay down his rusty rifle until he was personally persuaded. Back in Japan, some circles hailed him as a hero.
Emperor Hirohito died peacefully in 1989.
