The Kyūjō Conspiracy

"The Kyūjō Conspiracy – How a Group of Japanese Officers Planned to Overthrow the Emperor and Continue WW2" from Military History Now reveals how close Japan came to not surrendering. It relates:

    By early August [1945], Emperor Hirohito was calling on the leadership to seek terms. Even Japan’s prime minister, Kantarō Suzuki, and his hawkish military cabinet, known as the “Big Six,” finally conceded defeat. It was agreed that the emperor would formally announce Japan’s surrender over the radio at precisely noon local time on Aug. 15. (LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE)

    Yet amazingly, despite Japan’s downfall, not all were committed to ending hostilities. In fact, many nationalists sought to fight on.

    The very night before Tokyo planned to publicly agree to the Allied ultimatum, a clique of officers in Japan’s War Ministry led by a 22-year-old army major named Kenji Hatanaka moved to overthrow the government. The group’s objective was to block Hirohito’s scheduled announcement of capitulation and continue the war to the bitter end. The faction was confident that once the ruling regime had been brought down, the Japanese people would unite and continue the struggle no matter the outcome. 

    After pleading in vain to War Minister Korechika Anami to prevent Hirohito’s broadcast, Hatanaka and a handful of officers mobilized a section of Japan’s elite Imperial Guard to take action.

    Just after midnight on Aug. 15, the conspirators marched onto the grounds of the Kyūjō or emperor’s palace. After quietly killing the guard’s divisional commander for refusing to support their putsch, Hatanaka and his fellow comrades searched the residence for Hirohito’s audio message that was slated to be broadcast within hours. Unable to locate the recording (power outages resulting from Allied bombings made the search impossible), Hatanaka dispatched his officers to nearby Yokohama to find and kill the prime minister. The assassins failed to locate their target.

    With local army units en route to crush the uprising, the emperor’s rebel guards melted away.

    Undeterred, Hatanaka fled to the headquarters of Japan’s national broadcaster in hopes of rallying support from there. Despite his brandishing a pistol, the increasingly desperate major was barred from getting on to the airwaves. He was last seen at daybreak riding through the streets of the bombed out capital on a motorcycle tossing resistance leaflets to war weary civilians. With army troops closing in, Hatanaka finally shot himself in the head. An hour later, Hirohito’s pre-recorded message went out.

But even that was not the end of the matter, with the article relating continued resistance and another attempted coup.