The 15th of August in Tokyo
Posted by ampontan on Wednesday, August 15, 2007
AT NOON ON 15 AUGUST 1945 IN TOKYO, NHK Radio broadcast a recording made by Emperor Hirohito at about 11:30 p.m. the night before accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and surrendering unconditionally to the Allied nations.
As this account in the Japan Times makes clear, however, that broadcast nearly didn’t make it to the air. The son-in-law of former Prime Minister Tojo Hideki issued a bogus order at 2:00 a.m. for about 1,000 soldiers to seize the Imperial Palace and cut off communications with the outside. The aim of the cabal of about a dozen officers was to find and destroy the two audio discs made by the Emperor before they could be broadcast to the nation later that day, overthrow the government, and install a new administration led by the War Minister to continue fighting.
The soldiers did occupy the Palace grounds, and about 40 or 50 entered the premises of the Imperial Household Agency. They hunted for the records for about 90 minutes without finding them. The discs had been placed there instead of NHK headquarters, which also was occupied, because it was thought to be a safer hiding place. One wonders how they knew to look on the Palace grounds instead of at NHK.
The coup leaders killed the head of the Imperial Guards after he refused their request to order the 4,000 troops under his command to join the revolt. Eventually, an officer of the Guards Division escaped and alerted General Tanaka Shizuichi, the head of the Eastern Defense Command (responsible for defending the capital) of the situation at the Palace. Tanaka convinced the Imperial Guard commander that the orders were not legitimate, and the commander confronted the coup leaders. They killed themselves shortly afterward, and the troops left the Palace grounds about 8:00 a.m., six hours after the plot got underway.
No Basis for Urban Legend
NHK’s official account of the events of the 14th and 15th, contained in their corporate history published on the network’s 50th anniversary in 1977, clears up another matter. There has been a persistent urban legend in Japan that the combination of poor radio reception and unfamiliarity with the language reserved for the Emperor led some people to believe that Hirohito had actually asked the people to fight to the last man. This cannot have been the case.
After the plotters were removed from NHK headquarters, the day’s broadcasts began at around 7:20 a.m., more than two hours behind schedule. There was an immediate and urgent announcement that the Emperor would address the nation at noon that day, and every citizen was urged to listen to the gyokuon broadcast. (Gyokuon is the Emperor’s voice, or literally, jeweled sound.) There were no daytime radio broadcasts in the regional areas of the country at that point in the war, so arrangements were made for a special hookup. This was to be the first time that most Japanese had ever heard their Emperor speak.
At noon, everyone in the country stopped what they were doing to listen. The recording was broadcast not only throughout Japan, but also over the NHK radio network in each of the colonized countries and territories in the Pacific. My mother-in-law’s family of well-to-do farmers were the only people in their neighborhood with a radio. She remembers everyone in the area coming to her house to listen.
Before the recording was played, the NHK announcer asked everyone to stand (to listen to the radio!) While it is true that the broadcast of the record was difficult to understand due to interference in some areas and the language used, there is no question that everyone understood what had just happened when the full broadcast ended some 37 minutes later. After the recording was played, the NHK announcer explained in simpler language that Japan had just surrendered, read the text of the Emperor’s broadcast again, and followed that with another explanation. After all that, it would have been unlikely that anyone would have thought the Emperor had asked the country to fight to the last man. In any event, newspapers began publishing extra editions at 1:00 p.m.
They understood in Tokyo. A stream of people passed by the bridge leading to the Imperial Palace to bow in its direction. This continued for the rest of the day.
They understood in Seoul. This was Liberation Day for Korea, and the sound of fireworks and gongs were heard almost immediately. The colonial government broadcast a plea asking for cooperation from the citizenry until the occupation army arrived, and they apparently got it.
They also understood on the other side of the world. It was midnight on the East Coast of the United States. Those people listening to a late-night live broadcast of Cab Calloway on the Mutual Broadcasting Network were among the first to find out.
Linguistic Note
One tricky aspect for students of the Japanese language is the bushel basket full of personal pronouns available in the language, combined with the common practice of omitting personal pronouns entirely. When pronouns are omitted, people usually can tell who is talking about whom from the context, but even the Japanese have to stop and ask each other every now and again.
For centuries, there was a specific personal pronoun meaning “I” reserved for the exclusive use of the Emperor, with its own kanji character. Hirohito used the word that day in his broadcast. The word is chin.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Chinpo or chin-chin are two of the less refined expressions for penis (the latter used mostly by grade-school boys), though it is written differently. Anyone who has taught English to 10-year-old boys in Japan, pointed to the end of his jaw, and called it his chin knows to wait a couple of minutes for the hysterical laughter to subside.
I’m not an anthropological linguist, so I have no proof or knowledge that there was a connection between these near-homonyms centuries ago. Still, it does offer fertile ground for speculation.
As Sherlock Holmes put it, I have sometimes thought of writing a monograph on the subject.
Matt said
There is a part in the comic HADASHI NO GEN that has a joke about the “chin” thing. In the comic, one of the dumber kids could not understand what the emperor was talking about, but the regular kids did understand the speech.
infimum said
Louis XIV de France’s famous phrase, L’état, c’est moi, is traditionary translated as 朕は国家なり in Japanese just for your information
Overthinker said
Considering the sheer number of homonyms in Japanese, it could be a difficult case to make. There are a couple of suggestive possibilities though: one is the fact that other high-ranking words like omae (honoured front, literally) and kisama (noble lord) are now not exactly words you would use to address the Emperor or indeed your mother in law. Another is the role of sexuality and phallic imagery in certain areas of Shinto. Taking it to its (il)logical extreme, perhaps the Chin of the Emperor is the symbolic male counterpart to the female Amaterasu, his distant ancestor and the being with which I understand he has some form of ritual intercourse at Ise when throned. Or perhaps not…. (Perhaps it just means rulers are dicks….)
I’ve both heard and read the speech, and the sound quality truly leaves much to be desired, but the meaning is pretty clear and not overtly ornate.
An interesting aspect of this, and a common thread in the supposedly so pro-Emperor Meiji ideology, is the level of disdain for the Emperor: it was often thought necessary to save him not only from Bad Advisors, but from himself if need be.
infimum said
Look at “the best answer” to a relevant question at Yahoo! Japan Chiebukuro.
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail.php?queId=7506463
bender said
That looks like one of the worst possible answers you can get…
Garrett said
Bill,
Don’t you think it might come down to an issue of chronology? While putting TPR’s August 15th piece together, I listened to the four-and-a half-minute excerpt in which the Emperor reads his rescript many times and, while I am far, very far from being a native speaker of Japanese, can see how it would be difficult for the overwhelming majority of ordinary people who’d never heard Court-speak.
More important, I can see why most people would not have known what the Potsdam Declaration was, which could cause confusion as the Emperor never mentioned “surrender” in and of itself in the broadcast. On top of that, the garbaa was, apparently, not exactly a hi-fi device, to put it genteely, and the record may have been damaged by the time it reached NHK, so I can see how it might have been difficult to hear what was said.
Most of all, there is more than one first-hand accoutn out there of someone saying she or he didn’t understand at first.
NHK’s explanation might have made that clear, but there’s no reason to believe that everyone, at the time of the Emperor’s brief speech, understood what he was saying, which is what, I think, is being referred to when there’s talk of confusion.
In other words, some people didn’t understand until it was explained to them.
Aki said
Although some people may have not understand the message from the Emperor, I think many of the Japanese at the time could understand the message to some extent, since all the students in the Imperial Japan had to recite and understand the Imperial Rescript on Education that had been written in the language reserved for the Emperor. Especially, a passage in the broadcast, 爾 (なんじ) 臣民の衷情も、朕よくこれを知る。しかれども朕は、時運のおもむくところ、堪え難きを堪え、忍び難きを忍び、もって万世のために大平を開かんと欲す, is easily understandable even for present Japanese as that stating to open the door to peace.
—
BTW, my mother was a student of junior high school during WWII. She once told me that she and her classmates had used to chuckle saying loudly the following rescript after the class of ethics, where students had to recite the Rescript on Education.
朕 (ちん) を思わず屁をひって 爾 (なんじ) 臣民 (しんみん) 臭かろう.
(This is a parody of the Rescript on Education. Its rough translation is “Forgetting that I am an emperor, I have farted. You, my people, shall be annoyed by the smell.”)
When I heard of this episode, I was a bit surprised knowing that children during that harsh period had been keeping the childlike sense of humor that must have been dangerous if noticed by militaristic teachers.
TofuUnion said
Aki-san, My father entered Navy when he was just 14 or 15 in 1945. He was a fighter plane trainee. Before he went to the war front, the war ended. He got back to school. I once heard him speak to other persons that he might have been kamikaze pilot if the war would go on for another a year.
My mother’s eldest brother died in the battle in China, elder brother was under detention by Soviet in Siberia for years and came back to Japan being infected with tuberculosis. My mother worked in the weapons factory when she was 12. All my parents’ or grand-parents’ generations went through that hard time.
ぷぅ said
こんにちは。
細かいことかもしれないけど、日本国は無条件降伏していません。
日本が応じたのは軍隊の無条件降伏、つまり武装解除です。
日本軍の武装解除が終わった後で、アメリカは突然『日本は無条件降伏した』と言いはじめました。
戦後のプロパガンダの第１号。
日本国が無条件降伏に応じたという文書は存在しません。
Overthinker said
Unconditional Surrender means that the surrendering side doesn’t get to set any conditions. The side demanding surrender can set whatever conditions they like – generally starting with surrender.
tomojiro said
ぷぅ is just a troll. I don’t think that he is worth for comments.
ぷぅ said
Overthinkerさん
軍隊が敵との戦闘行為を停止した上で、敵の支配下に入ること、つまり、抵抗をやめて敵に服従することを意味する降伏は、「無条件」または「条件付き」で行われます。
日本の場合は、ポツダム宣言を無条件で受諾することで行われたが、これは、交戦国軍隊全体に関する全面的休戦を意味した。
敵が占領する地域の主権を敵に移譲するような政治的事項の決定はできないとされています。
あなたがどんな見解を持つのも自由です。
でも、あなたが思ってるような文書も、国際法も存在しません。
tomojiroさん
誰に弁解してるの？
チョー不思議。
Durf said
What conditions was Japan allowed to place on its surrender to the Allies?
bender said
So what if the surrender was conditional or not?
It seems pretty clear that the allies imposed their own terms, and not the other way around.
Another argument for nothing.
ぷぅ said
戦勝国が何をしてもいいなら、国際法も極東裁判も必要ありません。
ポツダム宣言には、降伏の条件が明記されており、連合国も以下の条件を守ると書いてあります。
・日本人を奴隷化しない。
・国民を滅亡させない。
・言論、宗教、思想の自由、基本的人権を尊重する。
そして、日本に求められたのは、日本国軍隊の無条件降伏です。
日本はポツダム宣言を受諾し、降伏ました。
Aki said
TofuUnion-san, My mother had been reluctant to talk about her wartime experience except for suffering from hunger. But recently she sometimes tells me about her experiences during the war little by little. Some of them really surprise me.
My mother’s house was once searched by the Imperial Japan’s secret police (特別高等警察), since her eldest brother had a friend who was a communist being looked for by the police as a political criminal. That friend had escaped from the town just before the domiciliary search. As most Japanese know, the secret police was one of the most feared organizations of Imperial Japan. My mother’s family was scared stiff during the search. But soon after they started the search, the leader of the investigators said: “This family is Christian. There is no chance that they support communism,” and he made the investigators to quit the search. My mother’s family was actually Christian; The reason the leader stopped the search was that he found that the bookshelves in my mother’s home were full of books related to Christianity. After the investigators left my mother’s house, to the family’s surprise, the eldest brother took out documents related to communism from behind a bookshelf. He told the family that his friend had entrusted him with the documents before escaping from the town. My mother’s family shuddered hearing his words. If the investigation had not been stopped halfway, the documents would have been easily found, and, in that case, the eldest brother would have been arrested and the entire family would have been ostracized.
The eldest brother was drafted before the Pacific War. He participated in the battles in Singapore and Burma. Fortunately, he could return home after the war.
Two other elder brothers were also drafted. They did not return home after the war. One died near Taiwan when his transport was sunk, and another died in Hokkaido. The latter was officially reported to have died of illness. However, his superior officer visited my mother’s parents after the war to tell them that, in truth, he had committed suicide in the army.
—–
The reason I wrote this late comment is partly because I sometimes see articles and comments suggesting that Imperial Japan prosecuted religions. For example, I have recently read this good article describing about the Christian community in Nagasaki. However, this article says “And what the Japanese Imperial government could not do in over 200 years of persecution, American Christians did in 9 seconds.” This is just a misunderstanding. The fact is that the Japanese Imperial government did not prosecute Christianity at all. In 1930’s and 1940’s, it banned some political activities such as communism and anarchism that had been rampant in Japan in 1910’s and 1920’s, but it did not prosecute religions.
Aceface said
”あなたがどんな見解を持つのも自由です。
でも、あなたが思ってるような文書も、国際法も存在しません。”
あるよ。サンフランシスコ条約が。
Aki said
Correction for #16.
prosecuted –> persecuted
prosecute –> persecute
Today in History : KOHM FM said
[...] Highlight in History: On August 15th, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced to his subjects in a pre-recorded radio address that Japan had accepted terms of surrender for ending World War [...]