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Hirohito

January 10, 2023

For other uses, see Hirohito (disambiguation).

Emperor Shōwa (昭和天皇, Shōwa-tennō, 29 April 1901 – 7 January 1989), commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name Hirohito[a] (裕仁), was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was succeeded by his fifth child and eldest son, Akihito. By 1979, Hirohito was the only monarch in the world with the title "emperor". He was the longest-reigning historical Japanese emperor and one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world.

Emperor Shōwa
昭和天皇
Hirohito in 1935
Emperor of Japan
Reign25 December 1926 – 7 January 1989
Enthronement10 November 1928
PredecessorTaishō
SuccessorAkihito
Prime ministers
Prince Regent of Japan
Regency25 November 1921 – 25 December 1926
MonarchTaishō
BornHirohito (裕仁)
(1901-04-29)29 April 1901
Tōgū Palace, Aoyama, Tokyo, Empire of Japan
Died7 January 1989(1989-01-07) (aged 87)
Fukiage Palace, Tokyo, Japan
Burial24 February 1989
Musashi Imperial Graveyard, Hachiōji, Tokyo
Spouse
​
(m. 1924)​
Issue
Era name and dates
Shōwa: 25 December 1926 – 7 January 1989
Posthumous name
Tsuigō:
Emperor Shōwa (昭和天皇)
HouseImperial House of Japan
FatherEmperor Taishō
MotherSadako Kujō
Signature

Hirohito was the head of state under the Meiji Constitution during Japan's imperial expansion, militarization, and involvement in World War II. Japan waged a war across Asia in the 1930s and 40s in the name of Hirohito,[3] who was revered as a god.[4] After Japan's surrender, he was not prosecuted for war crimes, as General Douglas MacArthur thought that an ostensibly cooperative emperor would help establish a peaceful Allied occupation, and help the U.S. achieve their postwar objectives.[5] His role during the war remains controversial. On 1 January 1946, under pressure from the Allies, the Emperor formally renounced his divinity.[6] The Constitution of Japan of 1947 declared the Emperor to be a mere "symbol of the State ... deriving his position from the will of the people in whom resides sovereign power."[6]

In Japan, reigning emperors are known only as "the Emperor". Hirohito is now referred to in Japanese by his posthumous name, Shōwa, which is the name of the era coinciding with his reign.

Early life

 
Hirohito in 1902 as an infant
 
Emperor Taishō's four sons in 1921: Hirohito, Takahito, Nobuhito and Yasuhito

Hirohito was born in Tokyo's Aoyama Palace (during the reign of his grandfather, Emperor Meiji) on 29 April 1901,[7] the first son of 21-year-old Crown Prince Yoshihito (the future Emperor Taishō) and 17-year-old Crown Princess Sadako (the future Empress Teimei).[8] He was the grandson of Emperor Meiji and Yanagihara Naruko. His childhood title was Prince Michi.

Ten weeks after he was born, Hirohito was removed from the court and placed in the care of Count Kawamura Sumiyoshi, who raised him as his grandchild. At the age of 3, Hirohito and his brother Yasuhito were returned to court when Kawamura died – first to the imperial mansion in Numazu, Shizuoka, then back to the Aoyama Palace.[9]

In 1908 he began elementary studies at the Gakushūin (Peers School).[10] During 1912, at age 11, Hirohito was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Army as a Second Lieutenant and in the Imperial Japanese Navy as an Ensign. He was also bestowed with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum.[11] When his grandfather, Emperor Meiji, died on 30 July 1912, Hirohito's father, Yoshihito, assumed the throne.

Crown Prince era

On 2 November 1916, Hirohito was formally proclaimed Crown Prince and heir apparent. An investiture ceremony was not required to confirm this status.[12]

Overseas travel

 
The Crown Prince watches a boat race at Oxford University in the UK in 1921

From 3 March to 3 September 1921 (Taisho 10), the Crown Prince made official visits to the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Vatican City. This was the first visit to Western Europe by the Crown Prince.[b] Despite strong opposition in Japan, this was realized by the efforts of elder Japanese statesmen (Genrō) such as Yamagata Aritomo and Saionji Kinmochi.

 
In May 1921, he visited Edinburgh, Scotland

The departure of Prince Hirohito was widely reported in newspapers. The Japanese battleship Katori was used and departed from Yokohama, sailed to Naha, Hong Kong, Singapore, Colombo, Suez, Cairo, and Gibraltar. It arrived in Portsmouth two months later on 9 May, and on the same day they reached the British capital London. He was welcomed in the UK as a partner of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and met with King George V and Prime Minister David Lloyd George. That evening, a banquet was held at Buckingham Palace and a meeting with George V and Prince Arthur of Connaught. George V said that he treated his father like Hirohito, who was nervous in an unfamiliar foreign country, and that relieved his tension. The next day, he met Prince Edward (the future Edward VIII) at Windsor Castle, and a banquet was held every day thereafter. In London, he toured the British Museum, Tower of London, Bank of England, Lloyd's Marine Insurance, Oxford University, Army University, and Naval War College. He also enjoyed theater at the New Oxford Theatre and the Delhi Theatre.[13] At Cambridge University, he listened to Professor Tanner's lecture on "Relationship between the British Royal Family and its People" and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree.[14] He visited Edinburgh, Scotland, from the 19th to the 20th, and was also awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws at the University of Edinburgh. He stayed at the residence of John Stewart-Murray, 8th Duke of Atholl, for three days. On his stay with Stuart-Murray, the prince was quoted as saying, "The rise of Bolsheviks won't happen if you live a simple life like Duke Athol."[14]

In Italy, he met with King Vittorio Emanuele III and others, attended official banquets in various countries, and visited places such as the fierce battlefields of World War I.

Regency

 
Prince Hirohito and British Prime Minister Lloyd George, 1921

After returning to Japan, Hirohito became Regent of Japan (Sesshō) on 25 November 1921, in place of his ailing father, who was affected by mental illness.[15][16] In 1923 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the army and Commander in the navy, and army Colonel and Navy Captain in 1925.

During Hirohito's regency, many important events occurred:

In the Four-Power Treaty on Insular Possessions signed on 13 December 1921, Japan, the United States, Britain, and France agreed to recognize the status quo in the Pacific. Japan and Britain agreed to end the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The Washington Naval Treaty limiting warship numbers was signed on 6 February 1922. Japan withdrew troops from the Siberian Intervention on 28 August 1922. The Great Kantō earthquake devastated Tokyo on 1 September 1923. On 27 December 1923, Daisuke Namba attempted to assassinate Hirohito in the Toranomon Incident, but his attempt failed.[17] During interrogation, he claimed to be a communist and was executed.[18]

Marriage

 
Prince Hirohito and his wife, Princess Nagako, in 1924

Prince Hirohito married his distant cousin Princess Nagako Kuni, the eldest daughter of Prince Kuniyoshi Kuni, on 26 January 1924. They had two sons and five daughters[19] (see Issue).

The daughters who lived to adulthood left the imperial family as a result of the American reforms of the Japanese imperial household in October 1947 (in the case of Princess Shigeko) or under the terms of the Imperial Household Law at the moment of their subsequent marriages (in the cases of Princesses Kazuko, Atsuko, and Takako).

Ascension

 
Imperial Standard as Emperor

On 25 December 1926, Hirohito assumed the throne upon the death of his father, Yoshihito. The Crown Prince was said to have received the succession (senso).[20] The Taishō era's end and the Shōwa era's beginning (Enlightened Peace) were proclaimed. The deceased Emperor was posthumously renamed Emperor Taishō within days. Following Japanese custom, the new Emperor was never referred to by his given name but rather was referred to simply as "His Majesty the Emperor" which may be shortened to "His Majesty." In writing, the Emperor was also referred to formally as "The Reigning Emperor."

In November 1928, the Emperor's ascension was confirmed in ceremonies (sokui)[20] which are conventionally identified as "enthronement" and "coronation" (Shōwa no tairei-shiki); but this formal event would have been more accurately described as a public confirmation that his Imperial Majesty possesses the Japanese Imperial Regalia,[21] also called the Three Sacred Treasures, which have been handed down through the centuries.[22]

Early reign

 
Emperor Hirohito after his enthronement ceremony in 1928, dressed in sokutai

The first part of Hirohito's reign took place against a background of financial crisis and increasing military power within the government through both legal and extralegal means. The Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy held veto power over the formation of cabinets since 1900. Between 1921 and 1944, there were 64 separate incidents of political violence.

Hirohito narrowly escaped assassination by a hand grenade thrown by a Korean independence activist, Lee Bong-chang, in Tokyo on 9 January 1932, in the Sakuradamon Incident.

Another notable case was the assassination of moderate Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi in 1932, marking the end of civilian control of the military. The February 26 incident, an attempted military coup, followed in February 1936. It was carried out by junior Army officers of the Kōdōha faction who had the sympathy of many high-ranking officers including Prince Chichibu (Yasuhito), one of the Emperor's brothers. This revolt was occasioned by a loss of political support by the militarist faction in Diet elections. The coup resulted in the murders of several high government and Army officials.

When Chief Aide-de-camp Shigeru Honjō informed him of the revolt, the Emperor immediately ordered that it be put down and referred to the officers as "rebels" (bōto). Shortly thereafter, he ordered Army Minister Yoshiyuki Kawashima to suppress the rebellion within the hour. He asked for reports from Honjō every 30 minutes. The next day, when told by Honjō that the high command had made little progress in quashing the rebels, the Emperor told him "I Myself, will lead the Konoe Division and subdue them." The rebellion was suppressed following his orders on 29 February.[23]

Second Sino-Japanese War

 
The Emperor on his favorite white horse Shirayuki (lit. 'white-snow')

Starting from the Mukden Incident in 1931 in which Japan staged a False flag operation and made a false accusation against Chinese dissidents as a pretext to invade Manchuria, Japan occupied Chinese territories and established puppet governments. Such aggression was recommended to Hirohito by his chiefs of staff and prime minister Fumimaro Konoe and Hirohito did not voice objection to the invasion of China.[24] A diary by chamberlain Kuraji Ogura says that he was reluctant to start war against China in 1937 because they had underestimated China's military strength and Japan should be cautious in its strategy. In this regard, Ogura writes Hirohito said that "once you start (a war), it cannot easily be stopped in the middle ... What's important is when to end the war" and "one should be cautious in starting a war, but once begun, it should be carried out thoroughly."[25] Nonetheless, his main concern seems to have been the possibility of an attack by the Soviet Union in the north. His questions to his chief of staff, Prince Kan'in Kotohito, and minister of the army, Hajime Sugiyama, were mostly about the time it could take to crush Chinese resistance.

According to Akira Fujiwara, Hirohito endorsed the policy of qualifying the invasion of China as an "incident" instead of a "war"; therefore, he did not issue any notice to observe international law in this conflict (unlike what his predecessors did in previous conflicts officially recognized by Japan as wars), and the Deputy Minister of the Japanese Army instructed the chief of staff of Japanese China Garrison Army on 5 August not to use the term "prisoners of war" for Chinese captives. This instruction led to the removal of the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners.[26] The works of Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno show that the Emperor also authorized, by specific orders (rinsanmei), the use of chemical weapons against the Chinese.[27] During the invasion of Wuhan, from August to October 1938, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions,[28] despite the resolution adopted by the League of Nations on 14 May condemning Japanese use of toxic gas.

World War II

 
Political map of the Asia-Pacific region in 1939

Preparations

In July 1939, the Emperor quarrelled with his brother, Prince Chichibu, over whether to support the Anti-Comintern Pact, and reprimanded the army minister, Seishirō Itagaki.[29] But after the success of the Wehrmacht in Europe, the Emperor consented to the alliance. On 27 September 1940, ostensibly under Hirohito's leadership, Japan became a contracting partner of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy forming the Axis Powers.

The objectives to be obtained were clearly defined: a free hand to continue with the conquest of China and Southeast Asia, no increase in US or British military forces in the region, and cooperation by the West "in the acquisition of goods needed by our Empire."[30]

On 5 September, Prime Minister Konoe informally submitted a draft of the decision to the Emperor, just one day in advance of the Imperial Conference at which it would be formally implemented. On this evening, the Emperor had a meeting with the chief of staff of the army, Sugiyama, chief of staff of the navy, Osami Nagano, and Prime Minister Konoe. The Emperor questioned Sugiyama about the chances of success of an open war with the Occident. As Sugiyama answered positively, the Emperor scolded him:

—At the time of the China Incident, the army told me that we could achieve peace immediately after dealing them one blow with three divisions ... but you can't still beat Chiang Kai-shek even today! Sugiyama, you were army minister at that time.
—China is a vast area with many ways in and ways out, and we met unexpectedly big difficulties ...
—You say the interior of China is huge; isn't the Pacific Ocean even bigger than China? ... Didn't I caution you each time about those matters? Sugiyama, are you lying to me?[31]

Chief of Naval General Staff Admiral Nagano, a former Navy Minister and vastly experienced, later told a trusted colleague, "I have never seen the Emperor reprimand us in such a manner, his face turning red and raising his voice."[32][33]

 
Emperor Hirohito riding Shirayuki during an Army inspection on 8 January 1938

Nevertheless, all speakers at the Imperial Conference were united in favor of war rather than diplomacy.[34] Baron Yoshimichi Hara, President of the Imperial Council and the Emperor's representative, then questioned them closely, producing replies to the effect that war would be considered only as a last resort from some, and silence from others.

On 8 October, Sugiyama signed a 47-page report to the Emperor (sōjōan) outlining in minute detail plans for the advance into Southeast Asia. During the third week of October, Sugiyama gave the Emperor a 51-page document, "Materials in Reply to the Throne," about the operational outlook for the war.[35]

As war preparations continued, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe found himself increasingly isolated, and he resigned on 16 October. He justified himself to his chief cabinet secretary, Kenji Tomita, by stating:

Of course His Majesty is a pacifist, and there is no doubt he wished to avoid war. When I told him that to initiate war was a mistake, he agreed. But the next day, he would tell me: "You were worried about it yesterday, but you do not have to worry so much." Thus, gradually, he began to lean toward war. And the next time I met him, he leaned even more toward. In short, I felt the Emperor was telling me: my prime minister does not understand military matters, I know much more. In short, the Emperor had absorbed the view of the army and navy high commands.[36]

The army and the navy recommended the appointment of Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni, one of the Emperor's uncles, as prime minister. According to the Shōwa "Monologue", written after the war, the Emperor then said that if the war were to begin while a member of the imperial house was prime minister, the imperial house would have to carry the responsibility and he was opposed to this.[37]

 
The Emperor as head of the Imperial General Headquarters on 29 April 1943

Instead, the Emperor chose the hard-line General Hideki Tōjō, who was known for his devotion to the imperial institution, and asked him to make a policy review of what had been sanctioned by the Imperial Conferences. On 2 November Tōjō, Sugiyama, and Nagano reported to the Emperor that the review of eleven points had been in vain. Emperor Hirohito gave his consent to the war and then asked: "Are you going to provide justification for the war?"[38] The decision for war against the United States was presented for approval to Hirohito by General Tōjō, Naval Minister Admiral Shigetarō Shimada, and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō.[39]

On 3 November, Nagano explained in detail the plan of the attack on Pearl Harbor to the Emperor.[40] On 5 November Emperor Hirohito approved in imperial conference the operations plan for a war against the Occident and had many meetings with the military and Tōjō until the end of the month.[41] On 25 November Henry L. Stimson, United States Secretary of War, noted in his diary that he had discussed with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt the severe likelihood that Japan was about to launch a surprise attack and that the question had been "how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves."

On the following day, 26 November 1941, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull presented the Japanese ambassador with the Hull note, which as one of its conditions demanded the complete withdrawal of all Japanese troops from French Indochina and China. Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo said to his cabinet, "This is an ultimatum." On 1 December an Imperial Conference sanctioned the "War against the United States, United Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Netherlands."[42]

War: advance and retreat

On 8 December (7 December in Hawaii), 1941, in simultaneous attacks, Japanese forces struck at the Hong Kong Garrison, the US Fleet in Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines, and began the invasion of Malaya.

With the nation fully committed to the war, the Emperor took a keen interest in military progress and sought to boost morale. According to Akira Yamada and Akira Fujiwara, the Emperor made major interventions in some military operations. For example, he pressed Sugiyama four times, on 13 and 21 January and 9 and 26 February, to increase troop strength and launch an attack on Bataan. On 9 February 19 March, and 29 May, the Emperor ordered the Army Chief of staff to examine the possibilities for an attack on Chungking in China, which led to Operation Gogo.[43]

As the tide of war began to turn against Japan (around late 1942 and early 1943), the flow of information to the palace gradually began to bear less and less relation to reality, while others suggest that the Emperor worked closely with Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, continued to be well and accurately briefed by the military, and knew Japan's military position precisely right up to the point of surrender. The chief of staff of the General Affairs section of the Prime Minister's office, Shuichi Inada, remarked to Tōjō's private secretary, Sadao Akamatsu:

There has never been a cabinet in which the prime minister, and all the ministers, reported so often to the throne. In order to effect the essence of genuine direct imperial rule and to relieve the concerns of the Emperor, the ministers reported to the throne matters within the scope of their responsibilities as per the prime minister's directives ... In times of intense activities, typed drafts were presented to the Emperor with corrections in red. First draft, second draft, final draft and so forth, came as deliberations progressed one after the other and were sanctioned accordingly by the Emperor.[44]

 
The Emperor with his wife Empress Kōjun and their children on 7 December 1941

In the first six months of war, all the major engagements had been victories. Japanese advances were stopped in the summer of 1942 with the battle of Midway and the landing of the American forces on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in August. The emperor played an increasingly influential role in the war; in eleven major episodes he was deeply involved in supervising the actual conduct of war operations. Hirohito pressured the High Command to order an early attack on the Philippines in 1941–42, including the fortified Bataan peninsula. He secured the deployment of army air power in the Guadalcanal campaign. Following Japan's withdrawal from Guadalcanal he demanded a new offensive in New Guinea, which was duly carried out but failed badly. Unhappy with the navy's conduct of the war, he criticized its withdrawal from the central Solomon Islands and demanded naval battles against the Americans for the losses they had inflicted in the Aleutians. The battles were disasters. Finally, it was at his insistence that plans were drafted for the recapture of Saipan and, later, for an offensive in the Battle of Okinawa.[45] With the Army and Navy bitterly feuding, he settled disputes over the allocation of resources. He helped plan military offenses.[46]

The media, under tight government control, repeatedly portrayed him as lifting the popular morale even as the Japanese cities came under heavy air attack in 1944–45 and food and housing shortages mounted. Japanese retreats and defeats were celebrated by the media as successes that portended "Certain Victory."[47] Only gradually did it become apparent to the Japanese people that the situation was very grim due to growing shortages of food, medicine, and fuel as U.S submarines began wiping out Japanese shipping. Starting in mid 1944, American raids on the major cities of Japan made a mockery of the unending tales of victory. Later that year, with the downfall of Tojo's government, two other prime ministers were appointed to continue the war effort, Kuniaki Koiso and Kantarō Suzuki—each with the formal approval of the Emperor. Both were unsuccessful and Japan was nearing disaster.[48]

Surrender

Main article: Surrender of Japan
 
Emperor Hirohito on the battleship Musashi, 24 June 1943.

In early 1945, in the wake of the losses in the Battle of Leyte, Emperor Hirohito began a series of individual meetings with senior government officials to consider the progress of the war. All but ex-Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe advised continuing the war. Konoe feared a communist revolution even more than defeat in war and urged a negotiated surrender. In February 1945, during the first private audience with the Emperor he had been allowed in three years,[49] Konoe advised Hirohito to begin negotiations to end the war. According to Grand Chamberlain Hisanori Fujita, the Emperor, still looking for a tennozan (a great victory) in order to provide a stronger bargaining position, firmly rejected Konoe's recommendation.[50]

With each passing week victory became less likely. In April, the Soviet Union issued notice that it would not renew its neutrality agreement. Japan's ally Germany surrendered in early May 1945. In June, the cabinet reassessed the war strategy, only to decide more firmly than ever on a fight to the last man. This strategy was officially affirmed at a brief Imperial Council meeting, at which, as was normal, the Emperor did not speak.

The following day, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido prepared a draft document which summarized the hopeless military situation and proposed a negotiated settlement. Extremists in Japan were also calling for a death-before-dishonor mass suicide, modeled on the "47 Ronin" incident. By mid-June 1945, the cabinet had agreed to approach the Soviet Union to act as a mediator for a negotiated surrender but not before Japan's bargaining position had been improved by repulse of the anticipated Allied invasion of mainland Japan.

On 22 June, the Emperor met with his ministers saying, "I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts be made to implement them." The attempt to negotiate a peace via the Soviet Union came to nothing. There was always the threat that extremists would carry out a coup or foment other violence. On 26 July 1945, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding unconditional surrender. The Japanese government council, the Big Six, considered that option and recommended to the Emperor that it be accepted only if one to four conditions were agreed upon, including a guarantee of the Emperor's continued position in Japanese society. The Emperor decided not to surrender.

That changed after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war. On 9 August, Emperor Hirohito told Kōichi Kido: "The Soviet Union has declared war and today began hostilities against us."[51] On 10 August, the cabinet drafted an "Imperial Rescript ending the War" following the Emperor's indications that the declaration did not compromise any demand which prejudiced his prerogatives as a sovereign ruler.

On 12 August 1945, the Emperor informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender. One of his uncles, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, asked whether the war would be continued if the kokutai (national polity) could not be preserved. The Emperor simply replied "Of course."[52] On 14 August the Suzuki government notified the Allies that it had accepted the Potsdam Declaration.

On 15 August, a recording of the Emperor's surrender speech ("Gyokuon-hōsō", literally "broadcast in the Emperor's voice") was broadcast over the radio (the first time the Emperor was heard on the radio by the Japanese people) announcing Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. During the historic broadcast the Emperor stated: "Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization." The speech also noted that "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage" and ordered the Japanese to "endure the unendurable." The speech, using formal, archaic Japanese, was not readily understood by many commoners. According to historian Richard Storry in A History of Modern Japan, the Emperor typically used "a form of language familiar only to the well-educated" and to the more traditional samurai families.[53]

A faction of the army opposed to the surrender attempted a coup d'état on the evening of 14 August, prior to the broadcast. They seized the Imperial Palace (the Kyūjō incident), but the physical recording of the emperor's speech was hidden and preserved overnight. The coup failed, and the speech was broadcast the next morning.[54]

In his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975, when he was asked what he thought of the bombing of Hiroshima, the Emperor answered: "It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn't be helped because that happened in wartime" (shikata ga nai, meaning "it cannot be helped").[55]

After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, there was a large amount of pressure that came from both Allied countries and Japanese leftists that demanded the emperor step down and be indicted as a war criminal.[56] The Australian government listed Hirohito as a war criminal, and intended to put him on trial.[57] General Douglas MacArthur did not like the idea, as he thought that an ostensibly cooperating emperor would help establish a peaceful allied occupation regime in Japan.[58] As a result, any possible evidence that would incriminate the emperor and his family were excluded from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.[58] MacArthur created a plan that separated the emperor from the militarists, retained the emperor as a constitutional monarch but only as a figurehead, and used the emperor to retain control over Japan and help achieve American postwar objectives in Japan.[59]

Accountability for Japanese war crimes

The issue of Emperor Hirohito's war responsibility is contested.[60] During the war, the Allies frequently depicted Hirohito to equate with Hitler and Mussolini as the three Axis dictators.[61] After the war, since the U.S. thought that the retention of the emperor would help establish a peaceful allied occupation regime in Japan, and help the U.S. achieve their postwar objectives, they depicted Hirohito as a "powerless figurehead" without any implication in wartime policies.[5] This was the dominant postwar narrative until his death in 1989. After Hirohito's death, historians[62] argued that Hirohito wielded more power than previously believed,[61][62][63] and he was actively involved in the decision to launch the war as well as in other political and military decisions before.[64] Over the years, as new evidence surfaced, historians were able to arrive at the conclusion that he was culpable for the war, and was reflecting on his wartime role.[4] Some evidence shows that Hirohito had some involvement, but his power was limited by cabinet members, ministers and other people of the military oligarchy.[according to whom?]

Evidence for wartime culpability

See also: Chrysanthemum taboo

Some historians contend that Hirohito was directly responsible for the atrocities committed by the imperial forces in the Second Sino-Japanese War and in World War II. They argued that he and some members of the imperial family, such as his brother Prince Chichibu, his cousins the princes Takeda and Fushimi, and his uncles the princes Kan'in, Asaka, and Higashikuni, should have been tried for war crimes.[65][66] In a study published in 1996, historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta claims that the Three Alls Policy (Sankō Sakusen), a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China and sanctioned by Emperor Hirohito himself, was both directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of "more than 2.7 million" Chinese civilians. His works and those of Akira Fujiwara about the details of the operation were commented by Herbert P. Bix in his Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, who wrote that the Sankō Sakusen far surpassed Nanking Massacre not only in terms of numbers, but in brutality as well as "These military operations caused death and suffering on a scale incomparably greater than the totally unplanned orgy of killing in Nanking, which later came to symbolize the war".[67] While the Nanking Massacre was unplanned, Bix said "Hirohito knew of and approved annihilation campaigns in China that included burning villages thought to harbor guerrillas."[68]

The debate over Hirohito's responsibility for war crimes concerns how much real control the Emperor had over the Japanese military during the two wars. Officially, the imperial constitution, adopted under Emperor Meiji, gave full power to the Emperor. Article 4 prescribed that, "The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution." Likewise, according to article 6, "The Emperor gives sanction to laws and orders them to be promulgated and executed," and article 11, "The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and the Navy." The Emperor was thus the leader of the Imperial General Headquarters.[69]

Poison gas weapons, such as phosgene, were produced by Unit 731 and authorized by specific orders given by Hirohito himself, transmitted by the chief of staff of the army. For example, Hirohito authorized the use of toxic gas 375 times during the Battle of Wuhan from August to October 1938.[60]

Historians such as Herbert Bix, Akira Fujiwara, Peter Wetzler, and Akira Yamada assert that post-war arguments favoring the view that Hirohito was a mere figurehead overlook the importance of numerous "behind the chrysanthemum curtain" meetings where the real decisions were made between the Emperor, his chiefs of staff, and the cabinet. Using primary sources and the monumental work of Shirō Hara as a basis,[c] Fujiwara[70] and Wetzler [71] have produced evidence suggesting that the Emperor worked through intermediaries to exercise a great deal of control over the military and was neither bellicose nor a pacifist but an opportunist who governed in a pluralistic decision-making process. American historian Herbert P. Bix goes so far as to argue that Emperor Hirohito might have been the prime mover behind most of Japan's military aggression during the Shōwa Era.[66][page needed]

The view promoted by the Imperial Palace and American occupation forces immediately after World War II portrayed Emperor Hirohito as a purely ceremonial figure who behaved strictly according to protocol while remaining at a distance from the decision-making processes. This view was endorsed by Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita in a speech on the day of Hirohito's death in which Takeshita asserted that the war "had broken out against [Hirohito's] wishes." Takeshita's statement provoked outrage in nations in East Asia and Commonwealth nations such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.[72] According to historian Fujiwara, "The thesis that the Emperor, as an organ of responsibility, could not reverse cabinet decision is a myth fabricated after the war."[73]

According to Yinan He, associate professor of international relations at Lehigh University,[74] in the aftermath of the war, conservative Japanese elites created self-whitewashing, self-glorifying national myths that minimized the scope of Japan's war responsibility, which included presenting the emperor as a peace-seeking diplomat and a narrative that separated him from the militarists, whom they described as people who hijacked the Japanese government and led the country into war, shifting the responsibility from the ruling class to only a few military leaders.[56] This narrative also narrowly focuses on the U.S.–Japan conflict, completely ignores the wars Japan waged in Asia, and disregards the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during the war.[56] Japanese elites created the narrative in an attempt to avoid tarnishing the national image and regain the international acceptance of the country.[56]

Kentarō Awaya [Wikidata] argues that post-war Japanese public opinion supporting protection of the Emperor was influenced by U.S. propaganda promoting the view that the Emperor together with the Japanese people had been fooled by the military.[75]

In the years immediately after Hirohito's death, scholars who spoke out against the emperor were threatened and attacked by right-wing extremists. Susan Chira reported, "Scholars who have spoken out against the late Emperor have received threatening phone calls from Japan's extremist right wing."[72] One example of actual violence occurred in 1990 when the mayor of Nagasaki, Hitoshi Motoshima, was shot and critically wounded by a member of the ultranationalist group, Seikijuku. A year before, in 1989, Motoshima had broken what was characterized as "one of [Japan's] most sensitive taboos" by asserting that Emperor Hirohito bore responsibility for World War II.[76]

Regarding Hirohito's exemption from trial before the International Military Tribunal of the Far East, opinions were not unanimous. Sir William Webb, the president of the tribunal, declared: "This immunity of the Emperor is contrasted with the part he played in launching the war in the Pacific, is, I think, a matter which the tribunal should take into consideration in imposing the sentences."[77] Likewise, the French judge, Henri Bernard, wrote about Hirohito's accountability that the declaration of war by Japan "had a principal author who escaped all prosecution and of whom in any case the present defendants could only be considered accomplices."[78]

An account from the Vice Interior Minister in 1941, Michio Yuzawa, asserts that Hirohito was "at ease" with the attack on Pearl Harbor "once he had made a decision."[79]

In Japan, debate over the Emperor's responsibility was taboo while he was alive. After his death, however, debate began to surface over the extent of his involvement and thus his culpability.[72] Since his death in 1989, historians have discovered evidence that prove Hirohito's culpability for the war, and that he was not a passive figurehead manipulated by those around him.[56]

Michiji Tajima's notes in 1952

According to notebooks by Michiji Tajima, a top Imperial Household Agency official who took office after the war, Emperor Hirohito privately expressed regret about the atrocities that were committed by Japanese troops during the Nanjing Massacre.[80] In addition to feeling remorseful about his own role in the war, he "fell short by allowing radical elements of the military to drive the conduct of the war."[80]

Vice Interior Minister Yuzawa's account on Hirohito's role in Pearl Harbor raid

In late July 2018, the bookseller Takeo Hatano, an acquaintance of the descendants of Michio Yuzawa (Japanese Vice Interior Minister in 1941), released to Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper a memo by Yuzawa that Hatano had kept for nine years since he received it from Yuzawa's family. The bookseller said: "It took me nine years to come forward, as I was afraid of a backlash. But now I hope the memo would help us figure out what really happened during the war, in which 3.1 million people were killed."[79]

Takahisa Furukawa, expert on wartime history from Nihon University, confirmed the authenticity of the memo, calling it "the first look at the thinking of Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor."[79]

In this document, Yuzawa details a conversation he had with Tojo a few hours before the attack. The Vice Minister quotes Tojo saying:

"The Emperor seemed at ease and unshakable once he had made a decision."[79]

"If His Majesty had any regret over negotiations with Britain and the U.S., he would have looked somewhat grim. There was no such indication, which must be a result of his determination. I'm completely relieved. Given the current conditions, I could say we have practically won already."[79]

Historian Furukawa concluded from Yuzawa's memo:

"Tojo is a bureaucrat who was incapable of making own decisions, so he turned to the Emperor as his supervisor. That's why he had to report everything for the Emperor to decide. If the Emperor didn't say no, then he would proceed."[79]

Shinobu Kobayashi's diary

Shinobu Kobayashi was the Emperor's chamberlain from April 1974 until June 2000. Kobayashi kept a diary with near-daily remarks of Hirohito for 26 years. It was made public on Wednesday 22 August 2018.[81] According to Takahisa Furukawa, a professor of modern Japanese history at Nihon University, the diary reveals that the emperor “gravely took responsibility for the war for a long time, and as he got older, that feeling became stronger.”[82]

Jennifer Lind, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College and a specialist in Japanese war memory said:

"Over the years, these different pieces of evidence have trickled out and historians have amassed this picture of culpability and how he was reflecting on that. This is another piece of the puzzle that very much confirms that the picture that was taking place before, which is that he was extremely culpable, and after the war he was devastated about this."[83]

An entry dated 27 May 1980 said the Emperor wanted to express his regret about the Sino-Japanese war to former Chinese Premier Hua Guofeng who visited at the time, but was stopped by senior members of the Imperial Household Agency due to fear of backlash from far right groups.[81]

An entry dated 7 April 1987 said the Emperor was haunted by discussions of his wartime responsibility and, as a result, was losing his will to live.[81]

Hirohito's preparations for war described in Saburō Hyakutake's diary

In September 2021, 25 diaries, pocket notebooks and memos by Saburō Hyakutake (Emperor Hirohito's Grand Chamberlain from 1936 to 1944) deposited by his relatives to the library of the University of Tokyo's graduate schools for law and politics became available to the public.[84]

Hyakutake's diary quotes some Hirohito's ministers and advisers worried that the Emperor was getting ahead of them in terms of battle preparations.

Thus, Hyakutake quotes Tsuneo Matsudaira, the Imperial Household Minister, saying:

"The Emperor appears to have been prepared for war in the face of the tense times." (13 October 1941)[84]

Likewise, Koichi Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, is quoted as saying:

"I occasionally have to try to stop him from going too far." (13 October 1941)[84]

"The Emperor's resolve appears to be going too far." (20 November 1941)[84]

"I requested the Emperor to say things to give the impression that Japan will exhaust all measures to pursue peace when the Foreign Minister is present." (20 November 1941)[84]

Seiichi Chadani, professor of modern Japanese history with Shigakukan University who has studied Hirohito's actions before and during the war said on the discovery of Hyakutake's diary:

"The archives available so far, including his biography compiled by the Imperial Household Agency, contained no detailed descriptions that his aides expressed concerns about Hirohito leaning toward Japan's entry into the war."[84]

"(Hyakutake's diary) is a significant record penned by one of the close aides to the Emperor documenting the process of how Japan's leaders led to the war."[84]

Documents that suggest limited wartime responsibility

The declassified January 1989 British government assessment of Hirohito describes him as "too weak to alter the course of events" and Hirohito was "powerless" and comparisons with Hitler are "ridiculously wide off the mark." Hirohito's power was limited by ministers and the military and if he asserted his views too much he would have been replaced by another member of the royal family.[85]

Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal opposed the International Military Tribunal and made a 1,235-page judgment.[86] He found the entire prosecution case to be weak regarding the conspiracy to commit an act of aggressive war with brutalization and subjugation of conquered nations. Pal said there is "no evidence, testimonial or circumstantial, concomitant, prospectant, restrospectant, that would in any way lead to the inference that the government in any way permitted the commission of such offenses".[87] He added that conspiracy to wage aggressive war was not illegal in 1937, or at any point since.[87] Pal supported the acquittal of all of the defendants. He considered the Japanese military operations as justified, because Chiang Kai-shek supported the boycott of trade operations by the Western Powers, particularly the United States boycott of oil exports to Japan. Pal argued the attacks on neighboring territories were justified to protect the Japanese Empire from an aggressive environment, especially the Soviet Union. He considered that to be self-defense operations which are not criminal. Pal said "the real culprits are not before us" and concluded that "only a lost war is an international crime".

The Emperor's own statements
8 September 1975 TV interview with NBC, USA[88]
Reporter: "How far has your Majesty been involved in Japan's decision to end the war in 1945? What was the motivation for your launch?"
Emperor: "Originally, this should be done by the Cabinet. I heard the results, but at the last meeting I asked for a decision. I decided to end the war on my own. (...) I thought that the continuation of the war would only bring more misery to the people."
Interview with Newsweek, USA, 20 September 1975[89]
Reporter: "(Abbreviation) How do you answer those who claim that your Majesty was also involved in the decision-making process that led Japan to start the war?"
Emperor: "(Omission) At the start of the war, a cabinet decision was made, and I could not reverse that decision. We believe this is consistent with the provisions of the Imperial Constitution."
22 September 1975 – Press conference with Foreign Correspondents[90]
Reporter: "How long before the attack on Pearl Harbor did your Majesty know about the attack plan? And did you approve the plan?"
Emperor: "It is true that I had received information on military operations in advance. However, I only received those reports after the military commanders made detailed decisions. Regarding issues of political character and military command, I believe that I acted in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution."
On 31 October 1975, a press conference was held immediately after returning to the United States after visiting Japan.[91][92]
Question: "Your majesty, at your White House banquet you said, 'I deeply deplore that unfortunate war.' (See also Emperor Shōwa's Theory of War Responsibility [ja].) Does your majesty feel responsibility for the war itself, including the opening of hostilities? Also, what does your majesty think about so-called war responsibility?" (The Times reporter)
Emperor: "I can't answer that kind of question because I haven't thoroughly studied the literature in this field, and so don't really appreciate the nuances of your words."
Question: "How did you understand that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the war?" (RCC Broadcasting Reporter)
Emperor: "I am sorry that the atomic bomb was dropped, but because of this war, I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima, but I think it is unavoidable."
17 April 1981 Press conference with the presidents of the press[93]
Reporter: "What was the most enjoyable of your memories of eighty years?"
Emperor: "Since I saw the constitutional politics of Britain as the Crown Prince [ja], I felt strongly that I must adhere to the constitutional politics. But I was too particular about it to prevent the war. I made my own decisions twice (February 26 Incident and the end of World War II)."

British government assessment of Hirohito

A January 1989 declassified British government assessment of Hirohito said the Emperor was "uneasy with Japan's drift to war in the 1930s and 1940s but was too weak to alter the course of events." The dispatch by John Whitehead, former ambassador of the United Kingdom to Japan, to Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe was declassified on Thursday 20 July 2017 at the National Archives in London. The letter was written shortly after Hirohito's death. Britain's ambassador to Japan John Whitehead stated in 1989:[85]

"By personality and temperament, Hirohito was ill-suited to the role assigned to him by destiny. The successors of the men who had led the Meiji Restoration yearned for a charismatic warrior king. Instead, they were given an introspective prince who grew up to be more at home in the science laboratory than on the military parade ground. But in his early years, every effort was made to cast him in a different mould."[85]

"A man of stronger personality than Hirohito might have tried more strenuously to check the growing influence of the military in Japanese politics and the drift of Japan toward war with the western powers." "The contemporary diary evidence suggests that Hirohito was uncomfortable with the direction of Japanese policy." "The consensus of those who have studied the documents of the period is that Hirohito was consistent in attempting to use his personal influence to induce caution and to moderate and even obstruct the growing impetus toward war."[85]

Whitehead concludes that ultimately Hirohito was "powerless" and comparisons with Hitler are "ridiculously wide off the mark." If Hirohito acted too insistently with his views he could have been isolated or replaced with a more pliant member of the royal family. The pre-war Meiji Constitution defined the emperor as "sacred" and all-powerful, but according to Whitehead, Hirohito's power was limited by ministers and the military. Whitehead explained after World War II that Hirohito's humility was fundamental for the Japanese people to accept the new 1947 constitution and allied occupation.[85]

Postwar reign

 
Gaetano Faillace's photograph of General MacArthur and the Emperor at Allied General Headquarters in Tokyo, 27 September 1945

As the Emperor chose his uncle Prince Higashikuni as prime minister to assist the American occupation, there were attempts by numerous leaders to have him put on trial for alleged war crimes. Many members of the imperial family, such as Princes Chichibu, Takamatsu, and Higashikuni, pressured the Emperor to abdicate so that one of the Princes could serve as regent until Crown Prince Akihito came of age.[94] On 27 February 1946, the Emperor's youngest brother, Prince Mikasa, even stood up in the privy council and indirectly urged the Emperor to step down and accept responsibility for Japan's defeat. According to Minister of Welfare Ashida's diary, "Everyone seemed to ponder Mikasa's words. Never have I seen His Majesty's face so pale."[95]

U.S. General Douglas MacArthur insisted that Emperor Hirohito retain the throne. MacArthur saw the Emperor as a symbol of the continuity and cohesion of the Japanese people. Some historians criticize the decision to exonerate the Emperor and all members of the imperial family who were implicated in the war, such as Prince Chichibu, Prince Asaka, Prince Higashikuni, and Prince Hiroyasu Fushimi, from criminal prosecutions.[96]

Before the war crime trials actually convened, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, its International Prosecution Section (IPS) and Japanese officials worked behind the scenes not only to prevent the Imperial family from being indicted, but also to influence the testimony of the defendants to ensure that no one implicated the Emperor. High officials in court circles and the Japanese government collaborated with Allied General Headquarters in compiling lists of prospective war criminals, while the individuals arrested as Class A suspects and incarcerated solemnly vowed to protect their sovereign against any possible taint of war responsibility.[97] Thus, "months before the Tokyo tribunal commenced, MacArthur's highest subordinates were working to attribute ultimate responsibility for Pearl Harbor to Hideki Tōjō"[98] by allowing "the major criminal suspects to coordinate their stories so that the Emperor would be spared from indictment."[99] According to John W. Dower, "This successful campaign to absolve the Emperor of war responsibility knew no bounds. Hirohito was not merely presented as being innocent of any formal acts that might make him culpable to indictment as a war criminal, he was turned into an almost saintly figure who did not even bear moral responsibility for the war."[100] According to Bix, "MacArthur's truly extraordinary measures to save Hirohito from trial as a war criminal had a lasting and profoundly distorting impact on Japanese understanding of the lost war."[101]

Imperial status

Hirohito was not put on trial, but he was forced[102] to explicitly reject the quasi-official claim that the Emperor of Japan was an arahitogami, i.e., an incarnate divinity. This was motivated by the fact that, according to the Japanese constitution of 1889, the Emperor had a divine power over his country which was derived from the Shinto belief that the Japanese Imperial Family were the descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu. Hirohito was however persistent in the idea that the Emperor of Japan should be considered a descendant of the gods. In December 1945, he told his vice-grand-chamberlain Michio Kinoshita: "It is permissible to say that the idea that the Japanese are descendants of the gods is a false conception; but it is absolutely impermissible to call chimerical the idea that the Emperor is a descendant of the gods."[103] In any case, the "renunciation of divinity" was noted more by foreigners than by Japanese, and seems to have been intended for the consumption of the former.[d] The theory of a constitutional monarchy had already had some proponents in Japan. In 1935, when Tatsukichi Minobe advocated the theory that sovereignty resides in the state, of which the Emperor is just an organ (the tennō kikan setsu), it caused a furor. He was forced to resign from the House of Peers and his post at the Tokyo Imperial University, his books were banned, and an attempt was made on his life.[104] Not until 1946 was the tremendous step made to alter the Emperor's title from "imperial sovereign" to "constitutional monarch."

Although the Emperor had supposedly repudiated claims to divinity, his public position was deliberately left vague, partly because General MacArthur thought him probable to be a useful partner to get the Japanese to accept the occupation and partly due to behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Shigeru Yoshida to thwart attempts to cast him as a European-style monarch.

Nevertheless, Hirohito's status as a limited constitutional monarch was formalized with the enactment of the 1947 Constitution–officially, an amendment to the Meiji Constitution. It defined the Emperor as "the symbol of the state and the unity of the people," and stripped him of even nominal power in government matters. His role was limited to matters of state as delineated in the Constitution, and in most cases his actions in that realm were carried out in accordance with the binding instructions of the Cabinet.

Following the Iranian Revolution and the end of the short-lived Central African Empire, both in 1979, Hirohito found himself the last monarch in the world to bear any variation of the highest royal title "emperor."

Public figure

 
Emperor Hirohito visiting Hiroshima in 1947. The domed Hiroshima Peace Memorial can be seen in the background.

For the rest of his life, Hirohito was an active figure in Japanese life and performed many of the duties commonly associated with a constitutional head of state. He and his family maintained a strong public presence, often holding public walkabouts and making public appearances at special events and ceremonies. For example, in 1947, the Emperor made a public visit to Hiroshima and held a speech in front of a massive crowd encouraging the city's citizens. He also played an important role in rebuilding Japan's diplomatic image, traveling abroad to meet with many foreign leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II (1971) and President Gerald Ford (1975). He was not only the first reigning emperor to travel beyond Japan, but also the first to meet a President of the United States.[105] His status and image became strongly positive in the United States.[106]

The 124th visit to a foreign country during the reign of Emperor Shōwa.[107]
Year Departure Return Visited Accompany Remarks
1971
(Shōwa 46）		 27 September 14 October   Belgium,   United Kingdom,   West Germany, (  United States),
  Denmark,   France,   Netherlands,   Switzerland		 Empress Kōjun International friendship
1975
(Shōwa 50）		 30 September 14 October   United States Empress Kōjun International friendship

Visit to Europe

 
US President Richard Nixon with Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun in Anchorage (27 September 1971)
 
Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun arriving in the Netherlands (8 October 1971).

In 1971 (Shōwa 46), the Emperor visited seven European countries, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Switzerland again, for 17 days from 27 September to 14 October. In this case, a special aircraft Douglas DC-8 of Japan Airlines was used unlike the previous visit by ship. Although not counted as a visit, at that time, the Emperor stopped by Anchorage, Alaska as a stopover, and met with United States President Richard Nixon from Washington, DC, at the Alaska District Army Command House at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

The talks between Emperor Shōwa and President Nixon were not planned at the outset, because initially the stop in the United States was only for refueling to visit Europe. However, the meeting was decided in a hurry at the request of the United States. Although the Japanese side accepted the request, Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Fukuda made a public telephone call to the Japanese ambassador to the United States Nobuhiko Ushiba, who promoted talks, saying, "that will cause me a great deal of trouble. We want to correct the perceptions of the other party." At that time, Foreign Minister Fukuda was worried that President Nixon's talks with the Emperor would be used to repair the deteriorating Japan–U.S. relations, and he was concerned that the premise of the symbolic emperor system could fluctuate.[108][109]

There was an early visit, with deep royal exchanges in Denmark and Belgium, and in France they were warmly welcomed. In France, Hirohito reunited with Edward VIII, who had abdicated in 1936 and was virtually in exile, and they chatted for a while. However, protests were held in Britain and the Netherlands by veterans who had served in the South-East Asian theatre and civilian victims of the brutal occupation there. In the Netherlands, raw eggs and vacuum flasks were thrown. The protest was so severe that Empress Kōjun, who accompanied the Emperor, was exhausted. In the United Kingdom, protestors stood in silence and turned their backs when the Emperor's carriage passed them while others wore red gloves to symbolize the dead.[110] The satirical magazine Private Eye used a racist double entendre to refer to the emperor's visit ("nasty Nip in the air").[111]

Regarding these protests and opposition, Emperor Shōwa was not surprised to have received a report in advance at a press conference on 12 November after returning to Japan and said that "I do not think that welcome can be ignored" from each country.[112] Also, at a press conference following their golden wedding anniversary three years later, along with the Empress, he mentioned this visit to Europe as his most enjoyable memory in 50 years.[112]

Visit to the United States

 
The Empress, First Lady Betty Ford, the Emperor, and President Gerald Ford at the White House before a state dinner held in honor of the Japanese head of state for the first time. 2 October 1975.

In 1975, the Emperor was invited to visit the United States for 14 days from 30 September to 14 October, at the invitation of President Gerald Ford. The visit was the first such event in US–Japanese history.[e] The United States Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard honored the state visit. Before and after the visit, a series of terrorist attacks in Japan were caused by anti-American left-wing organizations such as the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front.

After arriving in Williamsburg on 30 September 1975, Emperor Shōwa stayed in the United States for two weeks.[113] The official meeting with President Ford occurred on 2 October.[114] On 3 October, the Emperor visited Arlington National Cemetery.[115] On 6 October, Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako visited Vice President and Mrs. Rockefeller at their home in Westchester County, New York.[116]

In a speech at the White House state dinner, Hirohito read, "Thanks to the United States for helping to rebuild Japan after the war." During his stay in Los Angeles, he visited Disneyland, and a smiling photo next to Mickey Mouse adorned the newspapers[citation needed], and there was talk about the purchase of a Mickey Mouse watch. Two types of commemorative stamps and stamp sheets were issued on the day of their return to Japan[citation needed] which demonstrated that the visit had been a significant undertaking. This was the last visit of Emperor Shōwa to the United States. The official press conference held by the Emperor and Empress before and after their visit also marked a breakthrough.[citation needed]

Marine biology

 
Emperor Shōwa in his laboratory (1950)

The Emperor was deeply interested in and well-informed about marine biology, and the Imperial Palace contained a laboratory from which the Emperor published several papers in the field under his personal name "Hirohito."[117] His contributions included the description of several dozen species of Hydrozoa new to science.[118]

Yasukuni Shrine

The Emperor maintained an official boycott of the Yasukuni Shrine after it was revealed to him that Class-A war criminals had secretly been enshrined after its post-war rededication. This boycott lasted from 1978 until his death and has been continued by his successors, Akihito and Naruhito.[119]

On 20 July 2006, Nihon Keizai Shimbun published a front-page article about the discovery of a memorandum detailing the reason that the Emperor stopped visiting Yasukuni. The memorandum, kept by former chief of Imperial Household Agency Tomohiko Tomita, confirms for the first time that the enshrinement of 14 Class-A war criminals in Yasukuni was the reason for the boycott. Tomita recorded in detail the contents of his conversations with the Emperor in his diaries and notebooks. According to the memorandum, in 1988, the Emperor expressed his strong displeasure at the decision made by Yasukuni Shrine to include Class-A war criminals in the list of war dead honored there by saying, "At some point, Class-A criminals became enshrined, including Matsuoka and Shiratori. I heard Tsukuba acted cautiously." Tsukuba is believed to refer to Fujimaro Tsukuba, the former chief Yasukuni priest at the time, who decided not to enshrine the war criminals despite having received in 1966 the list of war dead compiled by the government. "What's on the mind of Matsudaira's son, who is the current head priest?" "Matsudaira had a strong wish for peace, but the child didn't know the parent's heart. That's why I have not visited the shrine since. This is my heart." Matsudaira is believed to refer to Yoshitami Matsudaira, who was the grand steward of the Imperial Household immediately after the end of World War II. His son, Nagayoshi, succeeded Fujimaro Tsukuba as the chief priest of Yasukuni and decided to enshrine the war criminals in 1978.[120] Nagayoshi Matsudaira died in 2006, which some commentators[citation needed] have speculated is the reason for release of the memo.

Death and state funeral

Main article: Death and state funeral of Hirohito
 
Hirohito's tomb in the Musashi Imperial Graveyard, Hachiōji, Tokyo

On 22 September 1987, the Emperor underwent surgery on his pancreas after having digestive problems for several months. The doctors discovered that he had duodenal cancer. The Emperor appeared to be making a full recovery for several months after the surgery. About a year later, however, on 19 September 1988, he collapsed in his palace, and his health worsened over the next several months as he suffered from continuous internal bleeding.

The Emperor died at 6:33 am on 7 January 1989 at the age of 87. The announcement from the grand steward of Japan's Imperial Household Agency, Shoichi Fujimori, revealed details about his cancer for the first time. Hirohito was survived by his wife, his five surviving children, ten grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.[19]

At the time of his death he was both the longest-lived and longest-reigning historical Japanese emperor, as well as the longest-reigning monarch in the world at that time. The latter distinction passed to king Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand when he surpassed him in July 2008 until his own death on 13 October 2016.[121]

The Emperor was succeeded by his eldest son, Akihito, whose enthronement ceremony was held on 12 November 1990.[citation needed]

The Emperor's death ended the Shōwa era. On the same day a new era began: the Heisei era, effective at midnight the following day. From 7 January until 31 January, the Emperor's formal appellation was "Departed Emperor." His definitive posthumous name, Shōwa Tennō, was determined on 13 January and formally released on 31 January by Toshiki Kaifu, the prime minister.[citation needed]

On 24 February, the Emperor's state funeral was held, and unlike that of his predecessor, it was formal but not conducted in a strictly Shinto manner. A large number of world leaders attended the funeral. Hirohito is buried in the Musashi Imperial Graveyard in Hachiōji, alongside his father, Emperor Taishō.[citation needed]

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Military appointments

  • Grand Marshal and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Empire of Japan, 25 December 1926 – upon ascending the throne[122]

Foreign military appointments

National honours

Foreign honours

Issue

Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun had seven children, two sons and five daughters.

Name Birth Death Marriage Children
Date Spouse
Shigeko Higashikuni
(Shigeko, Princess Teru) 		9 December 1925 23 July 1961 10 October 1943 Prince Morihiro Higashikuni
  • Prince Nobuhiko Higashikuni
  • Princess Fumiko Higashikuni
  • Naohiko Higashikuni
  • Hidehiko Higashikuni
  • Yūko Higashikuni
Sachiko, Princess Hisa 10 September 1927 8 March 1928 None
Kazuko Takatsukasa
(Kazuko, Princess Taka) 		30 September 1929 26 May 1989 20 May 1950 Toshimichi Takatsukasa Naotake Takatsukasa (adopted)
Atsuko Ikeda
(Atsuko, Princess Yori) 		(1931-03-07) 7 March 1931 (age 91) 10 October 1952 Takamasa Ikeda None
Akihito, Emperor Emeritus of Japan
(Akihito, Prince Tsugu) 		(1933-12-23) 23 December 1933 (age 89) 10 April 1959 Michiko Shōda
Masahito, Prince Hitachi
(Masahito, Prince Yoshi) 		(1935-11-28) 28 November 1935 (age 87) 30 September 1964 Hanako Tsugaru None
Takako Shimazu
(Takako, Princess Suga) 		(1939-03-02) 2 March 1939 (age 83) 10 March 1960 Hisanaga Shimazu Yoshihisa Shimazu

Scientific publications

  • (1967) A review of the hydroids of the family Clathrozonidae with description of a new genus and species from Japan.[149]
  • (1969) Some hydroids from the Amakusa Islands.[150]
  • (1971) Additional notes on Clathrozoon wilsoni Spencer.[151]
  • (1974) Some hydrozoans of the Bonin Islands.[152]
  • (1977) Five hydroid species from the Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea.[153]
  • (1983) Hydroids from Izu Oshima and Nijima.[154]
  • (1984) A new hydroid Hydractinia bayeri n. sp. (family Hydractiniidae) from the Bay of Panama.[155]
  • (1988) The hydroids of Sagami Bay collected by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan.[156]
  • (1995) The hydroids of Sagami Bay II. (posthumous)[157]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ /ˌhɪəroʊˈhiːtoʊ, ˌhɪrəˈ-/,[1][2] Japanese: [çiɾoꜜçi̥to]
  2. ^ The first foreign trip by the Crown Prince was made in 1907 by the Crown Prince Yoshihito to the then Korean Empire. During that time, while it was considered a foreign country, it had become a colonial protectorate of Japan and would eventually be annexed.
  3. ^ Former member of section 20 of War operations of the Army high command, Hara has made a detailed study of the way military decisions were made, including the Emperor's involvement published in five volumes in 1973–74 under the title Daihon'ei senshi; Daitōa Sensō kaisen gaishi; Kaisen ni itaru seisentyaku shidō (Imperial Headquarters war history; General history of beginning hostilities in the Greater East Asia War; Leadership and political strategy with respect to the beginning of hostilities).
  4. ^ Many foreigners, including those from the occupying power, were from Western countries steeped in monotheistic Abrahamic traditions.
  5. ^ The reason a visit had not occurred prior to this was, in part, due to the fact that the Act for Extraordinary Vicarious Execution of State Affairs had not yet been put into law. Despite this, visits to the United States had been planned in 1973 and 1974, but never occurred due to lack of coordination.

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Hirohito". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins.
  2. ^ (US) and . Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 22 March 2020.
  3. ^ "Detail All of Hirohito's Role". Los Angeles Times. 14 August 2000.
  4. ^ a b Rich, Motoko (24 August 2018). "Aide's Diary Suggests Hirohito Agonized over His War Responsibility". The New York Times.
  5. ^ a b Bix, Herbert (2000). Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York: HarperCollins. p. 545. ISBN 978-0-06-093130-8.
  6. ^ a b Kawai, Kazuo (1958). "The Divinity of the Japanese Emperor". Political Science. 10 (2): 3–14. doi:10.1177/003231875801000201.
  7. ^ "Historic Figures: Emperor Hirohito (1901–1989)". BBC History.
  8. ^ Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). The Imperial House of Japan, p. 337.
  9. ^ Bix, Herbert P. (2001). Hirohito and the making of modern Japan (Book) (1st Perennial ed.). New York: Perennial. pp. 22–23. ISBN 978-0060931308.
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Sources

External video
  Presentation by Herbert Bix on Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 15 September 2000
  Booknotes interview with Herbert Bix on Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 2 September 2001, C-SPAN
  Presentation by John Dower on Embracing Defeat, 1 April 1999, C-SPAN
  Booknotes interview with John Dower on Embracing Defeat, 26 March 2000, C-SPAN
  • Behr, Edward (1989). Hirohito: Behind the Myth. New York: Villard. ISBN 9780394580722. A controversial book that posited Hirohito as a more active protagonist of World War II than publicly portrayed; it contributed to the re-appraisal of his role.
  • Herbert P. Bix (2000). Hirohito And The Making Of Modern Japan. Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-019314-0. Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.
  • Dower, John W. (1999). Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-32027-5. awarded Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.
  • Drea, Edward J. (1998). . In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-1708-9. Archived from the original on 12 November 2018 – via Archived copy.
  • Fujiwara, Akira, Shōwa Tennō no Jū-go Nen Sensō (Shōwa Emperor's Fifteen-year War), Aoki Shoten, 1991. ISBN 4-250-91043-1 (Based on the primary sources)
  • Hidenari, Terasaki Shōwa tennō dokuhakuroku, Bungei Shūnjusha, 1991
  • Edwin Palmer Hoyt (1992). Hirohito: The Emperor and the Man. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-275-94069-0.
  • Toshiaki Kawahara (1990). Hirohito and His Times: A Japanese Perspective. Kodansha America. ISBN 978-0-87011-979-8.
  • Laquerre, Paul-Yanic Showa: Chronicles of a Fallen God, ISBN 978-1729431597 ASIN B00H6W4TYI
  • Mosley, Leonard Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1966. ISBN 1-111-75539-6, 1-199-99760-9, The first full-length biography, it gives his basic story.
  • Pike, Francis. Hirohito's War: The Pacific War, 1941–1945 (2016) 1208pp.
  • Richard Arthur Brabazon Ponsonby-Fane (1959). The Imperial House of Japan. Ponsonby Memorial Society.
  • Wetzler, Peter (1998). Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1925-5.

Further reading

  • Brands, Hal. "The Emperor's New Clothes: American Views of Hirohito after World War II." Historian 68#1 pp. 1–28. online
  • Macartney, Alex F. "Hirohitler on the Rhine: Transnational Protest Against the Japanese Emperor's 1971 West German State Visit." Journal of Contemporary History (2020) 55#3 pp 622–644. doi:10.1177/0022009420907666
  • Wilson, Sandra. "Enthroning Hirohito: Culture and Nation in 1920s Japan" Journal of Japanese Studies 37#2 (2011), pp. 289–323. online

External links

  •   Media related to Shōwa Emperor at Wikimedia Commons
  •   Quotations related to Hirohito at Wikiquote
  •   Data related to Hirohito at Wikispecies
  • at the Imperial Household Agency website
  • Reflections on Emperor Hirohito's death
  • Hirohito at IMDb
  • Newspaper clippings about Hirohito in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
Hirohito
Born: 29 April 1901 Died: 7 January 1989
Regnal titles
Preceded by Emperor of Japan
25 December 1926 – 7 January 1989 		Succeeded by

January 10, 2023
hirohito, other, uses, disambiguation, emperor, shōwa, 昭和天皇, shōwa, tennō, april, 1901, january, 1989, commonly, known, english, speaking, countries, personal, name, 裕仁, 124th, emperor, japan, ruling, from, december, 1926, until, death, 1989, wife, empress, kō. For other uses see Hirohito disambiguation Emperor Shōwa 昭和天皇 Shōwa tennō 29 April 1901 7 January 1989 commonly known in English speaking countries by his personal name Hirohito a 裕仁 was the 124th emperor of Japan ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989 Hirohito and his wife Empress Kōjun had two sons and five daughters he was succeeded by his fifth child and eldest son Akihito By 1979 Hirohito was the only monarch in the world with the title emperor He was the longest reigning historical Japanese emperor and one of the longest reigning monarchs in the world Emperor Shōwa昭和天皇Hirohito in 1935Emperor of JapanReign25 December 1926 7 January 1989Enthronement10 November 1928PredecessorTaishōSuccessorAkihitoPrime ministersPrewar period Tanaka GiichiHamaguchi OsachiWakatsuki ReijirōInukai TsuyoshiTakahashi Korekiyo acting Saitō MakotoKeisuke OkadaKōki HirotaSenjurō HayashiFumimaro KonoeHiranuma KiichirōNobuyuki AbeMitsumasa YonaiFumimaro KonoeHideki TojoKuniaki KoisoKantarō SuzukiPrince Naruhiko HigashikuniPostwar period Kijurō ShideharaTetsu KatayamaHitoshi AshidaShigeru YoshidaIchirō HatoyamaTanzan IshibashiNobusuke KishiHayato IkedaEisaku SatōKakuei TanakaTakeo MikiTakeo FukudaMasayoshi ŌhiraMasayoshi Ito acting Zenkō SuzukiYasuhiro NakasoneNoboru TakeshitaPrince Regent of JapanRegency25 November 1921 25 December 1926MonarchTaishōBornHirohito 裕仁 1901 04 29 29 April 1901Tōgu Palace Aoyama Tokyo Empire of JapanDied7 January 1989 1989 01 07 aged 87 Fukiage Palace Tokyo JapanBurial24 February 1989Musashi Imperial Graveyard Hachiōji TokyoSpouseNagako Kuni m 1924 wbr IssueShigeko Higashikuni Sachiko Princess Hisa Kazuko Takatsukasa Atsuko Ikeda Akihito Emperor of Japan Masahito Prince Hitachi Takako ShimazuEra name and datesShōwa 25 December 1926 7 January 1989Posthumous nameTsuigō Emperor Shōwa 昭和天皇 HouseImperial House of JapanFatherEmperor TaishōMotherSadako KujōSignatureHirohito was the head of state under the Meiji Constitution during Japan s imperial expansion militarization and involvement in World War II Japan waged a war across Asia in the 1930s and 40s in the name of Hirohito 3 who was revered as a god 4 After Japan s surrender he was not prosecuted for war crimes as General Douglas MacArthur thought that an ostensibly cooperative emperor would help establish a peaceful Allied occupation and help the U S achieve their postwar objectives 5 His role during the war remains controversial On 1 January 1946 under pressure from the Allies the Emperor formally renounced his divinity 6 The Constitution of Japan of 1947 declared the Emperor to be a mere symbol of the State deriving his position from the will of the people in whom resides sovereign power 6 In Japan reigning emperors are known only as the Emperor Hirohito is now referred to in Japanese by his posthumous name Shōwa which is the name of the era coinciding with his reign Contents 1 Early life 2 Crown Prince era 2 1 Overseas travel 2 2 Regency 3 Marriage 4 Ascension 5 Early reign 6 Second Sino Japanese War 7 World War II 7 1 Preparations 7 2 War advance and retreat 7 3 Surrender 7 4 Accountability for Japanese war crimes 7 4 1 Evidence for wartime culpability 7 4 2 Michiji Tajima s notes in 1952 7 4 3 Vice Interior Minister Yuzawa s account on Hirohito s role in Pearl Harbor raid 7 4 4 Shinobu Kobayashi s diary 7 4 5 Hirohito s preparations for war described in Saburō Hyakutake s diary 7 4 6 Documents that suggest limited wartime responsibility 7 4 6 1 The Emperor s own statements 7 4 7 British government assessment of Hirohito 8 Postwar reign 8 1 Imperial status 8 2 Public figure 8 2 1 Visit to Europe 8 2 2 Visit to the United States 8 2 3 Marine biology 8 3 Yasukuni Shrine 9 Death and state funeral 10 Titles styles honours and arms 10 1 Military appointments 10 2 Foreign military appointments 10 3 National honours 10 4 Foreign honours 11 Issue 12 Scientific publications 13 See also 14 Notes 15 References 15 1 Citations 15 2 Sources 16 Further reading 17 External linksEarly life Hirohito in 1902 as an infant Emperor Taishō s four sons in 1921 Hirohito Takahito Nobuhito and Yasuhito Hirohito was born in Tokyo s Aoyama Palace during the reign of his grandfather Emperor Meiji on 29 April 1901 7 the first son of 21 year old Crown Prince Yoshihito the future Emperor Taishō and 17 year old Crown Princess Sadako the future Empress Teimei 8 He was the grandson of Emperor Meiji and Yanagihara Naruko His childhood title was Prince Michi Ten weeks after he was born Hirohito was removed from the court and placed in the care of Count Kawamura Sumiyoshi who raised him as his grandchild At the age of 3 Hirohito and his brother Yasuhito were returned to court when Kawamura died first to the imperial mansion in Numazu Shizuoka then back to the Aoyama Palace 9 In 1908 he began elementary studies at the Gakushuin Peers School 10 During 1912 at age 11 Hirohito was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Army as a Second Lieutenant and in the Imperial Japanese Navy as an Ensign He was also bestowed with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum 11 When his grandfather Emperor Meiji died on 30 July 1912 Hirohito s father Yoshihito assumed the throne Crown Prince eraOn 2 November 1916 Hirohito was formally proclaimed Crown Prince and heir apparent An investiture ceremony was not required to confirm this status 12 Overseas travel The Crown Prince watches a boat race at Oxford University in the UK in 1921 From 3 March to 3 September 1921 Taisho 10 the Crown Prince made official visits to the United Kingdom France the Netherlands Belgium Italy and Vatican City This was the first visit to Western Europe by the Crown Prince b Despite strong opposition in Japan this was realized by the efforts of elder Japanese statesmen Genrō such as Yamagata Aritomo and Saionji Kinmochi In May 1921 he visited Edinburgh Scotland The departure of Prince Hirohito was widely reported in newspapers The Japanese battleship Katori was used and departed from Yokohama sailed to Naha Hong Kong Singapore Colombo Suez Cairo and Gibraltar It arrived in Portsmouth two months later on 9 May and on the same day they reached the British capital London He was welcomed in the UK as a partner of the Anglo Japanese Alliance and met with King George V and Prime Minister David Lloyd George That evening a banquet was held at Buckingham Palace and a meeting with George V and Prince Arthur of Connaught George V said that he treated his father like Hirohito who was nervous in an unfamiliar foreign country and that relieved his tension The next day he met Prince Edward the future Edward VIII at Windsor Castle and a banquet was held every day thereafter In London he toured the British Museum Tower of London Bank of England Lloyd s Marine Insurance Oxford University Army University and Naval War College He also enjoyed theater at the New Oxford Theatre and the Delhi Theatre 13 At Cambridge University he listened to Professor Tanner s lecture on Relationship between the British Royal Family and its People and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree 14 He visited Edinburgh Scotland from the 19th to the 20th and was also awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws at the University of Edinburgh He stayed at the residence of John Stewart Murray 8th Duke of Atholl for three days On his stay with Stuart Murray the prince was quoted as saying The rise of Bolsheviks won t happen if you live a simple life like Duke Athol 14 In Italy he met with King Vittorio Emanuele III and others attended official banquets in various countries and visited places such as the fierce battlefields of World War I Regency Prince Hirohito and British Prime Minister Lloyd George 1921 After returning to Japan Hirohito became Regent of Japan Sesshō on 25 November 1921 in place of his ailing father who was affected by mental illness 15 16 In 1923 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the army and Commander in the navy and army Colonel and Navy Captain in 1925 During Hirohito s regency many important events occurred In the Four Power Treaty on Insular Possessions signed on 13 December 1921 Japan the United States Britain and France agreed to recognize the status quo in the Pacific Japan and Britain agreed to end the Anglo Japanese Alliance The Washington Naval Treaty limiting warship numbers was signed on 6 February 1922 Japan withdrew troops from the Siberian Intervention on 28 August 1922 The Great Kantō earthquake devastated Tokyo on 1 September 1923 On 27 December 1923 Daisuke Namba attempted to assassinate Hirohito in the Toranomon Incident but his attempt failed 17 During interrogation he claimed to be a communist and was executed 18 Marriage Prince Hirohito and his wife Princess Nagako in 1924 Prince Hirohito married his distant cousin Princess Nagako Kuni the eldest daughter of Prince Kuniyoshi Kuni on 26 January 1924 They had two sons and five daughters 19 see Issue The daughters who lived to adulthood left the imperial family as a result of the American reforms of the Japanese imperial household in October 1947 in the case of Princess Shigeko or under the terms of the Imperial Household Law at the moment of their subsequent marriages in the cases of Princesses Kazuko Atsuko and Takako Ascension Imperial Standard as Emperor On 25 December 1926 Hirohito assumed the throne upon the death of his father Yoshihito The Crown Prince was said to have received the succession senso 20 The Taishō era s end and the Shōwa era s beginning Enlightened Peace were proclaimed The deceased Emperor was posthumously renamed Emperor Taishō within days Following Japanese custom the new Emperor was never referred to by his given name but rather was referred to simply as His Majesty the Emperor which may be shortened to His Majesty In writing the Emperor was also referred to formally as The Reigning Emperor In November 1928 the Emperor s ascension was confirmed in ceremonies sokui 20 which are conventionally identified as enthronement and coronation Shōwa no tairei shiki but this formal event would have been more accurately described as a public confirmation that his Imperial Majesty possesses the Japanese Imperial Regalia 21 also called the Three Sacred Treasures which have been handed down through the centuries 22 Early reign Emperor Hirohito after his enthronement ceremony in 1928 dressed in sokutai The first part of Hirohito s reign took place against a background of financial crisis and increasing military power within the government through both legal and extralegal means The Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy held veto power over the formation of cabinets since 1900 Between 1921 and 1944 there were 64 separate incidents of political violence Hirohito narrowly escaped assassination by a hand grenade thrown by a Korean independence activist Lee Bong chang in Tokyo on 9 January 1932 in the Sakuradamon Incident Another notable case was the assassination of moderate Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi in 1932 marking the end of civilian control of the military The February 26 incident an attempted military coup followed in February 1936 It was carried out by junior Army officers of the Kōdōha faction who had the sympathy of many high ranking officers including Prince Chichibu Yasuhito one of the Emperor s brothers This revolt was occasioned by a loss of political support by the militarist faction in Diet elections The coup resulted in the murders of several high government and Army officials When Chief Aide de camp Shigeru Honjō informed him of the revolt the Emperor immediately ordered that it be put down and referred to the officers as rebels bōto Shortly thereafter he ordered Army Minister Yoshiyuki Kawashima to suppress the rebellion within the hour He asked for reports from Honjō every 30 minutes The next day when told by Honjō that the high command had made little progress in quashing the rebels the Emperor told him I Myself will lead the Konoe Division and subdue them The rebellion was suppressed following his orders on 29 February 23 Second Sino Japanese War The Emperor on his favorite white horse Shirayuki lit white snow Starting from the Mukden Incident in 1931 in which Japan staged a False flag operation and made a false accusation against Chinese dissidents as a pretext to invade Manchuria Japan occupied Chinese territories and established puppet governments Such aggression was recommended to Hirohito by his chiefs of staff and prime minister Fumimaro Konoe and Hirohito did not voice objection to the invasion of China 24 A diary by chamberlain Kuraji Ogura says that he was reluctant to start war against China in 1937 because they had underestimated China s military strength and Japan should be cautious in its strategy In this regard Ogura writes Hirohito said that once you start a war it cannot easily be stopped in the middle What s important is when to end the war and one should be cautious in starting a war but once begun it should be carried out thoroughly 25 Nonetheless his main concern seems to have been the possibility of an attack by the Soviet Union in the north His questions to his chief of staff Prince Kan in Kotohito and minister of the army Hajime Sugiyama were mostly about the time it could take to crush Chinese resistance According to Akira Fujiwara Hirohito endorsed the policy of qualifying the invasion of China as an incident instead of a war therefore he did not issue any notice to observe international law in this conflict unlike what his predecessors did in previous conflicts officially recognized by Japan as wars and the Deputy Minister of the Japanese Army instructed the chief of staff of Japanese China Garrison Army on 5 August not to use the term prisoners of war for Chinese captives This instruction led to the removal of the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners 26 The works of Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno show that the Emperor also authorized by specific orders rinsanmei the use of chemical weapons against the Chinese 27 During the invasion of Wuhan from August to October 1938 the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions 28 despite the resolution adopted by the League of Nations on 14 May condemning Japanese use of toxic gas World War IIThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed November 2019 Learn how and when to remove this template message Political map of the Asia Pacific region in 1939 Preparations In July 1939 the Emperor quarrelled with his brother Prince Chichibu over whether to support the Anti Comintern Pact and reprimanded the army minister Seishirō Itagaki 29 But after the success of the Wehrmacht in Europe the Emperor consented to the alliance On 27 September 1940 ostensibly under Hirohito s leadership Japan became a contracting partner of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy forming the Axis Powers The objectives to be obtained were clearly defined a free hand to continue with the conquest of China and Southeast Asia no increase in US or British military forces in the region and cooperation by the West in the acquisition of goods needed by our Empire 30 On 5 September Prime Minister Konoe informally submitted a draft of the decision to the Emperor just one day in advance of the Imperial Conference at which it would be formally implemented On this evening the Emperor had a meeting with the chief of staff of the army Sugiyama chief of staff of the navy Osami Nagano and Prime Minister Konoe The Emperor questioned Sugiyama about the chances of success of an open war with the Occident As Sugiyama answered positively the Emperor scolded him At the time of the China Incident the army told me that we could achieve peace immediately after dealing them one blow with three divisions but you can t still beat Chiang Kai shek even today Sugiyama you were army minister at that time China is a vast area with many ways in and ways out and we met unexpectedly big difficulties You say the interior of China is huge isn t the Pacific Ocean even bigger than China Didn t I caution you each time about those matters Sugiyama are you lying to me 31 Chief of Naval General Staff Admiral Nagano a former Navy Minister and vastly experienced later told a trusted colleague I have never seen the Emperor reprimand us in such a manner his face turning red and raising his voice 32 33 Emperor Hirohito riding Shirayuki during an Army inspection on 8 January 1938 Nevertheless all speakers at the Imperial Conference were united in favor of war rather than diplomacy 34 Baron Yoshimichi Hara President of the Imperial Council and the Emperor s representative then questioned them closely producing replies to the effect that war would be considered only as a last resort from some and silence from others On 8 October Sugiyama signed a 47 page report to the Emperor sōjōan outlining in minute detail plans for the advance into Southeast Asia During the third week of October Sugiyama gave the Emperor a 51 page document Materials in Reply to the Throne about the operational outlook for the war 35 As war preparations continued Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe found himself increasingly isolated and he resigned on 16 October He justified himself to his chief cabinet secretary Kenji Tomita by stating Of course His Majesty is a pacifist and there is no doubt he wished to avoid war When I told him that to initiate war was a mistake he agreed But the next day he would tell me You were worried about it yesterday but you do not have to worry so much Thus gradually he began to lean toward war And the next time I met him he leaned even more toward In short I felt the Emperor was telling me my prime minister does not understand military matters I know much more In short the Emperor had absorbed the view of the army and navy high commands 36 The army and the navy recommended the appointment of Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni one of the Emperor s uncles as prime minister According to the Shōwa Monologue written after the war the Emperor then said that if the war were to begin while a member of the imperial house was prime minister the imperial house would have to carry the responsibility and he was opposed to this 37 The Emperor as head of the Imperial General Headquarters on 29 April 1943 Instead the Emperor chose the hard line General Hideki Tōjō who was known for his devotion to the imperial institution and asked him to make a policy review of what had been sanctioned by the Imperial Conferences On 2 November Tōjō Sugiyama and Nagano reported to the Emperor that the review of eleven points had been in vain Emperor Hirohito gave his consent to the war and then asked Are you going to provide justification for the war 38 The decision for war against the United States was presented for approval to Hirohito by General Tōjō Naval Minister Admiral Shigetarō Shimada and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō 39 On 3 November Nagano explained in detail the plan of the attack on Pearl Harbor to the Emperor 40 On 5 November Emperor Hirohito approved in imperial conference the operations plan for a war against the Occident and had many meetings with the military and Tōjō until the end of the month 41 On 25 November Henry L Stimson United States Secretary of War noted in his diary that he had discussed with US President Franklin D Roosevelt the severe likelihood that Japan was about to launch a surprise attack and that the question had been how we should maneuver them the Japanese into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves On the following day 26 November 1941 US Secretary of State Cordell Hull presented the Japanese ambassador with the Hull note which as one of its conditions demanded the complete withdrawal of all Japanese troops from French Indochina and China Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo said to his cabinet This is an ultimatum On 1 December an Imperial Conference sanctioned the War against the United States United Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Netherlands 42 War advance and retreat On 8 December 7 December in Hawaii 1941 in simultaneous attacks Japanese forces struck at the Hong Kong Garrison the US Fleet in Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines and began the invasion of Malaya With the nation fully committed to the war the Emperor took a keen interest in military progress and sought to boost morale According to Akira Yamada and Akira Fujiwara the Emperor made major interventions in some military operations For example he pressed Sugiyama four times on 13 and 21 January and 9 and 26 February to increase troop strength and launch an attack on Bataan On 9 February 19 March and 29 May the Emperor ordered the Army Chief of staff to examine the possibilities for an attack on Chungking in China which led to Operation Gogo 43 As the tide of war began to turn against Japan around late 1942 and early 1943 the flow of information to the palace gradually began to bear less and less relation to reality while others suggest that the Emperor worked closely with Prime Minister Hideki Tojo continued to be well and accurately briefed by the military and knew Japan s military position precisely right up to the point of surrender The chief of staff of the General Affairs section of the Prime Minister s office Shuichi Inada remarked to Tōjō s private secretary Sadao Akamatsu There has never been a cabinet in which the prime minister and all the ministers reported so often to the throne In order to effect the essence of genuine direct imperial rule and to relieve the concerns of the Emperor the ministers reported to the throne matters within the scope of their responsibilities as per the prime minister s directives In times of intense activities typed drafts were presented to the Emperor with corrections in red First draft second draft final draft and so forth came as deliberations progressed one after the other and were sanctioned accordingly by the Emperor 44 The Emperor with his wife Empress Kōjun and their children on 7 December 1941 In the first six months of war all the major engagements had been victories Japanese advances were stopped in the summer of 1942 with the battle of Midway and the landing of the American forces on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in August The emperor played an increasingly influential role in the war in eleven major episodes he was deeply involved in supervising the actual conduct of war operations Hirohito pressured the High Command to order an early attack on the Philippines in 1941 42 including the fortified Bataan peninsula He secured the deployment of army air power in the Guadalcanal campaign Following Japan s withdrawal from Guadalcanal he demanded a new offensive in New Guinea which was duly carried out but failed badly Unhappy with the navy s conduct of the war he criticized its withdrawal from the central Solomon Islands and demanded naval battles against the Americans for the losses they had inflicted in the Aleutians The battles were disasters Finally it was at his insistence that plans were drafted for the recapture of Saipan and later for an offensive in the Battle of Okinawa 45 With the Army and Navy bitterly feuding he settled disputes over the allocation of resources He helped plan military offenses 46 The media under tight government control repeatedly portrayed him as lifting the popular morale even as the Japanese cities came under heavy air attack in 1944 45 and food and housing shortages mounted Japanese retreats and defeats were celebrated by the media as successes that portended Certain Victory 47 Only gradually did it become apparent to the Japanese people that the situation was very grim due to growing shortages of food medicine and fuel as U S submarines began wiping out Japanese shipping Starting in mid 1944 American raids on the major cities of Japan made a mockery of the unending tales of victory Later that year with the downfall of Tojo s government two other prime ministers were appointed to continue the war effort Kuniaki Koiso and Kantarō Suzuki each with the formal approval of the Emperor Both were unsuccessful and Japan was nearing disaster 48 Surrender Main article Surrender of Japan This section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Hirohito news newspapers books scholar JSTOR December 2017 Learn how and when to remove this template message Emperor Hirohito on the battleship Musashi 24 June 1943 In early 1945 in the wake of the losses in the Battle of Leyte Emperor Hirohito began a series of individual meetings with senior government officials to consider the progress of the war All but ex Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe advised continuing the war Konoe feared a communist revolution even more than defeat in war and urged a negotiated surrender In February 1945 during the first private audience with the Emperor he had been allowed in three years 49 Konoe advised Hirohito to begin negotiations to end the war According to Grand Chamberlain Hisanori Fujita the Emperor still looking for a tennozan a great victory in order to provide a stronger bargaining position firmly rejected Konoe s recommendation 50 With each passing week victory became less likely In April the Soviet Union issued notice that it would not renew its neutrality agreement Japan s ally Germany surrendered in early May 1945 In June the cabinet reassessed the war strategy only to decide more firmly than ever on a fight to the last man This strategy was officially affirmed at a brief Imperial Council meeting at which as was normal the Emperor did not speak The following day Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido prepared a draft document which summarized the hopeless military situation and proposed a negotiated settlement Extremists in Japan were also calling for a death before dishonor mass suicide modeled on the 47 Ronin incident By mid June 1945 the cabinet had agreed to approach the Soviet Union to act as a mediator for a negotiated surrender but not before Japan s bargaining position had been improved by repulse of the anticipated Allied invasion of mainland Japan On 22 June the Emperor met with his ministers saying I desire that concrete plans to end the war unhampered by existing policy be speedily studied and that efforts be made to implement them The attempt to negotiate a peace via the Soviet Union came to nothing There was always the threat that extremists would carry out a coup or foment other violence On 26 July 1945 the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding unconditional surrender The Japanese government council the Big Six considered that option and recommended to the Emperor that it be accepted only if one to four conditions were agreed upon including a guarantee of the Emperor s continued position in Japanese society The Emperor decided not to surrender That changed after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war On 9 August Emperor Hirohito told Kōichi Kido The Soviet Union has declared war and today began hostilities against us 51 On 10 August the cabinet drafted an Imperial Rescript ending the War following the Emperor s indications that the declaration did not compromise any demand which prejudiced his prerogatives as a sovereign ruler On 12 August 1945 the Emperor informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender One of his uncles Prince Yasuhiko Asaka asked whether the war would be continued if the kokutai national polity could not be preserved The Emperor simply replied Of course 52 On 14 August the Suzuki government notified the Allies that it had accepted the Potsdam Declaration On 15 August a recording of the Emperor s surrender speech Gyokuon hōsō literally broadcast in the Emperor s voice was broadcast over the radio the first time the Emperor was heard on the radio by the Japanese people announcing Japan s acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration During the historic broadcast the Emperor stated Moreover the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable taking the toll of many innocent lives Should we continue to fight not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization The speech also noted that the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan s advantage and ordered the Japanese to endure the unendurable The speech using formal archaic Japanese was not readily understood by many commoners According to historian Richard Storry in A History of Modern Japan the Emperor typically used a form of language familiar only to the well educated and to the more traditional samurai families 53 A faction of the army opposed to the surrender attempted a coup d etat on the evening of 14 August prior to the broadcast They seized the Imperial Palace the Kyujō incident but the physical recording of the emperor s speech was hidden and preserved overnight The coup failed and the speech was broadcast the next morning 54 In his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975 when he was asked what he thought of the bombing of Hiroshima the Emperor answered It s very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn t be helped because that happened in wartime shikata ga nai meaning it cannot be helped 55 After the Japanese surrender in August 1945 there was a large amount of pressure that came from both Allied countries and Japanese leftists that demanded the emperor step down and be indicted as a war criminal 56 The Australian government listed Hirohito as a war criminal and intended to put him on trial 57 General Douglas MacArthur did not like the idea as he thought that an ostensibly cooperating emperor would help establish a peaceful allied occupation regime in Japan 58 As a result any possible evidence that would incriminate the emperor and his family were excluded from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East 58 MacArthur created a plan that separated the emperor from the militarists retained the emperor as a constitutional monarch but only as a figurehead and used the emperor to retain control over Japan and help achieve American postwar objectives in Japan 59 Accountability for Japanese war crimes The issue of Emperor Hirohito s war responsibility is contested 60 During the war the Allies frequently depicted Hirohito to equate with Hitler and Mussolini as the three Axis dictators 61 After the war since the U S thought that the retention of the emperor would help establish a peaceful allied occupation regime in Japan and help the U S achieve their postwar objectives they depicted Hirohito as a powerless figurehead without any implication in wartime policies 5 This was the dominant postwar narrative until his death in 1989 After Hirohito s death historians 62 argued that Hirohito wielded more power than previously believed 61 62 63 and he was actively involved in the decision to launch the war as well as in other political and military decisions before 64 Over the years as new evidence surfaced historians were able to arrive at the conclusion that he was culpable for the war and was reflecting on his wartime role 4 Some evidence shows that Hirohito had some involvement but his power was limited by cabinet members ministers and other people of the military oligarchy according to whom Evidence for wartime culpability See also Chrysanthemum taboo Some historians contend that Hirohito was directly responsible for the atrocities committed by the imperial forces in the Second Sino Japanese War and in World War II They argued that he and some members of the imperial family such as his brother Prince Chichibu his cousins the princes Takeda and Fushimi and his uncles the princes Kan in Asaka and Higashikuni should have been tried for war crimes 65 66 In a study published in 1996 historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta claims that the Three Alls Policy Sankō Sakusen a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China and sanctioned by Emperor Hirohito himself was both directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of more than 2 7 million Chinese civilians His works and those of Akira Fujiwara about the details of the operation were commented by Herbert P Bix in his Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan who wrote that the Sankō Sakusen far surpassed Nanking Massacre not only in terms of numbers but in brutality as well as These military operations caused death and suffering on a scale incomparably greater than the totally unplanned orgy of killing in Nanking which later came to symbolize the war 67 While the Nanking Massacre was unplanned Bix said Hirohito knew of and approved annihilation campaigns in China that included burning villages thought to harbor guerrillas 68 The debate over Hirohito s responsibility for war crimes concerns how much real control the Emperor had over the Japanese military during the two wars Officially the imperial constitution adopted under Emperor Meiji gave full power to the Emperor Article 4 prescribed that The Emperor is the head of the Empire combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty and exercises them according to the provisions of the present Constitution Likewise according to article 6 The Emperor gives sanction to laws and orders them to be promulgated and executed and article 11 The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and the Navy The Emperor was thus the leader of the Imperial General Headquarters 69 Poison gas weapons such as phosgene were produced by Unit 731 and authorized by specific orders given by Hirohito himself transmitted by the chief of staff of the army For example Hirohito authorized the use of toxic gas 375 times during the Battle of Wuhan from August to October 1938 60 Historians such as Herbert Bix Akira Fujiwara Peter Wetzler and Akira Yamada assert that post war arguments favoring the view that Hirohito was a mere figurehead overlook the importance of numerous behind the chrysanthemum curtain meetings where the real decisions were made between the Emperor his chiefs of staff and the cabinet Using primary sources and the monumental work of Shirō Hara as a basis c Fujiwara 70 and Wetzler 71 have produced evidence suggesting that the Emperor worked through intermediaries to exercise a great deal of control over the military and was neither bellicose nor a pacifist but an opportunist who governed in a pluralistic decision making process American historian Herbert P Bix goes so far as to argue that Emperor Hirohito might have been the prime mover behind most of Japan s military aggression during the Shōwa Era 66 page needed The view promoted by the Imperial Palace and American occupation forces immediately after World War II portrayed Emperor Hirohito as a purely ceremonial figure who behaved strictly according to protocol while remaining at a distance from the decision making processes This view was endorsed by Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita in a speech on the day of Hirohito s death in which Takeshita asserted that the war had broken out against Hirohito s wishes Takeshita s statement provoked outrage in nations in East Asia and Commonwealth nations such as the United Kingdom Canada Australia and New Zealand 72 According to historian Fujiwara The thesis that the Emperor as an organ of responsibility could not reverse cabinet decision is a myth fabricated after the war 73 According to Yinan He associate professor of international relations at Lehigh University 74 in the aftermath of the war conservative Japanese elites created self whitewashing self glorifying national myths that minimized the scope of Japan s war responsibility which included presenting the emperor as a peace seeking diplomat and a narrative that separated him from the militarists whom they described as people who hijacked the Japanese government and led the country into war shifting the responsibility from the ruling class to only a few military leaders 56 This narrative also narrowly focuses on the U S Japan conflict completely ignores the wars Japan waged in Asia and disregards the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during the war 56 Japanese elites created the narrative in an attempt to avoid tarnishing the national image and regain the international acceptance of the country 56 Kentarō Awaya Wikidata argues that post war Japanese public opinion supporting protection of the Emperor was influenced by U S propaganda promoting the view that the Emperor together with the Japanese people had been fooled by the military 75 In the years immediately after Hirohito s death scholars who spoke out against the emperor were threatened and attacked by right wing extremists Susan Chira reported Scholars who have spoken out against the late Emperor have received threatening phone calls from Japan s extremist right wing 72 One example of actual violence occurred in 1990 when the mayor of Nagasaki Hitoshi Motoshima was shot and critically wounded by a member of the ultranationalist group Seikijuku A year before in 1989 Motoshima had broken what was characterized as one of Japan s most sensitive taboos by asserting that Emperor Hirohito bore responsibility for World War II 76 Regarding Hirohito s exemption from trial before the International Military Tribunal of the Far East opinions were not unanimous Sir William Webb the president of the tribunal declared This immunity of the Emperor is contrasted with the part he played in launching the war in the Pacific is I think a matter which the tribunal should take into consideration in imposing the sentences 77 Likewise the French judge Henri Bernard wrote about Hirohito s accountability that the declaration of war by Japan had a principal author who escaped all prosecution and of whom in any case the present defendants could only be considered accomplices 78 An account from the Vice Interior Minister in 1941 Michio Yuzawa asserts that Hirohito was at ease with the attack on Pearl Harbor once he had made a decision 79 In Japan debate over the Emperor s responsibility was taboo while he was alive After his death however debate began to surface over the extent of his involvement and thus his culpability 72 Since his death in 1989 historians have discovered evidence that prove Hirohito s culpability for the war and that he was not a passive figurehead manipulated by those around him 56 Michiji Tajima s notes in 1952 According to notebooks by Michiji Tajima a top Imperial Household Agency official who took office after the war Emperor Hirohito privately expressed regret about the atrocities that were committed by Japanese troops during the Nanjing Massacre 80 In addition to feeling remorseful about his own role in the war he fell short by allowing radical elements of the military to drive the conduct of the war 80 Vice Interior Minister Yuzawa s account on Hirohito s role in Pearl Harbor raid In late July 2018 the bookseller Takeo Hatano an acquaintance of the descendants of Michio Yuzawa Japanese Vice Interior Minister in 1941 released to Japan s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper a memo by Yuzawa that Hatano had kept for nine years since he received it from Yuzawa s family The bookseller said It took me nine years to come forward as I was afraid of a backlash But now I hope the memo would help us figure out what really happened during the war in which 3 1 million people were killed 79 Takahisa Furukawa expert on wartime history from Nihon University confirmed the authenticity of the memo calling it the first look at the thinking of Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 79 In this document Yuzawa details a conversation he had with Tojo a few hours before the attack The Vice Minister quotes Tojo saying The Emperor seemed at ease and unshakable once he had made a decision 79 If His Majesty had any regret over negotiations with Britain and the U S he would have looked somewhat grim There was no such indication which must be a result of his determination I m completely relieved Given the current conditions I could say we have practically won already 79 Historian Furukawa concluded from Yuzawa s memo Tojo is a bureaucrat who was incapable of making own decisions so he turned to the Emperor as his supervisor That s why he had to report everything for the Emperor to decide If the Emperor didn t say no then he would proceed 79 Shinobu Kobayashi s diary Shinobu Kobayashi was the Emperor s chamberlain from April 1974 until June 2000 Kobayashi kept a diary with near daily remarks of Hirohito for 26 years It was made public on Wednesday 22 August 2018 81 According to Takahisa Furukawa a professor of modern Japanese history at Nihon University the diary reveals that the emperor gravely took responsibility for the war for a long time and as he got older that feeling became stronger 82 Jennifer Lind associate professor of government at Dartmouth College and a specialist in Japanese war memory said Over the years these different pieces of evidence have trickled out and historians have amassed this picture of culpability and how he was reflecting on that This is another piece of the puzzle that very much confirms that the picture that was taking place before which is that he was extremely culpable and after the war he was devastated about this 83 An entry dated 27 May 1980 said the Emperor wanted to express his regret about the Sino Japanese war to former Chinese Premier Hua Guofeng who visited at the time but was stopped by senior members of the Imperial Household Agency due to fear of backlash from far right groups 81 An entry dated 7 April 1987 said the Emperor was haunted by discussions of his wartime responsibility and as a result was losing his will to live 81 Hirohito s preparations for war described in Saburō Hyakutake s diary In September 2021 25 diaries pocket notebooks and memos by Saburō Hyakutake Emperor Hirohito s Grand Chamberlain from 1936 to 1944 deposited by his relatives to the library of the University of Tokyo s graduate schools for law and politics became available to the public 84 Hyakutake s diary quotes some Hirohito s ministers and advisers worried that the Emperor was getting ahead of them in terms of battle preparations Thus Hyakutake quotes Tsuneo Matsudaira the Imperial Household Minister saying The Emperor appears to have been prepared for war in the face of the tense times 13 October 1941 84 Likewise Koichi Kido Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal is quoted as saying I occasionally have to try to stop him from going too far 13 October 1941 84 The Emperor s resolve appears to be going too far 20 November 1941 84 I requested the Emperor to say things to give the impression that Japan will exhaust all measures to pursue peace when the Foreign Minister is present 20 November 1941 84 Seiichi Chadani professor of modern Japanese history with Shigakukan University who has studied Hirohito s actions before and during the war said on the discovery of Hyakutake s diary The archives available so far including his biography compiled by the Imperial Household Agency contained no detailed descriptions that his aides expressed concerns about Hirohito leaning toward Japan s entry into the war 84 Hyakutake s diary is a significant record penned by one of the close aides to the Emperor documenting the process of how Japan s leaders led to the war 84 Documents that suggest limited wartime responsibility The declassified January 1989 British government assessment of Hirohito describes him as too weak to alter the course of events and Hirohito was powerless and comparisons with Hitler are ridiculously wide off the mark Hirohito s power was limited by ministers and the military and if he asserted his views too much he would have been replaced by another member of the royal family 85 Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal opposed the International Military Tribunal and made a 1 235 page judgment 86 He found the entire prosecution case to be weak regarding the conspiracy to commit an act of aggressive war with brutalization and subjugation of conquered nations Pal said there is no evidence testimonial or circumstantial concomitant prospectant restrospectant that would in any way lead to the inference that the government in any way permitted the commission of such offenses 87 He added that conspiracy to wage aggressive war was not illegal in 1937 or at any point since 87 Pal supported the acquittal of all of the defendants He considered the Japanese military operations as justified because Chiang Kai shek supported the boycott of trade operations by the Western Powers particularly the United States boycott of oil exports to Japan Pal argued the attacks on neighboring territories were justified to protect the Japanese Empire from an aggressive environment especially the Soviet Union He considered that to be self defense operations which are not criminal Pal said the real culprits are not before us and concluded that only a lost war is an international crime The Emperor s own statements 8 September 1975 TV interview with NBC USA 88 Reporter How far has your Majesty been involved in Japan s decision to end the war in 1945 What was the motivation for your launch Emperor Originally this should be done by the Cabinet I heard the results but at the last meeting I asked for a decision I decided to end the war on my own I thought that the continuation of the war would only bring more misery to the people Interview with Newsweek USA 20 September 1975 89 Reporter Abbreviation How do you answer those who claim that your Majesty was also involved in the decision making process that led Japan to start the war Emperor Omission At the start of the war a cabinet decision was made and I could not reverse that decision We believe this is consistent with the provisions of the Imperial Constitution 22 September 1975 Press conference with Foreign Correspondents 90 Reporter How long before the attack on Pearl Harbor did your Majesty know about the attack plan And did you approve the plan Emperor It is true that I had received information on military operations in advance However I only received those reports after the military commanders made detailed decisions Regarding issues of political character and military command I believe that I acted in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution On 31 October 1975 a press conference was held immediately after returning to the United States after visiting Japan 91 92 Question Your majesty at your White House banquet you said I deeply deplore that unfortunate war See also Emperor Shōwa s Theory of War Responsibility ja Does your majesty feel responsibility for the war itself including the opening of hostilities Also what does your majesty think about so called war responsibility The Times reporter Emperor I can t answer that kind of question because I haven t thoroughly studied the literature in this field and so don t really appreciate the nuances of your words Question How did you understand that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the war RCC Broadcasting Reporter Emperor I am sorry that the atomic bomb was dropped but because of this war I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but I think it is unavoidable 17 April 1981 Press conference with the presidents of the press 93 Reporter What was the most enjoyable of your memories of eighty years Emperor Since I saw the constitutional politics of Britain as the Crown Prince ja I felt strongly that I must adhere to the constitutional politics But I was too particular about it to prevent the war I made my own decisions twice February 26 Incident and the end of World War II British government assessment of Hirohito A January 1989 declassified British government assessment of Hirohito said the Emperor was uneasy with Japan s drift to war in the 1930s and 1940s but was too weak to alter the course of events The dispatch by John Whitehead former ambassador of the United Kingdom to Japan to Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe was declassified on Thursday 20 July 2017 at the National Archives in London The letter was written shortly after Hirohito s death Britain s ambassador to Japan John Whitehead stated in 1989 85 By personality and temperament Hirohito was ill suited to the role assigned to him by destiny The successors of the men who had led the Meiji Restoration yearned for a charismatic warrior king Instead they were given an introspective prince who grew up to be more at home in the science laboratory than on the military parade ground But in his early years every effort was made to cast him in a different mould 85 A man of stronger personality than Hirohito might have tried more strenuously to check the growing influence of the military in Japanese politics and the drift of Japan toward war with the western powers The contemporary diary evidence suggests that Hirohito was uncomfortable with the direction of Japanese policy The consensus of those who have studied the documents of the period is that Hirohito was consistent in attempting to use his personal influence to induce caution and to moderate and even obstruct the growing impetus toward war 85 Whitehead concludes that ultimately Hirohito was powerless and comparisons with Hitler are ridiculously wide off the mark If Hirohito acted too insistently with his views he could have been isolated or replaced with a more pliant member of the royal family The pre war Meiji Constitution defined the emperor as sacred and all powerful but according to Whitehead Hirohito s power was limited by ministers and the military Whitehead explained after World War II that Hirohito s humility was fundamental for the Japanese people to accept the new 1947 constitution and allied occupation 85 Postwar reign Gaetano Faillace s photograph of General MacArthur and the Emperor at Allied General Headquarters in Tokyo 27 September 1945 As the Emperor chose his uncle Prince Higashikuni as prime minister to assist the American occupation there were attempts by numerous leaders to have him put on trial for alleged war crimes Many members of the imperial family such as Princes Chichibu Takamatsu and Higashikuni pressured the Emperor to abdicate so that one of the Princes could serve as regent until Crown Prince Akihito came of age 94 On 27 February 1946 the Emperor s youngest brother Prince Mikasa even stood up in the privy council and indirectly urged the Emperor to step down and accept responsibility for Japan s defeat According to Minister of Welfare Ashida s diary Everyone seemed to ponder Mikasa s words Never have I seen His Majesty s face so pale 95 U S General Douglas MacArthur insisted that Emperor Hirohito retain the throne MacArthur saw the Emperor as a symbol of the continuity and cohesion of the Japanese people Some historians criticize the decision to exonerate the Emperor and all members of the imperial family who were implicated in the war such as Prince Chichibu Prince Asaka Prince Higashikuni and Prince Hiroyasu Fushimi from criminal prosecutions 96 Before the war crime trials actually convened the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers its International Prosecution Section IPS and Japanese officials worked behind the scenes not only to prevent the Imperial family from being indicted but also to influence the testimony of the defendants to ensure that no one implicated the Emperor High officials in court circles and the Japanese government collaborated with Allied General Headquarters in compiling lists of prospective war criminals while the individuals arrested as Class A suspects and incarcerated solemnly vowed to protect their sovereign against any possible taint of war responsibility 97 Thus months before the Tokyo tribunal commenced MacArthur s highest subordinates were working to attribute ultimate responsibility for Pearl Harbor to Hideki Tōjō 98 by allowing the major criminal suspects to coordinate their stories so that the Emperor would be spared from indictment 99 According to John W Dower This successful campaign to absolve the Emperor of war responsibility knew no bounds Hirohito was not merely presented as being innocent of any formal acts that might make him culpable to indictment as a war criminal he was turned into an almost saintly figure who did not even bear moral responsibility for the war 100 According to Bix MacArthur s truly extraordinary measures to save Hirohito from trial as a war criminal had a lasting and profoundly distorting impact on Japanese understanding of the lost war 101 Imperial status Hirohito was not put on trial but he was forced 102 to explicitly reject the quasi official claim that the Emperor of Japan was an arahitogami i e an incarnate divinity This was motivated by the fact that according to the Japanese constitution of 1889 the Emperor had a divine power over his country which was derived from the Shinto belief that the Japanese Imperial Family were the descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu Hirohito was however persistent in the idea that the Emperor of Japan should be considered a descendant of the gods In December 1945 he told his vice grand chamberlain Michio Kinoshita It is permissible to say that the idea that the Japanese are descendants of the gods is a false conception but it is absolutely impermissible to call chimerical the idea that the Emperor is a descendant of the gods 103 In any case the renunciation of divinity was noted more by foreigners than by Japanese and seems to have been intended for the consumption of the former d The theory of a constitutional monarchy had already had some proponents in Japan In 1935 when Tatsukichi Minobe advocated the theory that sovereignty resides in the state of which the Emperor is just an organ the tennō kikan setsu it caused a furor He was forced to resign from the House of Peers and his post at the Tokyo Imperial University his books were banned and an attempt was made on his life 104 Not until 1946 was the tremendous step made to alter the Emperor s title from imperial sovereign to constitutional monarch Although the Emperor had supposedly repudiated claims to divinity his public position was deliberately left vague partly because General MacArthur thought him probable to be a useful partner to get the Japanese to accept the occupation and partly due to behind the scenes maneuvering by Shigeru Yoshida to thwart attempts to cast him as a European style monarch Nevertheless Hirohito s status as a limited constitutional monarch was formalized with the enactment of the 1947 Constitution officially an amendment to the Meiji Constitution It defined the Emperor as the symbol of the state and the unity of the people and stripped him of even nominal power in government matters His role was limited to matters of state as delineated in the Constitution and in most cases his actions in that realm were carried out in accordance with the binding instructions of the Cabinet Following the Iranian Revolution and the end of the short lived Central African Empire both in 1979 Hirohito found himself the last monarch in the world to bear any variation of the highest royal title emperor Public figure Emperor Hirohito visiting Hiroshima in 1947 The domed Hiroshima Peace Memorial can be seen in the background For the rest of his life Hirohito was an active figure in Japanese life and performed many of the duties commonly associated with a constitutional head of state He and his family maintained a strong public presence often holding public walkabouts and making public appearances at special events and ceremonies For example in 1947 the Emperor made a public visit to Hiroshima and held a speech in front of a massive crowd encouraging the city s citizens He also played an important role in rebuilding Japan s diplomatic image traveling abroad to meet with many foreign leaders including Queen Elizabeth II 1971 and President Gerald Ford 1975 He was not only the first reigning emperor to travel beyond Japan but also the first to meet a President of the United States 105 His status and image became strongly positive in the United States 106 The 124th visit to a foreign country during the reign of Emperor Shōwa 107 Year Departure Return Visited Accompany Remarks1971 Shōwa 46 27 September 14 October Belgium United Kingdom West Germany United States Denmark France Netherlands Switzerland Empress Kōjun International friendship1975 Shōwa 50 30 September 14 October United States Empress Kōjun International friendshipVisit to Europe US President Richard Nixon with Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun in Anchorage 27 September 1971 Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun arriving in the Netherlands 8 October 1971 In 1971 Shōwa 46 the Emperor visited seven European countries including the United Kingdom the Netherlands and Switzerland again for 17 days from 27 September to 14 October In this case a special aircraft Douglas DC 8 of Japan Airlines was used unlike the previous visit by ship Although not counted as a visit at that time the Emperor stopped by Anchorage Alaska as a stopover and met with United States President Richard Nixon from Washington DC at the Alaska District Army Command House at Elmendorf Air Force Base The talks between Emperor Shōwa and President Nixon were not planned at the outset because initially the stop in the United States was only for refueling to visit Europe However the meeting was decided in a hurry at the request of the United States Although the Japanese side accepted the request Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Fukuda made a public telephone call to the Japanese ambassador to the United States Nobuhiko Ushiba who promoted talks saying that will cause me a great deal of trouble We want to correct the perceptions of the other party At that time Foreign Minister Fukuda was worried that President Nixon s talks with the Emperor would be used to repair the deteriorating Japan U S relations and he was concerned that the premise of the symbolic emperor system could fluctuate 108 109 There was an early visit with deep royal exchanges in Denmark and Belgium and in France they were warmly welcomed In France Hirohito reunited with Edward VIII who had abdicated in 1936 and was virtually in exile and they chatted for a while However protests were held in Britain and the Netherlands by veterans who had served in the South East Asian theatre and civilian victims of the brutal occupation there In the Netherlands raw eggs and vacuum flasks were thrown The protest was so severe that Empress Kōjun who accompanied the Emperor was exhausted In the United Kingdom protestors stood in silence and turned their backs when the Emperor s carriage passed them while others wore red gloves to symbolize the dead 110 The satirical magazine Private Eye used a racist double entendre to refer to the emperor s visit nasty Nip in the air 111 Regarding these protests and opposition Emperor Shōwa was not surprised to have received a report in advance at a press conference on 12 November after returning to Japan and said that I do not think that welcome can be ignored from each country 112 Also at a press conference following their golden wedding anniversary three years later along with the Empress he mentioned this visit to Europe as his most enjoyable memory in 50 years 112 Visit to the United States The Empress First Lady Betty Ford the Emperor and President Gerald Ford at the White House before a state dinner held in honor of the Japanese head of state for the first time 2 October 1975 In 1975 the Emperor was invited to visit the United States for 14 days from 30 September to 14 October at the invitation of President Gerald Ford The visit was the first such event in US Japanese history e The United States Army Navy and Air Force as well as the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard honored the state visit Before and after the visit a series of terrorist attacks in Japan were caused by anti American left wing organizations such as the East Asia Anti Japan Armed Front After arriving in Williamsburg on 30 September 1975 Emperor Shōwa stayed in the United States for two weeks 113 The official meeting with President Ford occurred on 2 October 114 On 3 October the Emperor visited Arlington National Cemetery 115 On 6 October Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako visited Vice President and Mrs Rockefeller at their home in Westchester County New York 116 In a speech at the White House state dinner Hirohito read Thanks to the United States for helping to rebuild Japan after the war During his stay in Los Angeles he visited Disneyland and a smiling photo next to Mickey Mouse adorned the newspapers citation needed and there was talk about the purchase of a Mickey Mouse watch Two types of commemorative stamps and stamp sheets were issued on the day of their return to Japan citation needed which demonstrated that the visit had been a significant undertaking This was the last visit of Emperor Shōwa to the United States The official press conference held by the Emperor and Empress before and after their visit also marked a breakthrough citation needed Marine biology Emperor Shōwa in his laboratory 1950 The Emperor was deeply interested in and well informed about marine biology and the Imperial Palace contained a laboratory from which the Emperor published several papers in the field under his personal name Hirohito 117 His contributions included the description of several dozen species of Hydrozoa new to science 118 Yasukuni Shrine The Emperor maintained an official boycott of the Yasukuni Shrine after it was revealed to him that Class A war criminals had secretly been enshrined after its post war rededication This boycott lasted from 1978 until his death and has been continued by his successors Akihito and Naruhito 119 On 20 July 2006 Nihon Keizai Shimbun published a front page article about the discovery of a memorandum detailing the reason that the Emperor stopped visiting Yasukuni The memorandum kept by former chief of Imperial Household Agency Tomohiko Tomita confirms for the first time that the enshrinement of 14 Class A war criminals in Yasukuni was the reason for the boycott Tomita recorded in detail the contents of his conversations with the Emperor in his diaries and notebooks According to the memorandum in 1988 the Emperor expressed his strong displeasure at the decision made by Yasukuni Shrine to include Class A war criminals in the list of war dead honored there by saying At some point Class A criminals became enshrined including Matsuoka and Shiratori I heard Tsukuba acted cautiously Tsukuba is believed to refer to Fujimaro Tsukuba the former chief Yasukuni priest at the time who decided not to enshrine the war criminals despite having received in 1966 the list of war dead compiled by the government What s on the mind of Matsudaira s son who is the current head priest Matsudaira had a strong wish for peace but the child didn t know the parent s heart That s why I have not visited the shrine since This is my heart Matsudaira is believed to refer to Yoshitami Matsudaira who was the grand steward of the Imperial Household immediately after the end of World War II His son Nagayoshi succeeded Fujimaro Tsukuba as the chief priest of Yasukuni and decided to enshrine the war criminals in 1978 120 Nagayoshi Matsudaira died in 2006 which some commentators citation needed have speculated is the reason for release of the memo Death and state funeralMain article Death and state funeral of Hirohito Hirohito s tomb in the Musashi Imperial Graveyard Hachiōji Tokyo On 22 September 1987 the Emperor underwent surgery on his pancreas after having digestive problems for several months The doctors discovered that he had duodenal cancer The Emperor appeared to be making a full recovery for several months after the surgery About a year later however on 19 September 1988 he collapsed in his palace and his health worsened over the next several months as he suffered from continuous internal bleeding The Emperor died at 6 33 am on 7 January 1989 at the age of 87 The announcement from the grand steward of Japan s Imperial Household Agency Shoichi Fujimori revealed details about his cancer for the first time Hirohito was survived by his wife his five surviving children ten grandchildren and one great grandchild 19 At the time of his death he was both the longest lived and longest reigning historical Japanese emperor as well as the longest reigning monarch in the world at that time The latter distinction passed to king Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand when he surpassed him in July 2008 until his own death on 13 October 2016 121 The Emperor was succeeded by his eldest son Akihito whose enthronement ceremony was held on 12 November 1990 citation needed The Emperor s death ended the Shōwa era On the same day a new era began the Heisei era effective at midnight the following day From 7 January until 31 January the Emperor s formal appellation was Departed Emperor His definitive posthumous name Shōwa Tennō was determined on 13 January and formally released on 31 January by Toshiki Kaifu the prime minister citation needed On 24 February the Emperor s state funeral was held and unlike that of his predecessor it was formal but not conducted in a strictly Shinto manner A large number of world leaders attended the funeral Hirohito is buried in the Musashi Imperial Graveyard in Hachiōji alongside his father Emperor Taishō citation needed Titles styles honours and armsMilitary appointments Grand Marshal and Supreme Commander in Chief of the Empire of Japan 25 December 1926 upon ascending the throne 122 Foreign military appointments United Kingdom Honorary General in the British Army May 1921 123 124 United Kingdom Field Marshal of the Regular Army in the British Army June 1930 125 National honours Founder of the Order of Culture 11 February 1937 126 Foreign honours This section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed August 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message Germany Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Special Class GCBVO Finland Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose of Finland with Collar 1942 127 Norway Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of Saint Olav StkStOO with Collar 26 September 1922 128 Sweden Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim RSerafO with Collar 8 May 1919 129 Denmark Knight of the Order of the Elephant RE 24 January 1923 130 Poland Knight of the Order of the White Eagle 1922 131 Thailand Knight of the Most Auspicious Order of the Rajamitrabhorn KRMBh 27 May 1963 132 Thailand Knight of the Most Illustrious Order of the Royal House of Chakri KMChk 30 January 1925 133 Nepal Member of the Most Glorious Order of Ojaswi Rajanya 19 April 1960 134 Philippines Grand Collar of the Order of Sikatuna 28 September 1966 135 Brazil Grand Cross of the National Order of the Southern Cross 1955 136 Italian Royal Family Knight of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation 31 October 1916 137 Italy Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic OMRI with Collar 9 March 1982 138 Belgium Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold Malaysia Honorary Member of the Order of the Crown of the Realm DMN 1964 Tonga Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Pouono KGCCP with Collar 139 United Kingdom Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order GCVO May 1921 United Kingdom Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath civil division GCB May 1921 140 United Kingdom Stranger Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter KG 3 May 1929 revoked 1941 restored 22 May 1971 141 United Kingdom Foreign Member of the Royal Society ForMemRS 1971 142 Brunei Member of the Order of the Crown of Brunei 1st Class Spain Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece 6 October 1928 143 144 Spain Grand Cross of the Royal and Distinguished Order of Charles III with Collar 4 June 1923 145 Greek Royal Family Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer Greek Royal Family Grand Cross of the Royal Family Order of Saints George and Constantine with Collar Czechoslovakia Collar of the Order of the White Lion 1928 146 Ethiopian Imperial Family Collar of the Order of Solomon 147 Russian Imperial Family Knight of the Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle the First called September 1916 148 IssueEmperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun had seven children two sons and five daughters Name Birth Death Marriage ChildrenDate SpouseShigeko Higashikuni Shigeko Princess Teru 9 December 1925 23 July 1961 10 October 1943 Prince Morihiro Higashikuni Prince Nobuhiko HigashikuniPrincess Fumiko HigashikuniNaohiko HigashikuniHidehiko HigashikuniYuko HigashikuniSachiko Princess Hisa 10 September 1927 8 March 1928 NoneKazuko Takatsukasa Kazuko Princess Taka 30 September 1929 26 May 1989 20 May 1950 Toshimichi Takatsukasa Naotake Takatsukasa adopted Atsuko Ikeda Atsuko Princess Yori 1931 03 07 7 March 1931 age 91 10 October 1952 Takamasa Ikeda NoneAkihito Emperor Emeritus of Japan Akihito Prince Tsugu 1933 12 23 23 December 1933 age 89 10 April 1959 Michiko Shōda Naruhito Emperor of JapanFumihito Crown Prince of JapanSayako KurodaMasahito Prince Hitachi Masahito Prince Yoshi 1935 11 28 28 November 1935 age 87 30 September 1964 Hanako Tsugaru NoneTakako Shimazu Takako Princess Suga 1939 03 02 2 March 1939 age 83 10 March 1960 Hisanaga Shimazu Yoshihisa ShimazuScientific publications 1967 A review of the hydroids of the family Clathrozonidae with description of a new genus and species from Japan 149 1969 Some hydroids from the Amakusa Islands 150 1971 Additional notes on Clathrozoon wilsoni Spencer 151 1974 Some hydrozoans of the Bonin Islands 152 1977 Five hydroid species from the Gulf of Aqaba Red Sea 153 1983 Hydroids from Izu Oshima and Nijima 154 1984 A new hydroid Hydractinia bayeri n sp family Hydractiniidae from the Bay of Panama 155 1988 The hydroids of Sagami Bay collected by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan 156 1995 The hydroids of Sagami Bay II posthumous 157 See alsoJapanese nationalism Otoya Yamaguchi The Sun a biographical film about the EmperorNotes ˌ h ɪer oʊ ˈ h iː t oʊ ˌ h ɪr e ˈ 1 2 Japanese ciɾoꜜci to The first foreign trip by the Crown Prince was made in 1907 by the Crown Prince Yoshihito to the then Korean Empire During that time while it was considered a foreign country it had become a colonial protectorate of Japan and would eventually be annexed Former member of section 20 of War operations of the Army high command Hara has made a detailed study of the way military decisions were made including the Emperor s involvement published in five volumes in 1973 74 under the title Daihon ei senshi Daitōa Sensō kaisen gaishi Kaisen ni itaru seisentyaku shidō Imperial Headquarters war history General history of beginning hostilities in the Greater East Asia War Leadership and political strategy with respect to the beginning of hostilities Many foreigners including those from the occupying power were from Western countries steeped in monotheistic Abrahamic traditions The reason a visit had not occurred prior to this was in part due to the fact that the Act for Extraordinary Vicarious Execution of State Affairs had not yet been put into law Despite this visits to the United States had been planned in 1973 and 1974 but never occurred due to lack of coordination ReferencesCitations Hirohito Collins English Dictionary HarperCollins Hirohito US and Hirohito Lexico UK English Dictionary Oxford University Press Archived from the original on 22 March 2020 Detail All of Hirohito s Role Los Angeles Times 14 August 2000 a b Rich Motoko 24 August 2018 Aide s Diary Suggests Hirohito Agonized over His War Responsibility The New York Times a b Bix Herbert 2000 Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan New York HarperCollins p 545 ISBN 978 0 06 093130 8 a b Kawai Kazuo 1958 The Divinity of the Japanese Emperor Political Science 10 2 3 14 doi 10 1177 003231875801000201 Historic Figures Emperor Hirohito 1901 1989 BBC History Ponsonby Fane Richard 1959 The Imperial House of Japan p 337 Bix Herbert P 2001 Hirohito and the making of modern Japan Book 1st Perennial ed New York Perennial pp 22 23 ISBN 978 0060931308 The Long and Eventful Reign of Hirohito Pearl Harbor 13 March 2018 Retrieved 12 November 2021 PacificWrecks com Pacific Wrecks Emperor Hirohito 裕仁 Shōwa pacificwrecks com Retrieved 27 November 2022 Ponsonby Fane p 338 see File Crowd awaiting Crown Prince Tokyo Dec1916 jpg New York Times 3 December 1916 小田部雄次 天皇 皇室を知る事典 211頁 東京堂出版 2007年 a b 早野透 September 2001 97 昭和天皇 In 朝日新聞社 編 ed 100人の20世紀 朝日文庫 Vol 下 朝日新聞社 p 445 ISBN 4022613513 Bix Herbert P Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Harper Perennial 2001 Page 123 ISBN 0060931302 Hirohito Is Named Regent of Japan The New York Times 26 November 1921 p 4 The Long and Eventful Reign of Hirohito Pearl Harbor 13 March 2018 Retrieved 24 November 2022 Hernon Matthew 15 May 2021 TW s List of 7 Notorious Assassination Plots in Japan Tokyo Weekender Retrieved 24 November 2022 a b Hirohito s survivors Los Angeles Times 7 January 1989 Retrieved 3 December 2016 a b Varley H Paul ed 1980 Jinnō Shōtōki A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa translated by H Paul Varley p 44 A distinct act of senso is unrecognized prior to Emperor Tenji and all sovereigns except Jitō Yōzei Go Toba and Fushimi have senso and sokui in the same year until the reign of Go Murakami Ponsonby Fane p 350 Ponsonby Fane p 349 Ponsonby Fane pp 136 137 Mikiso Hane Emperor Hirohito and His Chief Aide de camp The Honjō Diary 1983 Honjō Nikki Hara Shobō 1975 Wakabayashi Bob Tadashi 1991 Emperor Hirohito on Localized Aggression in China PDF Sino Japanese Studies 4 1 4 27 Archived from the original PDF on 21 July 2011 Retrieved 3 February 2008 Diary shows Hirohito didn t want war in China media Reuters 9 March 2007 Retrieved 29 April 2022 Emperor Hirohito in whose name Japanese soldiers fought in World War Two was reluctant to start a war with China in 1937 and had believed in stopping it earlier media reported on Friday citing a diary by his former chamberlain Fujiwara Nitchu Sensō ni Okeru Horyo Gyakusatsu Kikan Sensō Sekinin Kenkyu 9 1995 pp 20 21 Dokugasusen Kankei Shiryō II Kaisetsu 1997 pp 25 29 Dokugasusen Kankei Shiryō II Kaisetsu 1997 p 28 Hidenari pp 106 108 Wetzler pp 25 231 Japan s decision for war records of the 1941 policy conferences Nobutaka Ike Stanford Calif Stanford University Press 1967 ISBN 0 8047 0305 1 OCLC 236283 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint others link Bix Herbert P 2001 Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Harper Collins pp 411 745 ISBN 9780060931308 Prange G W Dillon K V Goldstein D M 1991 At Dawn We Slept The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Revised Edition United Kingdom Penguin Publishing Group Pike F 2016 Hirohito s War The Pacific War 1941 1945 United Kingdom Bloomsbury Publishing Chapter III Politico Military Evolution Toward War history army mil Retrieved 25 November 2022 Wetzler pp 52 54 Fujiwara Shōwa tennō no jugo nen sensō 1991 p 126 citing Kenji Tomita s diary Hidenari p 118 Bix p 421 Wetzler pp 47 50 Day of Deceit Robert B Stinnett New York 2000 p 143 Wetzler pp 29 35 Bix pp 424 430 431 Bartsch William H 2003 December 8 1941 MacArthur s Pearl Harbor p 187 Yamada pp 180 181 185 Fujiwara pp 135 138 Akamatsu s diary in Wetzler p 50 Herbert Bix Emperor Hirohito s war History Today Dec 1991 41 12 Herbert P Bix Japan s Delayed Surrender a Reinterpretation Diplomatic History 1995 19 2 197 225 online David C Earhart Certain Victory Images of World War II in the Japanese Media 2015 Robert A Pape 2014 Bombing to Win Air Power and Coercion in War pp 117 118 ISBN 9780801471513 Bix p 756 Fujita Hisanori Jijucho no kaiso Chuo Koronsha 1987 pp 66 67 Bix p 489 Kido Kōichi Nikki p 1223 Hidenari p 129 Storry Richard 1991 A History of Modern Japan Penguin Hirohito s Jewel Voice Broadcast The Air Force Association August 2012 Archived from the original on 10 September 2013 Retrieved 14 August 2013 Bix p 676 Dower p 606 a b c d e He Yinan 2015 The Search for Reconciliation Sino Japanese and German Polish Relations since World War II pp 125 126 Cunliffe William H Select Documents on Japanese War Crimes and Japanese Biological Warfare 1934 2006 PDF archives gov Retrieved 12 September 2022 a b Gady Franz Stefan 15 August 2015 Should the United States be Blamed for Japan s Historical Revisionism The Diplomat Retrieved 12 September 2022 Bix Herbert 2000 Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan New York HarperCollins p 545 ISBN 978 0 06 093130 8 a b Yoshimi Yoshiaki Matsuno Seiya 1997 Dokugasusen Kankei Shiryō II 毒ガス戦関係資料 II Kaisetsu Jugonen Sensō Gokuhi Shiryoshu 十五年戦争極秘資料集 Tōkyō Fuji Shuppan pp 27 29 a b Divine Dr Robert A 2005 Warriors and Scholars A Modern War reader edited by Peter B Lane and Ronald E Marcello pp 94 96 a b Emperor Hirohito Atomic Heritage Foundation Laquerre Paul Yanic 2013 Showa Chronicles of a Fallen God Preface Wetzler p 3 Dower a b Bix Bix Herbert Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan New York Perennial 2001 page 365 Landers Peter 19 August 2019 Japan s Wartime Emperor Showed Remorse over Nanjing Massacre Wall Street Journal 1889 Japanese Constitution history hanover edu Fujiwara Akira 1991 Shōwa Tennō no Ju go Nen Sensō The Shōwa Emperor fifteen years war Wetzler a b c Chira Susan 22 January 1989 Post Hirohito Japan Debates His War Role The New York Times Retrieved 10 April 2009 Shōwa tennō no Ju go nen sensō Aoki Shoten 1991 p 122 Yinan He International Relations Awaya Kentarō The Tokyo Tribunal War Responsibility and the Japanese People Japan Focus Timothy Amos trans The Asia Pacific Journal Retrieved 10 April 2009 Sanger David 19 January 1990 Mayor Who Faulted Hirohito Is Shot The New York Times Retrieved 10 April 2009 Fleury Jean Senat 2019 Hirohito Guilty or Innocent Prologue p xxvi Pike Francis 2015 Hirohito s War The Pacific War 1941 1945 p 120 a b c d e f Yamaguchi Mari 27 July 2018 Newly released 1941 memo says Emperor Hirohito at ease with attack on Pearl Harbor Honolulu Star Advertiser Retrieved 26 February 2020 a b Landers Peter 19 August 2019 Japan s Wartime Emperor Showed Remorse Over Nanjing Massacre The Wall Street Journal a b c Diary tells of Emperor Hirohito s anguish in final years over blame for war 23 August 2018 Rich Motoko 24 August 2018 Aide s Diary Suggests Hirohito Agonized over His War Responsibility The New York Times Rich Motoko 24 August 2018 Aide s Diary Suggests Hirohito Agonized Over His War Responsibility The New York Times Retrieved 26 February 2020 a b c d e f g Kitano Ryuichi 6 December 2021 Diary Hirohito prepared for U S war before Pearl Harbor attack The Asahi Shimbun Retrieved 30 January 2022 a b c d e Hirohito uncomfortable with war but powerless to stop website Kyodo News 20 July 2017 Archived from the original on 14 December 2018 Retrieved 23 February 2020 SDHF Newsletter No 18 Dissentient Judgment of Justice Pal Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact www sdh fact com Retrieved 17 June 2018 a b The Tokyo Judgment and the Rape of Nanking by Timothy Brook The Journal of Asian Studies August 2001 陛下 お尋ね申し上げます 1988 p 209 陛下 お尋ね申し上げます 1988 p 212 陛下 お尋ね申し上げます 1988 p 216 陛下 お尋ね申し上げます 1988 pp 226 227 昭和天皇語録 2004 p 332 陛下 お尋ね申し上げます 1988 p 313 Bix pp 571 573 Ashida Hitoshi Nikki Dai Ikkan Iwanami Shoten 1986 p 82 Dower Bix Dower p 325 Dower p 585 Dower p 583 Dower p 326 Bix p 585 Dower 1999 pp 308 318 Wetzler p 3 Large Stephen S Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan A Political Biography p 60 Routledge 1992 Hirohito Biography Full Name Surrender amp Facts Encyclopedia Britannica Brands Hal 2006 The Emperor s New Clothes American Viewsof Hirohito after World War II Historian 68 1 1 28 doi 10 1111 j 1540 6563 2006 00133 x S2CID 145812761 皇族 天皇家の近現代史 小田部雄次 中公新書 2011 米側の昭和天皇政治利用に外相が 迷惑千万 外交文書公開 MSN産経ニュース 7 March 2013 Archived from the original on 10 March 2013 Retrieved 7 March 2013 東洋英和女学院大学大学院 国際協力研究科 増田弘 外交文書公開に関する備忘録 Nine controversial state visits to the UK Sky News Retrieved 6 June 2020 Popham Peter 15 May 1996 A love affair at work turns sour The Independent Retrieved 15 September 2018 a b 陛下 お尋ね申し上げます 1988 p 193 1975 SAW HIROHITO IN WILLIAMSBURG Daily Press Retrieved 27 November 2022 https www fordlibrarymuseum gov library document 0204 7368373 pdf Times Philip Shabecoff Special to The New York 4 October 1975 At Arlington Cemetery a Wreath From the Emperor and Empress of Japan The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 28 November 2022 A Rare Glimpse The New York Times 6 October 1975 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 28 November 2022 The brief career of the Emperor Showa Imperial Household Agency Japanese Kunaicho go jp Retrieved 3 October 2010 Hydrozoa Taxon List World Hydrozoa Database Retrieved 6 January 2016 Explainer Why Yasukuni shrine is a controversial symbol of Japan s war legacy Reuters 14 August 2021 Hirohito visits to Yasukuni stopped over war criminals The Japan Times Online The Japan Times Online Search japantimes co jp 21 July 2006 Retrieved 3 October 2010 King Bhumibol s reign The New York Times 21 May 1989 Archived from the original on 22 October 2019 Retrieved 23 February 2020 Chapter V The Imperial Court The Imperial House and The Reigning Sovereign p 46 The Japan Manchoukuo Year Book 1938 The Japan Manchoukuo Year Book Co Tokyo No 32324 The London Gazette Supplement 13 May 1921 p 3917 No 32317 The London Gazette Supplement 9 May 1921 p 3737 No 33619 The London Gazette 27 June 1930 p 4028 Peterson James W 2001 Weaver Barry C Quigley Michael A eds Orders and Medals of Japan and Associated States San Ramon California Orders and Medals Society of America ISBN 978 1 890974 09 1 Suomen Valkoisen Ruusun Suurristi Ketjuineen ritarikunnat fi in Finnish Retrieved 7 May 2020 Den kongelige norske Sanct Olavs Orden Norges Statskalender for Aaret 1930 in Norwegian Oslo Forlagt av H Aschehoug amp Co w Nygaard 1930 pp 995 996 via runeberg org Sveriges statskalender in Swedish vol 2 1940 p 7 retrieved 6 January 2018 via runeberg org Jorgen Pedersen 2009 Riddere af Elefantordenen 1559 2009 in Danish Syddansk Universitetsforlag p 466 ISBN 978 87 7674 434 2 Kawalerowie i statuty Orderu Orla Bialego 1705 2008 2008 p 298 aecngkhwamsanknaykrthmntri eruxng thwayekhruxngrachxisriyaphrnaedsmedcphrackrphrrdiaehngpraethsyipun PDF in Thai www ratchakitcha soc go th Retrieved 31 December 2014 Royal Thai Government Gazette 31 January 1925 sngekhruxngkhttiyrachxisriyaphrnipphrarachthan PDF in Thai Retrieved 8 May 2019 NEPAL Order of Ojaswi Rajanya PDF 27 September 2015 Archived from the original PDF on 27 September 2015 GOVPH The Order of Sikatuna Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines Retrieved 3 December 2016 Viagem do Presidente Geisel ao Japao September 1976 Retrieved 15 May 2018 Italy Ministero dell interno 1920 Calendario generale del regno d Italia p 58 Le onorificenze della Repubblica Italiana www quirinale it Tonga Royalty Posing with Japanese Leaders Pictures Getty Images 6 October 2016 Archived from the original on 6 October 2016 No 32318 The London Gazette Supplement 9 May 1921 p 3747 List of the Knights of the Garter via heraldica org Corner E J H 1990 His Majesty Emperor Hirohito of Japan K G 29 April 1901 7 January 1989 Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 36 242 272 doi 10 1098 rsbm 1990 0032 Boletin Oficial del Estado PDF Retrieved 3 December 2016 Naval History Hirohito Showa Real y distinguida orden de Carlos III Guia Oficial de Espana in Spanish 1930 p 221 retrieved 7 June 2020 Kolana Radu Bileho lva aneb hlavy statu v retezech in Czech Czech Medals and Orders Society Retrieved 9 August 2018 The Imperial Orders and Decorations of Ethiopia Archived 26 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine The Crown Council of Ethiopia Retrieved 7 September 2020 Sergey Semenovich Levin 2003 Lists of Knights and Ladies Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First called 1699 1917 Order of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine 1714 1917 Moscow A review of the hydroids of the family Clathrozonidae with description of a new genus and species from Japan Hathi Trust Digital Library 1967 Retrieved 25 December 2016 Some hydroids from the Amakusa Islands Hathi Trust Digital Library 1969 Retrieved 25 December 2016 Additional notes on Clathrozoon wilsoni Spencer by Hirohito Emperor of Japan Hathi Trust Digital Library 1971 Retrieved 25 December 2016 Some hydrozoans of the Bonin Islands Stanford University Libraries 25 February 1974 Five hydroid species from the Gulf of Aqaba Red Sea by Hirohito Hathi Trust Digital Library 1977 Retrieved 25 December 2016 Hydroids from Izu Oshima and Niijima World Cat OCLC 647103657 A new hydroid Hydractinia bayeri n sp family Hydractiniidae from the Bay of Panama Stanford University Libraries 25 February 1984 Retrieved 25 December 2016 The Hydroids of Sagami Bay by Hirohito Emperor of Japan National Library of Australia 1988 Retrieved 25 December 2016 The hydroids of Sagami Bay II Thecata World Cat OCLC 154263373 Sources External video Presentation by Herbert Bix on Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan 15 September 2000 Booknotes interview with Herbert Bix on Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan 2 September 2001 C SPAN Presentation by John Dower on Embracing Defeat 1 April 1999 C SPAN Booknotes interview with John Dower on Embracing Defeat 26 March 2000 C SPANBehr Edward 1989 Hirohito Behind the Myth New York Villard ISBN 9780394580722 A controversial book that posited Hirohito as a more active protagonist of World War II than publicly portrayed it contributed to the re appraisal of his role Herbert P Bix 2000 Hirohito And The Making Of Modern Japan Harper ISBN 978 0 06 019314 0 Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for General Non Fiction and the 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography Dower John W 1999 Embracing Defeat Japan in the Wake of World War II W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 393 32027 5 awarded Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Drea Edward J 1998 Chasing a Decisive Victory Emperor Hirohito and Japan s War with the West 1941 1945 In the Service of the Emperor Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army Nebraska University of Nebraska Press ISBN 978 0 8032 1708 9 Archived from the original on 12 November 2018 via Archived copy Fujiwara Akira Shōwa Tennō no Ju go Nen Sensō Shōwa Emperor s Fifteen year War Aoki Shoten 1991 ISBN 4 250 91043 1 Based on the primary sources Hidenari Terasaki Shōwa tennō dokuhakuroku Bungei Shunjusha 1991 Edwin Palmer Hoyt 1992 Hirohito The Emperor and the Man Praeger Publishers ISBN 978 0 275 94069 0 Toshiaki Kawahara 1990 Hirohito and His Times A Japanese Perspective Kodansha America ISBN 978 0 87011 979 8 Laquerre Paul Yanic Showa Chronicles of a Fallen God ISBN 978 1729431597 ASIN B00H6W4TYI Mosley Leonard Hirohito Emperor of Japan Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs 1966 ISBN 1 111 75539 6 1 199 99760 9 The first full length biography it gives his basic story Pike Francis Hirohito s War The Pacific War 1941 1945 2016 1208pp Richard Arthur Brabazon Ponsonby Fane 1959 The Imperial House of Japan Ponsonby Memorial Society Wetzler Peter 1998 Hirohito and War Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan University of Hawaii Press ISBN 978 0 8248 1925 5 Further readingBrands Hal The Emperor s New Clothes American Views of Hirohito after World War II Historian 68 1 pp 1 28 online Macartney Alex F Hirohitler on the Rhine Transnational Protest Against the Japanese Emperor s 1971 West German State Visit Journal of Contemporary History 2020 55 3 pp 622 644 doi 10 1177 0022009420907666 Wilson Sandra Enthroning Hirohito Culture and Nation in 1920s Japan Journal of Japanese Studies 37 2 2011 pp 289 323 onlineExternal links Media related to Shōwa Emperor at Wikimedia Commons Quotations related to Hirohito at Wikiquote Data related to Hirohito at Wikispecies Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun at the Imperial Household Agency website Reflections on Emperor Hirohito s death Hirohito at IMDb Newspaper clippings about Hirohito in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBWHirohitoImperial House of JapanBorn 29 April 1901 Died 7 January 1989Regnal titlesPreceded byTaishō Emperor of Japan25 December 1926 7 January 1989 Succeeded byAkihito Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Hirohito amp oldid 1132457058, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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