The was a

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

broadcast of surrender given by

Japanese Emperor The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his position is derived from "the w ...

Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , 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 ...

(Shōwa) on August 15, 1945. It announced to the

Japanese people The are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago."人類学上は，旧石器時代あるいは縄文時代以来，現在の北海道〜沖縄諸島（南西諸島）に住んだ集団を祖先にもつ人々。" () Ja ...

that the

Japanese Government The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary state, ...

had accepted the

Potsdam Declaration The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, Uni ...

demanding the unconditional surrender of the Japanese military at the end of World War II. Following the

Hiroshima bombing The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

on August 6, the Soviet declaration of war and the

Nagasaki bombing The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

on August 9, the Emperor's speech was broadcast at noon

Japan Standard Time , or , is the standard time zone in Japan, 9 hours ahead of UTC ( UTC+09:00). Japan does not observe daylight saving time, though its introduction has been debated on several occasions. During World War II, the time zone was often referred t ...

on August 15, 1945, and referred to the atomic bombs as a reason for the surrender. The speech is the first known instance of an

Emperor of Japan The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his position is derived from "the ...

speaking to the common people (albeit via a

phonograph record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...

). It was delivered in formal

Classical Japanese The classical Japanese language ( ''bungo'', "literary language"), also called "old writing" ( ''kobun''), sometimes simply called "Medieval Japanese" is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the early Shōwa p ...

, with much pronunciation unfamiliar to ordinary Japanese. The speech made no direct reference to a

surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Na ...

, instead stating that the government had been instructed to accept the " joint declaration" of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

and the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...

(the latter power having joined the declaration upon declaring war on Japan). This confused many listeners not familiar with the declaration whether Japan had actually surrendered. Both the poor audio quality of the radio broadcast and the formal courtly language worsened the confusion. A digitally-remastered version of the broadcast was released in June 2015.

Recording

The speech was not broadcast directly, but replayed from a phonograph recording. On August 14, 1945, the

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

dispatched sound technicians to the Imperial Palace to record the broadcast. Microphones were set up in an office bunker under the

Imperial Household Ministry The (IHA) is an agency of the government of Japan in charge of state matters concerning the Imperial Family, and also the keeping of the Privy Seal and State Seal of Japan. From around the 8th century AD, up until the Second World War, it ...

, and

Emperor Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , 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 ...

proceeded in between 11:25p.m. and 11:30p.m. During the first recording he spoke too softly, and upon the advice of the technicians, offered to rerecord it. On the second attempt, his voice was considered too high pitched, with occasional characters being skipped. Nevertheless, the second version was deemed the official one, with the first serving as a backup.

Broadcast

Many elements of the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emper ...

refused to accept that the emperor was going to end the war, believing it dishonourable. As many as 1,000 officers and soldiers raided the Imperial Palace on the evening of August 14 to destroy the recording. The rebels were confused by the layout of the palace and were unable to find the recordings, which had been hidden in a pile of documents. The two phonographs were labelled ''original'' and ''copy'' and successfully smuggled out of the palace, the original in a lacquer box and the copy in a lunch bag. Major

Kenji Hatanaka (28 March 1912 – 15 August 1945) was a Japanese military officer and one of the chief conspirators in the Kyūjō incident, a plot to seize the Imperial Palace and to prevent the broadcast of Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech to mark th ...

attempted to halt the broadcast at the NHK station but was ordered to desist by the

Eastern District Army The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army responsible for the defense of the Kantō region and northern Honshū during the Pacific War. It was one of the regional commands in the Japanese home islands reporting to the General Defense Comm ...

. On the morning of August 15, all NHK stations announced that the Emperor would address the nation at noon. Many of the people wore formal clothes for the occasion. At precisely noon that day, an NHK announcer instructed the nation to stand for an announcement "of the highest importance." The national anthem, , was played, followed by the Emperor's speech. Reportedly, this was the first time that common Japanese had heard the voice of any Japanese emperor and the first radio address by the emperor. To ease the anticipated confusion, after the conclusion of the speech, a radio announcer clarified that the Emperor's message had meant that Japan was surrendering. According to

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

Robert Guillain Robert Guillain (4 September 1908 – 29 December 1998) was a French journalist who spent most of his career in Asia at times of momentous events, such as the Pacific War. He wrote several books on Asia, especially Japan. Guillain was considered ...

, who then lived in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

, upon the announcement's conclusion, most Japanese retreated to their homes or places of business for several hours to quietly absorb and contemplate the significance of the announcement.

Content

Though the word "surrender" was not explicitly stated, the emperor instructed his

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...

to communicate to the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

that the "empire accepts the provisions of their joint declaration", which amounted to an acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. He justified Japan's decision to go to war as an act of "self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia" and referenced the setbacks and defeats of recent years, saying "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage". He mentioned the

atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

that had occurred days earlier, calling the atomic bomb a "new and most cruel bomb". The emperor ended with a call on the Japanese people "to be devoted to construction for the future". The broadcast was translated into English and broadcast internationally by radio presenter Tadaichi Hirakawa at the same time. In the U.S., the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC) recorded the broadcast, and its entire text appeared in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''.

Full text

Media releases

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Notes

References

External links

Audio recording of entire speech, in Japanese

Photo containing English text of the Emperor's declaration

* [https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/the-emperors-speech-67-years-ago-hirohito-transformed-japan-forever/261166/ The Emperor's Speech: 67 Years Ago, Hirohito Transformed Japan Forever], ''The Atlantic'', August 15, 2012 {{Authority control August 1945 events in Asia 1945 in Japan 1945 in radio 1945 speeches Hirohito Japan in World War II Rescripts Surrender of Japan World War II speeches 1945 in military history Japanese Imperial rescripts