The 1974 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing ( ja, 三菱重工爆破事件) was a

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

bombing A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanica ...

of the

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi ...

headquarters 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 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

on 30 August 1974, killing eight people and injuring 376 others. The bombing was committed by the

East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front The was a Japanese New Left terrorist organization that existed from 1972 to 1975. The EAAJAF self-identifies as a leftist group which espouses Anti-Japaneseism ideology of revolution against the Japanese state, corporations, and symbols of J ...

, a radical

far-left Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single definition. Some scholars conside ...

anti-Japanese organization, against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for supplying 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., ...

against North Vietnam during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. The 1974 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack in Japan until the Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995.

Background

The

(; EAAJAF) was a

ese

organization, influenced by the

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights ...

movement. Founded in 1972, it espoused a

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

anti-Japaneseism is a radical ideology promoted by a faction of the Japanese New Left that advocates for the destruction of the nation of Japan. The ideology was first conceived by Katsuhisa Oomori, a member of the New Left, in the 1970s. Extending from anti- ...

ideology, with

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...

leanings. The EAAJAF viewed the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent form ...

as the "perfect evil" and condemned the

Pacific war The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vas ...

as an "aggressive war" committed by Japan. In 1971, the EAAJAF's predecessor organization had launched a campaign of non-fatal

s against the Japanese state, especially targeting symbols associated with Japanese imperialism, but in 1974 escalated its campaign to include the use of

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...

. On 14 August 1974, the EAAJAF tried to blow up the bridge over which Emperor Hirohito's royal train was travelling, which they code-named the "Rainbow Operation", but this was aborted because a member was spotted shortly before it was to be put into action. The following day

Mun Se-gwang Mun Se-gwang (December 26, 1951 – December 20, 1974) was a Japanese-born North Korean sympathizer who attempted to assassinate South Korean president Park Chung-hee on August 15, 1974. The assassination attempt resulted in the deaths of Park ...

, a Korean-Japanese member of Chongryon and a far-left militant organization tied to the EAAJAF, attempted to assassinate President Park Chung-hee of

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. Despite Mun's failure to kill Park, the attack soured the already fragile

Japan–South Korea relations After the division of Korea, Japan and South Korea established diplomatic relations in December 1965, under the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, with Japan recognizing South Korea as the only legitimate gover ...

and encouraged the EAAJAF's Wolf cell into committing new terrorist bombings in sympathy with Mun. The EAAJAF targeted

, a large Japanese

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...

which manufactured military weapons that were later used by the

against North Vietnam in the

in the early 1970s.

Bombing

Members of the 'Wolf' () cell of EAAJAF planted two powerful home-made time bombs (containing 45

kilogram The kilogram (also kilogramme) is the unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo colloquially. ...

s of explosives) in a

flower pot A flowerpot, planter, planterette or plant pot, is a container in which flowers and other plants are cultivated and displayed. Historically, and still to a significant extent today, they are made from plain terracotta with no ceramic glaze, w ...

at the entrance of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' head office block in the busy Marunouchi district of

. The EAAJAF gave a telephone warning to the people inside the building eight minutes before the explosion, but it was dismissed as a joke, and another warning came four minutes later after the first warning was ignored, but the telephone exchange still did not launch an evacuation procedure. One of the bombs failed to detonate but the other did, exploding at 12:45 p.m. ( UTC+9), which was around lunchtime. Eight people died: five people were killed instantly (including two Mitsubishi employees) while another three died after being hospitalized shortly afterwards. An estimated 376 people were injured in the blast, with about 330 people brought to hospital, of which 116 were Mitsubishi employees. The explosion blasted all of the office block's glass up to eleven stories high, as well as glass from buildings opposite which included the headquarters of Mitsubishi Electric, and was loud enough to be heard from

Shinjuku is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative centre, housing the northern half of the busiest railway station in the world ( Shinjuku Station) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration ...

, over away. Vehicles and some trees in the streets were also destroyed.

Aftermath

The bombing caused a lot more damage than the EAAJAF expected due to the lack of evacuation, causing an outrage among the media. One editor said "This incident is a most atrocious challenge to our society. Society itself was the target and the victim." The ''

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'' incited for a "show of public wrath" against the terrorists. However, rightist Prime Minister

Kakuei Tanaka was a Japanese politician who served in the House of Representatives from 1947 to 1990, and was Prime Minister of Japan from 1972 to 1974. After a power struggle with Takeo Fukuda, he became the most influential member of the ruling Liberal ...

as well as leaders of leftist parties remained silent about the incident. Nervousness among the Tokyo population increased following two other bombings carried out by the group in the city in 1974, with the police still not having made arrests. The members of EAAJAF were arrested on 19 May 1975. In 1987, Masashi Daidoji and Toshiaki Masunaga were convicted and sentenced to death. Daidoji, leader of the former group's Wolf cell, said during court hearings that the bombing was "a mistake". In May 1999 while on death row, he apologized to the victims for the first time, saying "Our causing casualties is not something I can justify. I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart." Daidoji died on 24 May 2017 at the Tokyo Detention Center. The 1974 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack as defined by modern standards that had occurred in Japan at the time, and remained the deadliest for over two decades until the Tokyo subway sarin attack on 20 March 1995 which killed 12 people.

External links

Associated Press video of the bomb's aftermath - YouTube

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing Explosions in 1974 Shōwa period History of Tokyo Mass murder in 1974 Communist terrorist incidents in Asia Massacres in Japan 1974 in Tokyo Terrorist incidents in Tokyo August 1974 events in Asia Terrorist incidents in Japan in 1974 1974 murders in Japan Vietnam War

Background

Bombing

Aftermath

See also

External links

References