Colonel was one of the original plotters in a scheme to prevent the Emperor's declaration of surrender at the end of World War II. He was the chief of the War Affairs section of the Military Affairs Bureau 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 Emperor o ...

Conspiracy

Given his relatively high station, Arao acted as the representative of the plotters to some extent, hoping to enlist the aid of

Minister of War A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...

Korechika Anami was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II who was War Minister during the surrender of Japan. Early life and career Anami was born in Taketa city in Ōita Prefecture, where his father was a senior bureaucrat in the Home M ...

. Meeting with Anami on the night of August 13 (two days before the surrender), Arao was informed that the Minister stood behind the Emperor's decisions, and that in any case, Japan could not afford to continue fighting. Unthinkable as it was, surrender was the only option. As one of his chief contributions to the ''coup'', Arao drafted an 'Instruction to the Troops' which was to be broadcast to all of Japan's soldiers, encouraging them to keep fighting. This was originally supported and approved by General Anami; however, while he spoke with the War Minister, several of the more rash members of the conspiracy broadcast an earlier, more inflammatory, draft. The following morning, Arao and the other conspirators met to plot the actual details of their plan to take over the Imperial Palace, placing the Emperor under house arrest, and preventing the surrender speech from being delivered. Arao drafted the orders that were to be given to those elements of the Imperial Guards Division and other groups involved in the ''coup''. The conspirators then met with Anami once more; the Minister, having wavered back and forth several times in his support of their plan, once again told them the ''coup'' would have to be abandoned. He said that Army Chief of Staff

Yoshijirō Umezu (January 4, 1882 – January 8, 1949) was a Japanese general in World War II and Chief of the Army General Staff during the final years of the conflict. He was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment. Biography Early life a ...

felt that employment of armed forces within the Palace grounds would be sacrilege. Though he was one of the original conspirators, Arao in the end turned his back on the ''coup'', and helped write the generals' agreement document stating that those military commanders who signed swore to abide by the Emperor's decision. Unlike many of the other conspirators, Arao survived through the events of August 15, 1945, and would, many years later, continue to admire General Anami, and the devotion and strength it took to bring the war to an end in the way he did.

References

* Brooks, Lester (1968). "Behind Japan's Surrender: The Secret Struggle That Ended an Empire." New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. {{DEFAULTSORT:Arao, Okitsugu Arao Okitsugu Imperial Japanese Army officers 1902 births 1974 deaths Imperial Japanese Army personnel of World War II

Conspiracy

See also

References