Jirō Shiizaki (椎崎二郎, ''Shiizaki Jirō'') (30 September 1911 – 15 August 1945) was a lieutenant colonel in 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 ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He served as a member of the staff of the domestic affairs section of the Military Affairs Bureau's War Affairs Section. Shiizaki was one of several members of that staff to participate in a ''coup'' (the

Kyūjō incident The was an attempted military coup d'état in the Empire of Japan at the end of the Second World War. It happened on the night of 14–15 August 1945, just before the announcement of Japan's surrender to the Allies. The coup was attempted by the ...

) in the early morning of 15 August 1945, the day the Emperor would declare Japan's surrender. The coup was organized primarily by 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 the ...

, and though quite a number of men were involved in the plot at one point or another, Shiizaki was one of the few to be involved in the climactic action; the rebels, with the help of the First Imperial Guard Division, seized the Imperial Palace, held

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 ...

under, essentially, house arrest, and sought to destroy the phonographic recordings which had been made of the Emperor's surrender speech. Sometime around seven o'clock on the morning of August 15, the plot began to fall apart. General

Shizuichi Tanaka was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and Japanese Military Governor of the Philippines during World War II. Biography Early life and military service Tanaka was born in Issai village, Hyōgo prefecture (now part of the city of Tatsun ...

, commander of 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 ...

, arrived at the Palace and harangued the conspirators on their duty to their country, and demanding that the dishonor brought by their treason could only be absolved through ''

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

''. Shiizaki, along with a number of others, committed ritual suicide that morning, on the grounds of the Imperial Palace.

References

*Brooks, Lester (1968). "Behind Japan's Surrender: The Secret Struggle That Ended an Empire." New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shiizaki Japanese rebels Imperial Japanese Army personnel of World War II 1911 births 1945 deaths Kyūjō incident Japanese military personnel who committed suicide Imperial Japanese Army officers