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RE: What may not be widely known is that after the first bomb was dropped, and the Emperor’s advisers were attempting to end the war, a coup was begun by a number of military field-grade officers.

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I think you are referring to the Kyujo Incident (Kuyjo Jiken). That was an attempted military coup d’etat in Japan at the end of the Second World War. It happened on the night of 14 August 1945, just prior to announcement of Japan’s surrender to the Allies. The attempted coup was put into effect by the Staff Office of the Ministry of War of Japan and by many from the Imperial Guard of Japan in order to stop the move to surrender.

The officers, in an attempt to block the decision to surrender to the Allies, killed Lieutenant General Takeshi Mori of the First Imperial Guards Division and attempted to counterfeit an order from Hirohito.

They attempted to place the Emperor under house arrest, using the 2nd Brigade Imperial Guard Infantry. They failed to persuade the Eastern District Army (Japan) and the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army to move forward with the action. Due to their failure to convince the remaining army to oust the Imperial House of Japan, they ultimately committed suicide in traditional Japanese form.

The following books give an account of this:

1) Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire Paperback by Richard B. Frank

2) Japan’s War: The Great Pacific Conflict, 1853-1952 Hardcover by Edwin Palmer Hoyt

"..They attempted to place the Emperor under house arrest, using the 2nd Brigade Imperial Guard Infantry. They failed to persuade the Eastern District Army (Japan) and the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army to move forward with the action. Due to their failure to convince the remaining army to oust the Imperial House of Japan, they ultimately committed suicide in traditional Japanese form..."

I believe it was the first book you referenced, "Downfall: The end of the Imperial Japanese Empire", that I remember. I read it so many years ago that I couldn't recall the title.

One of the points I was making was that the coup started when a number of field-grade (Majors and Lieutenant Colonels) officers took it upon themselves to "protect" the emperor, not depose him, by surrounding the imperial residence and cutting him off from any further traitorous advice. This shot my eyebrows upwards, because I would have thought that an adventure reserved for the highest level of general officers.

I don't believe that those officers, however, so steeped in Bushido, would have harmed the Emperor in any way, and wouldn't have dreamed of ousting the Imperial House. This transcended politics and was religion.

Their target was to destroy the rescript, the first actual recording of the emperor's voice ever played over the radio, not the emperor himself. He could be contained merely by throwing a protective "cordon" around the residence, and thereby eliminating all communication except what flowed through them.

It is amazing what depths people worldwide can fall to when they have convinced themselves that they are acting to "save the nation". And how no limits apply to them in their zeal and righteousness.

I don't recall anything about a counterfeited order from the emperor, but I have lost much through the aging process, so it was probably so.

The danger is in how determined, finatic groups, once they put the pieces in place, can seize control of a government, by controlling the flow of information.