May 15 incident

{{Main|League of Blood Incident}}

As a result of the ratification of the London Naval Treaty limiting the size of the Imperial Japanese Navy, a movement grew within the junior officer corps to overthrow the government, and to replace it with military rule. This movement had parallels in the Sakurakai secret society organized within the Imperial Japanese Army. The naval officers established contacts with the ultranationalist Nisshō Inoue and his "League of Blood", and agreed with his philosophy that to bring about a "Shōwa Restoration", it would be necessary to assassinate leading political and business figures (Zaibatsu).{{Cn|date=June 2023}}

In 1932, during the League of Blood Incident, Inoue's group killed Inoue Junnosuke, the former Finance Minister and head of the Rikken Minseitō, and Takuma Dan, the Director-General of Mitsui Holding Company, on 9 February and 5 March respectively. While only two high-profile leaders were killed, the group had initially planned to assassinate a total of twenty financial and political leaders.{{Cite journal |last=Large |first=Stephen S. |date=2001 |title=Nationalist Extremism in Early Shōwa Japan: Inoue Nisshō and the 'Blood-Pledge Corps Incident', 1932 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/313180 |journal=Modern Asian Studies |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=533–564 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X0100302X |doi-broken-date=14 May 2025 |jstor=313180 |s2cid=145519638 |issn=0026-749X|url-access=subscription }}

File:OKAWA Shumei.jpg]] File:Charles Chaplin and Sumo wrestlers.jpg

On May 15, 1932, the naval officers, aided by army cadets, and right-wing civilian elements (including Shūmei Ōkawa, Mitsuru Tōyama, and Kōzaburō Tachibana) staged their own attempt to complete what had been started in the League of Blood Incident.

Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was shot by eleven young naval officers, many of whom had only recently turned twenty years of age, in the prime minister's residence. Inukai's last words were, roughly, {{Nihongo|"If I could speak, you would understand"|話せば分かる|hanaseba wakaru}} to which his killers replied {{Nihongo|"Dialogue is useless"|問答無用|mondō muyō}}.Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945{{Better source needed|date=October 2024}}

The original assassination plan had included killing the English film star Charlie Chaplin, who had arrived in Japan on May 14, 1932, at a reception for Chaplin planned by Prime Minister Inukai. "These activists, eager to inject a nativist Yamato spirit into politics, recognised the charged political nature of mass culture".{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}} Chaplin's murder would facilitate war with the U.S., and anxiety in Japan, and lead to "restoration" in the name of the emperor.Erotic Grotesque Nonsense:The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times, p. 1 – Miriam Silverberg, 2006 Univ of California Press. When the prime minister was killed, his son Inukai Takeru was watching a sumo wrestling match with Charlie Chaplin, which probably saved both their lives.

The insurgents also attacked the residence of Makino Nobuaki, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and head of the Rikken Seiyūkai political party, and tossed hand-grenades into Mitsubishi Bank headquarters in Tokyo, as well as several electrical transformer substations.

In spite of the murder of the prime minister, the attempted coup d'état ultimately came to nothing, and the rebellion as a whole proved a failure. The participants took a taxi to the police headquarters and surrendered themselves to the Kempeitai without a struggle.

The eleven officers who murdered Prime Minister Inukai were court-martialed. During the proceedings, the accused used the trial as a platform to proclaim their loyalty to the emperor and to arouse popular sympathy by appealing for reforms of the government and economy. By end of the trial, the court had received 110,000 clemency petitions, either signed or written entirely in blood, from sympathizers around the country pleading for a lenient sentence.{{cite book |last1=Toland |first1=John |title=The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945 |date=1970 |publisher=Random House |page=11}} Additionally, nine youths in Niigata asked to be tried by the court instead of the accused, and sent the court a jar containing nine of their own pickled severed pinky fingers as a gesture of their sincerity.Spector, Eagle Against the Sun. pp. 36

The punishment handed down by the court was extremely light, and there was little doubt in the Japanese press that the murderers of Prime Minister Inukai would be released in a couple of years, if not sooner. Failure to severely punish the plotters in the May 15 incident further eroded the rule of law and the power of the democratic government in Japan to confront the military. Indirectly, it led to the February 26 incident and the increasing rise of Japanese militarism.Beasley, The Rise of Modern Japan

• The incident is discussed at length in Season 2, Episode 5 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2004){{cite web |last1=Complex |first1=Valerie |title=Ghost in the Shell – A Primer for the Anime Series |url=https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/03/21/ghost-in-the-shell-a-primer-for-the-anime-series |website=IGN |date=21 March 2017 |access-date=18 April 2023}}
• In Christian Kracht's novel "The Dead" (2019) the incident is at the core of the story. Instead of a sumo match, Chaplin is visiting a No theatre together with the PM's son.

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book | last = Beasley | first = W.G. | year = 2000 | title = The Rise of Modern Japan, 3rd Edition: Political, Economic, and Social Change since 1850 | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan | isbn = 0-312-23373-6 | url = https://archive.org/details/riseofmodernjapa00beas_0 }}
• {{cite book | last = Borkwith | first = Mark | year = 1989 | title = Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia | publisher = Westview Press | isbn = 0-8133-3471-3 | url = https://archive.org/details/pacificcenturyed00mark }}
• {{cite book | last = Oka | first = Yoshitake| year = 1984 | title = Five Political Leaders of Modern Japan: Ito Hirobumi, Okuma Shigenobu, Hara Takashi, Inukai Tsuyoshi, and Saionji Kimmochi | publisher = University of Tokyo Press | isbn = 0-86008-379-9}}
• {{cite book | last = Sims | first = Richard | year = 2001| title = Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868–2000 | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan | isbn = 0-312-23915-7}}
• {{cite book | last = Spector | first = Ronald | author-link = Ronald H. Spector | year = 1985 | title = Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan | publisher = Vintage | isbn = 0-394-74101-3 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/eagleagainstsuna0000spec }}
• {{cite book | last = Toland | first = John | author-link = John Toland (author) | title = The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945 | publisher = Modern Library | year = 2003|edition=reprint| isbn = 0-8129-6858-1}}

{{Commonscat|May 15 Incident}}

• [http://www.ndl.go.jp/modern/e/cha4/description02.html#c421 National Diet Library Reference]

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{{Japanese coups}}

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Category:Conflicts in 1932

Category:1932 in Japan

Category:Politics of the Empire of Japan

Category:Assassinations in Japan

Category:Attempted coups in Japan

Category:Shōwa Restoration

Category:May 1932 in Asia

Category:1930s coups d'état and coup attempts

Category:Fascist revolts

Category:Fascism in Japan

Category:Terrorist incidents in the 1930s

Category:1932 murders in Japan

Category:Events that led to courts-martial