February 26 Incident Memorial Statue

The February 26 Incident Memorial Statue (二・二六事件慰霊像) stands at the former site of the Tokyo Army Military Prison (東京陸軍刑務所) in Udagawa-cho, Shibuya Ward, Tokyo. This is the location where fifteen officers and civilians condemned for the February 26 Incident (二・二六事件) were executed by firing squad on July 12, 1936, followed by four more — Asaichi Isobe, Takaji Muranaka, Ikki Kita and Mitsugi Nishida — on August 19, 1937. Lieutenant Colonel Saburo Aizawa, convicted in the separate Aizawa Incident of 1935, had been shot at the same prison on July 3, 1936.

The February 26 Incident (二・二六事件, Ni-niroku Jiken) was an attempted coup d'état that took place on February 26, 1936, when nearly 1,500 troops (1,483 NCOs and soldiers) led by a faction of radical young Army officers attacked the residences of senior government officials and occupied the political center of Tokyo around Nagatacho and Miyakezaka. The rebels, motivated by ultranationalist ideology and the Kodoha (Imperial Way) faction's vision of a "Showa Restoration" (昭和維新), assassinated Finance Minister Korekiyo Takahashi (高橋是清), Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Makoto Saito (斎藤実), and Inspector General of Military Education Jotaro Watanabe (渡辺錠太郎). Prime Minister Keisuke Okada narrowly escaped death when the rebels mistakenly killed his brother-in-law, Colonel Denzo Matsuo.

The rebels occupied the area around the Prime Minister's Official Residence, the War Ministry, the Diet Building, and the Metropolitan Police Headquarters from February 26 to 29. Emperor Hirohito firmly opposed the rebellion and ordered its suppression. On February 29, the rebel troops surrendered without further bloodshed.

In the aftermath, a secret military tribunal tried the rebel officers. Fifteen of those sentenced to death, including the civilian Gen'ichi Mizukami, were executed by firing squad at the Tokyo Army Military Prison on July 12, 1936; Isobe and Muranaka, together with the civilian ideologues Ikki Kita and Mitsugi Nishida, were executed on August 19, 1937. The prison occupied what is now the area around Udagawa-cho 1-chome in Shibuya, near the present-day NHK Broadcasting Center.

The memorial statue was erected on February 26, 1965 — the 30th anniversary of the incident — by the Busshinkai (仏心会), an organization formed by the parents, widows, and children of the executed rebels. The Busshinkai had been prevented from publicly commemorating the executed men during the wartime and early postwar periods. The statue depicts Kannon (観音), the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion, and is dedicated not only to the nineteen executed men but to all who lost their lives in connection with the incident, including the assassinated government officials and their bodyguards.

Today the modest statue stands quietly at a corner near the Shibuya Government Building (housing the Tokyo Legal Affairs Bureau and Shibuya Tax Office), easily overlooked by the millions who pass through bustling Shibuya each day. Flowers and offerings are regularly placed at the site, particularly around February 26 and July 12 each year. Joint memorial services are also held on February 26 and July 12 each year at Kensoji temple in Moto-Azabu, where the men's grave marker stands.