<P> A faction of the army opposed to the surrender attempted a coup d'état on the evening of 14 August . They seized the Imperial Palace (the Kyūjō incident), but the physical recording of the emperor's speech was hidden and preserved overnight . The coup was crushed by the next morning, and the speech was broadcast . </P> <P> In his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975, when he was asked what he thought of the bombing of Hiroshima, the Emperor answered: "It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn't be helped because that happened in wartime" (shikata ga nai). </P> <P> Some historians believe Emperor Hirohito was directly responsible for the atrocities committed by the imperial forces in the Second Sino - Japanese War and in World War II . They feel that he, and some members of the imperial family such as his brother Prince Chichibu, his cousins Prince Takeda and Prince Fushimi, and his uncles Prince Kan'in, Prince Asaka, and Prince Higashikuni, should have been tried for war crimes . </P> <P> The debate over Hirohito's responsibility for war crimes concerns how much real control the Emperor had over the Japanese military during the two wars . Officially, the imperial constitution, adopted under Emperor Meiji, gave full power to the Emperor . Article 4 prescribed that, "The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution", while, according to article 6, "The Emperor gives sanction to laws and orders them to be promulgated and executed", and article 11, "The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and the Navy ." The Emperor was thus the leader of the Imperial General Headquarters . </P>

Who was the emperor of japan in ww2