Early on the morning of February 26, 1936, young officers of the army’s Kōdōha (Imperial Way Faction) led 1,483 enlisted men in an attempted coup in the name of a “Showa Restoration”, killing four prominent figures of the time including the secretary to the prime minister and the minister of finance, and occupying important Japanese government buildings including the prime minister’s residence, residence of the army minister, offices of the general staff, and police headquarters. This became known as the February 26 Incident or 2.26 Incident, and marked a significant turning point for Japan, ultimately pushing it further and faster along the path to war.

The trials of the February 26 Incident ringleaders were held in a Tokyo under martial law, summarily and in a closed army court martial established by imperial ordinance, devoid of defense lawyers. Seventeen of the defendants were sentenced to death, with five receiving life imprisonment. Records of these trials were long purported to be non-existent, but in 1990, sixty-seven volumes containing the February 26 Incident court proceedings were discovered at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office. These were transferred to the National Archives in 2018.

The online version of this record, Tokyo Army Military Proceedings on February 26 Incident, contains a vast cache of primary source material documenting every step of the court proceedings for all those involved in the incident, from investigations to preliminary hearings, charges, and trials, making it an historical resource of unparalleled value, with potential to shed unprecedented light on the attempted coup and subsequent trials in their entirety.