The coup was attempted by the Staff Office of the Ministry of War of Japan and many from the Imperial Guard to stop the move to surrender.

[3] After the closure of the air-raid shelter session, Suzuki mustered the Supreme Council for the Direction of War again, now as an Imperial Conference, which Emperor Hirohito attended.

[clarification needed] The War Ministry knew the decision of the conference and stirred up a fierce reaction from many officers who intended continued resistance.

At this time, the core group of these officers had already prepared some troops in Tokyo (兵力使用計画, heiryoku shiyō keikaku, literally "military force usage plan").

Late on the night of 12 August 1945, Major Kenji Hatanaka, along with Lieutenant Colonels Masataka Ida, Masahiko Takeshita (Anami's brother-in-law), and Masao Inaba, and Colonel Okikatsu Arao, the Chief of the Military Affairs Section, spoke to Anami (the army minister and "most powerful figure in Japan besides the Emperor himself"),[5] and asked him to do whatever he could to prevent acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration.

"[5] Anami then confronted a Colonel Saburo Hayashi in a washroom and asked about "the possibility of attacking a large American convoy rumored to be outside of Tokyo".

This written accord by the most senior officers in the Army, in addition to Anami's announcement, acted as a formidable firebreak against any attempt to incite a coup d'état in Tokyo.

The Second Regiment of the First Imperial Guards had entered the palace grounds, doubling the strength of the battalion already stationed there, presumably to provide extra protection against Hatanaka's rebellion.

Hatanaka also went to the office of General Shizuichi Tanaka, commander of the Eastern region of the army, to try to persuade him to join the coup.

[9] Originally, Hatanaka hoped that simply occupying the palace and showing the beginnings of a rebellion would inspire the rest of the Army to rise up against the move to surrender.

This notion guided him through much of the last days and hours and gave him the blind optimism to move ahead with the plan, despite having little support from his superiors.

Hatanaka, Shiizaki, Ida, and Captain Shigetarō Uehara (of the Air Force Academy) went to the office of Lt. General Takeshi Mori to ask him to join the coup.

[15] Over the course of the night, Hatanaka's rebels captured and detained eighteen people, including Ministry staff and NHK workers sent to record the surrender speech.

[15] The rebels, led by Hatanaka, spent the next several hours fruitlessly searching for Imperial Household Minister Sōtarō Ishiwata [ja], Lord of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido, and the recordings of the surrender speech.

[16][17] The search was made more difficult by a blackout in response to Allied bombings, and by the archaic organization and layout of the Imperial House Ministry.

At about the same time, in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, another group of Hatanaka's rebels led by Captain Takeo Sasaki went to Prime Minister Suzuki's office, intent on killing him.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu had warned Suzuki, and he escaped minutes before the would-be assassins arrived.

[20][21] Finally, seeing his plan collapsing around him, Hatanaka pleaded with Tatsuhiko Takashima [ja], Chief of Staff of the Eastern District Army, to be given at least ten minutes on the air on NHK radio, to explain to the people of Japan what he was trying to accomplish and why.

[22] Colonel Haga, commander of the Second Regiment of the First Imperial Guards, discovered that the Army did not support this rebellion, and he ordered Hatanaka to leave the palace grounds.

Just before 05:00, as his rebels continued their search, Hatanaka went to NHK studios, and, brandishing a pistol, tried desperately to get some airtime to explain his actions.