God-Sent Troops

In his large Tokyo department store shrewd Merchant Hikoichie Nato looked out beneath his large level eyebrows at a pug-nosed intense young man in tortoise-shell glasses who offered to sell him a fat share of a fine, ruthless, patriotic Japanese Revolution. "We need 100,000 yen ($29,000)," explained Revolutionist Tatsuo Amano, a lawyer of nationwide notoriety since he defended the assassins of Finance Minister Junnosuke Inouye and Financier Baron Dr. Takuma Dan (TIME, July 10, 1933). As the merchant hesitated, the revolutionist argued slyly: "Consider the 100,000 yen you contribute to our cause as an investment. Sell shares short and take your profit in the slump that will follow our coup. There cannot fail to be a slump. We are going to assassinate the entire Cabinet, the leaders of all political parties, and nine great dignitaries including Count Nobuaki Makino, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal."

Merchant Nato, realizing that he now knew too much to be safe from assassination if he refused to contribute, grudgingly gave 60,000 yen, prepared to sell short. Meanwhile the plotters approached slackjowled Commander Saburo Yamaguchi, Inspector of Aircraft at Yokosuka Naval Base. Soon this simple officer had been pumped full of a patriotic idea: "Japan must be liberated from Parliament, Capitalism must be crushed, and pure Emperor-rule restored!" Fired with loyal zeal, Commander Yamaguchi agreed to drop bombs upon a Japanese Cabinet session, to blow up Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Station.

Such was the plot grimly unfolded in the Supreme Court in Tokyo last week. Fifty-four accused men sat in the dock, nabbed by the imperial police 15 months ago before they could make a move (TIME. July 31, 1933). Miserably they bleated: "We called ourselves God-Sent Troops. Our only purpose was to serve the Emperor."

Significantly both short-selling Merchant Nato and slack-jowled Commander Yamaguchi "died in jail" before the trial, as did two others who might have blabbed on the fanatical Committee of Revolution. Those tried last week were nearly all raw country youths, dupes of typical Japanese "blood brotherhood" propaganda. On paper the Great Plot had been one of the most appalling in Japanese history. But the only weapons of the plotters, aside from the bombing plane which never appeared, was a collection of Japanese swords and a handful of revolvers obviously useless against the firearms of police guarding the cabinet and dignitaries like Count Nobuaki Makino.

That Japan's blood brotherhoods still flourish disturbingly appeared last week when the notorious Black Dragon Society announced Tokyo festivities in honor of a representative recently dispatched to Japan by Ethiopia's hard pressed Emperor. This representative, potent Daba Birrou, accompanied the Duke of Gloucester on H. R. H.'s sporting tour in Ethiopia (TIME, Nov. 10, 1930). He ranks among the Emperor's closest friends, though he reached Japan entitled merely "Secretary to the Honorary Japanese Consul for Ethiopia in Osaka, Mr. Chuzaburo Yukawa."

Received by a Prince of Japan's Imperial House at Osaka, the Ethiopian chirped: "Ethiopia has many things to sell and also wants to buy from Japan."

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