Emperor Hirohito’s recorded surrender broadcast aired to the Japanese public on 15 August 1945.
The broadcast was transmitted at noon Japan Standard Time. Hirohito announced that Japan had accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, although he did not use the ordinary Japanese word for surrender directly in the recording. Instead, he described the difficult war situation and instructed the nation to accept the Allied declaration.
The speech followed the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August, the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Japanese-held territory on 9 August, and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on the same date. The combination of these developments intensified pressure on Japan’s leadership.
Many listeners struggled to understand the recording because it used formal Classical Japanese and had poor audio quality. The announcement is remembered as the Jewel Voice Broadcast, while the formal surrender document was signed aboard USS Missouri on 2 September.