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Home , Bushido, Hirohito, Kamikaze, Kamikaze (1937 aircraft), Kamikaze (typhoon), Yasukuni Shrine

t ut s t A s The Year of the By John T. Correll

s entered the final year of World II in the fall of 1944, its once-fearsome air forces were severely diminished, especially The pilots were sent to die for the Athe carriers and aircraft of the . —regardless of what the emperor The Japanese had at first extended their perimeter in a big loop that encompassed thought about it. Southeast Asia, the , Wake Island, and the tip of the Aleutian chain in the Bering Sea. The reversal be- Smoke engulfs USS n e i hit by two off Okinawa May 11, 1945. gan in 1942 with the loss of four aircraft Losses included 400 US seamen killed or missing, 164 wounded, and 70 aircraft carriers at Midway and continued to the destroyed. “Marianas Turkey Shoot” in June 1944, where US forces gutted what was left of Japanese naval airpower and secured bases from which B-29 bombers could strike the Japanese home islands. The A6M Zero fighter had lost its quality edge to the US Navy’s FGF Hellcat and F4U Corsair and the Army Air Force’s P-38 Lightning. Experience and training levels fell as Japan’s best pilots were killed in action. The US was steadily rolling back the perimeter, with Gen. Douglas MacArthur moving northward from and Adm. Chester W. Nimitz “island hopping” across the central Pacific. In October 1944, they were converging on the , where invasion of the island of Leyte was to be a big step on the road to Japan. Japan hoped desperately to stop the invasion fleet in Leyte Gulf, but it could not do so by conventional military means. Its and were vulnerable without air support. The remaining carriers were so depleted of aircraft and crews that they could do little more than serve as bait to draw away the US carriers. The chosen solution—and a standard tactic for the last 10 months of — was suicide attacks in which land-based AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2015 Seamen on USS e ea in O e shot down a kamikaze pilot near the Philippine island of Leyte, but the Zero crashed on the ship’s aft deck, causing fires that ignited ammunition.

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Japanese aircraft crash-dived into American in the long run. The kamikaze sank a West as “hara kiri.” The greatest honor ships. The attacks and the airmen who flew total of 33 ships, none of them full-sized was to die in the service of one’s lord. them are known to history as kamikaze, carriers or battleships, and damaged 286. The were disbanded in the named after the “Divine Wind” typhoons The Americans just kept coming. Never- 1860s, but officers of the imperial that dispersed the Mongolian invasion theless, the kamikaze had great symbolic Japanese army kept the traditions alive fleet of in the 13th century. importance and the pilots were revered by and imposed them on the armed forces In , the logographic characters of the Japanese public. with more radical intensity than ever the written , “Divine Seventy years later, a resurgence of that existed in the heyday of the samurai. Wind” can be read either as “kamikaze”— esteem and glory is underway in Japan. They brought back the sword and other the term used by the Japanese navy—or trappings. The 1872 military code for “shimpu,” preferred by Japanese army E AM RAI RA I IO the army and navy prescribed as airmen. The imperial navy flew 64 percent Acts of self-sacrifice are not unusual the punishment for surrender. of the suicide attacks and the army air in war, but Japan was a special case, The militaristic fervor spread to the gen- forces 36 percent. steeped in the legendary traditions of eral population. “Almost all Japanese boys An alternate term, “tokkotai,” or special the samurai and their code of conduct, were brought up—mentally at least—as attack unit, was often used in deference to called “,” or the way of the war- ,” said historian Syohgo Hattori. the emperor’s ambivalent attitude toward rior. The samurai were a class “Self-sacrifice to the emperor was thought the suicide missions. According to the employed since medieval times to fight to be a highly honorable deed.” kamikaze mystique, pilots went forth for feudal warlords. By the 20th century, these beliefs were willingly to die for the emperor. What Their badge of office was the sword, firmly implanted in the national culture. the emperor actually thought about it was which they used freely on anyone who Public opinion tolerated and usually sup- another question, and not all of the pilots gave them offense. Surrender was un- ported the excesses and atrocities of the were as eager as the propagandists claimed. thinkable. In instances of disgrace, their Japanese army in and elsewhere. Despite the kamikaze’s legend, the custom was to commit “,” the The customs were carefully observed. results were not strategically significant suicide ritual known popularly in the “Japanese pilots in China were issued AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2015 L-r: Rear Adm. Tamon Yamaguchi, Vice Adm. Shiro Takatsu, and Rear Adm. Takijiro Onishi after being awarded the Order of the Rising Sun medal in 1940. Onishi was the founder of the Kamikaze Corps and later argued that Japan could win the war with the sacrifice of 20 million lives in a special attack effort. revolvers and swords but no parachutes,” said Edwin P. Hoyt in Japan’s War. In January 1941, War Minister Gen. issued the senjinkun military code, “Instructions for the Battlefield,” which told soldiers they should “never live to experience shame as a prisoner,” and that “a sublime sense of self-sacrifice must guide you through life and death.”

E FIR AMI A E There had been instances dating back to Pearl Harbor of pilots deliberately crashing into American ships, but these were individual efforts, unrelated to each other. What set the kamikaze attacks apart was that they were planned and organized A few days later, by higher authority as regular, continuing Onishi sent Naka- operations. jima to form a sec- The first kamikaze unit was formed ond kamikaze unit Oct. 20, 1944, by Vice Adm. Takijiro at Cebu, 400 miles Onishi, of the First Air Fleet, south of Mabalacat which owned all of the land-based fight- and the most forward ers in the Philippines. As the invasion special attack base in force approached, Onishi’s command had the Philippines. Ad- fewer than 100 aircraft still in operational ditional units were condition. set up at other fields, Meeting with officers at Mabalacat, but the principal bas- adjacent to Clark Field northwest of es were Mabalacat , Onishi announced his conclusion and Cebu. that Japanese air strength was so meager The first suc- that the only way to meet the invasion cessful suicide at- was with suicide attacks. All hands agreed tack came Oct. 25, heartily and there were more volunteers with Seki leading than Onishi could use. the Zeros out of Twenty-six ordinary A6M Zero fighters Mabalacat. Among were assigned to the special attack unit, the American ships half of them to the crash-dive mission moving through and half as escorts for the suicide planes. Leyte Gulf that The strike fighters were stripped of all un- morning was USS necessary weight, including self-defense St. Lo, an escort or capability, and armed with 550-pound [250 jeep carrier, which kilogram] bombs. was about half the “Our small Zero fighters were unable size of a fleet carrier. to carry the great weight of a , so The Zeros found the ships, climbed Corporal Yukio Araki, holding a puppy, that weapon was not considered,” said to 5,000 feet, and dived into the attack. and four other kamikaze pilots in May 1945. The day after this picture was Commander Tadashi Nakajima, the unit’s Several of them were shot down, but the taken Araki, age 17, died in a kamikaze flight operations officer. “They could, last one—flown by Seki—crashed into attack on US ships near Okinawa. however, with slight alteration be fitted St. Lo, broke through the flight deck, with a 250-kilogram bomb.” and exploded its bomb. St. Lo sank 20 I I I E FA AC Lt. , a Japanese naval acad- minutes later. There was no chance the Japanese emy graduate and one of the best pilots Emperor ’s reaction to the could hold the Philippines. In the Battle in the fleet, was chosen to command the kamikaze attacks was ambiguous. “Was it of Leyte Gulf in October, they sustained kamikaze unit. Seki had been married only necessary to go to this extreme?” he asked “catastrophic losses: four carriers, three a few months before but he embraced his the Navy chief of staff, but then added, battleships, six heavy cruisers, three light new assignment without hesitation. “They certainly did a magnificent job.” cruisers, and 10 ,” said historian AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2015 John Toland. “Never again would the impe- own doctors to prevent their capture by However, depictions of kamikaze pilots rial Navy play more than a minor role in the Americans. wearing white headbands imprinted with a the defense of the homeland.” The Japanese lost more than 500 aircraft red rising sun are correct. The headbands, The Japanese army air forces continued on kamikaze missions in the Philippines. called “hachimaki,” were a custom bor- with conventional operations until Novem- Even with an all-out effort to replace their rowed from the samurai and symbolized ber, but formed their own suicide units losses, the Japanese were unable to mount and pre-battle composure. when it became apparent that the navy’s a full kamikaze effort when the battle for The original formations for the first kamikaze tactics worked better. Iwo Jima began in February 1945. kamikaze attacks consisted of three sui- Not enough Zeros were available for the Most of the veteran pilots motivated and cide planes and two escorts. The escorts expanding mission, but the army and navy available for kamikaze missions had been remained close by the strike aircraft, no mat- still had thousands of airplanes at various killed. After the Philippines, the policy of ter what happened. They could not break locations around the Asian rim. Many of relying on volunteers was quietly dropped away to attack enemy fighters or change them could be converted for kamikaze use. and training was cut back. Some suicide course to defend themselves. Their sole All kinds of aircraft were thrown into pilots had no more than 30 hours of flying duty was to protect the suicide aircraft all action: fighters, trainers, dive bombers, time, sufficient for them to take off, stay the way to the target. Later on, the kamikaze wood and fabric biplanes—anything that in formation, and hit the target. switched from small formations to mass would fly. There was some new produc- attacks, concentrating all of their aircraft tion. A few navy Zeros were built to carry AC IC A RA I IO into a single wave to saturate defenses. a larger 1,100-pound bomb. about the kamikaze abound. One The preferred target was a US carrier. The kamikaze could not stop the invasion of the most enduring is that they drank a “Against carriers the best point of aim is of the Philippines, but they enforced serious cup of at planeside before the last the central elevator—or about one-third losses, sinking 16 US ships and damaging mission. In fact, they avoided sake and all the length of the ship from the bow,” said many more. One kamikaze hit the other alcohol before flying lest it impair Capt. Rikihei Inoguchi, senior staff officer

Nashville, flagship of the invasion, killing their sharpness and abilities. It was water Schoolgirls from Chiran, Japan, wave 137. MacArthur had planned to be aboard they drank for the ritual farewell toast. cherry blossoms in farewell to a ka- but his staff talked him out of it. Another story is that the kamikaze were mikaze pilot in April 1945. The aircraft is a Hayabusa III fighter, carrying a Among the ships taking heavy damage given only enough fuel for a one-way flight, 250-kilogram bomb. was the fleet carrier Bunker Hill, hit by two making it impossible for them to turn back. kamikazes with almost 400 US seamen The truth is that the fuel tanks were filled to Onishi. “Next best is either the fore or killed or missing, 264 wounded, and 70 completely. If the pilot was unable to find aft elevator—both being vulnerable loca- aircraft lost. a target, he was to return and preserve the tions since the destruction of these sections The no-surrender rules were enforced aircraft and himself for another attempt. In destroys the operational effectiveness of the harshly in the fallback from the Philip- addition, the maximum fuel load caused a ship. Against other types of ships the base pines. Some wounded or bedridden bigger explosion and fire when the airplane of the bridge, where the ship’s nerve center Japanese soldiers were killed by their plowed into a ship. is located, is the most desirable target.” AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2015 t

US Navy personnel inspect an Okha two-seat trainer aircraft. The rocket-pro- pelled aircraft was constructed around a 2,645-pound warhead, carried into battle by a bomber, and released to fly at 600 mph toward its target. Pilots were to arm their bombs only on one picket had enough E A A when the target was sighted. Inexperienced of it. They put up a big sign with an ar- The emperor, touring firebombed areas pilots sometimes forgot, so the escort crews row pointing to the rear reading, “Carriers of in March and weighing reports checked and reminded them if necessary. This Way.” from elsewhere, reached the conclusion Pilots were instructed to release their bombs On April 15, a suicide pilot crashed his that the war was lost and had to be ended before impact, hoping to damage the ship Zero through the starboard side below the as soon as possible. The emperor suppos- at two separate points. main deck of the Missouri. It edly “lived beyond the clouds” and almost “Kamikaze pilots were taught not to started fires but the bomb did not explode never interfered directly in the affairs of close their eyes until the last instant be- and no Americans were killed. The next government. Not until the atomic bombs fell fore they collided with their target,” said day, despite protests from some of the crew, on and Nagasaki in August was historian Hattori. “High-ranking Japanese the battleship’s captain gave the kamikaze he able to advance the case for surrender. officers believed that kamikaze pilots who pilot a military funeral at sea. This event Although devastated, Japan still had overshot their targets had closed their eyes would be remembered in a different context considerable military forces left, including well before that last instant. Despite this 70 years later. almost five million regular army troops and instruction, reports of kamikazes over- About half of the kamikaze aircraft were assorted paramilitary reserves. Between shooting continued.” shot down by gunners on US ships or by them, the army and navy could scrape Navy interceptors. The best defense was together 10,700 aircraft from all corners of O I A A by the “Big Blue Blanket,” as the Navy the war front, about 7,500 of them, which Suicide attacks reached their peak in fighters were called. could be adapted for suicide missions. the battle of Okinawa, April-, Okinawa also saw the introduction of the Hardliners insisted that Japan must keep as the war closed in on the Japanese home piloted glide bomb called Okha, or Cherry fighting. Hearing the news of the atomic islands. The principal kamikaze bases were Blossom. The Okha was a single-seat craft, bombs, Onishi—founder of the kamikazes Kanoya and Chiran on opposite sides of 20 feet long, built around a huge 2,645-lb and now vice chief of the naval general Bay at the southern tip of Kyu- armor-piercing warhead carried into battle staff—said, “If we are prepared to sacrifice shu. The pilots were the greatest heroes by a bomber. An Okha sped to its target 20 million Japanese lives in a ‘special at- of the nation. at 600 mph, propelled by rocket engines. tack’ effort, victory will be ours.” Small formations were a thing of the A total of 77 Okhas were launched, sink- Army rebels surrounded the palace past. Kamikaze attacks in the Okinawa ing a US destroyer and damaging three and tried to seize the emperor’s recorded campaign were conducted mainly in 10 other ships. of surrender before it could be massed waves. Seventeen US ships were The Japanese employed other kinds of delivered for broadcast by NHK national sunk in the Okinawa campaign, one of suicide forces as well, including manned radio. They attacked members of the them an escort carrier. Nearly a quarter torpedoes, midget , crash boats, imperial household and burned the home of the American ships engaged were hit and kamikaze frogmen. These programs of the prime minister, declaring that “our by a suicide airplane. were not very successful. Neither was intention is to protect the emperor.” Hardest hit were the destroyers and the effort of suicide fighters to destroy Within hours of the surrender announce- smaller ships, deployed around the carrier B-29 bombers by aerial ramming. By US ment Aug. 15, Onishi and War Minister task forces as the first line of defense and count, nine B-29s were lost to ramming Korechika Anami killed themselves in as a picket line for early warning. Sailors and another 13 were damaged the ancient disembowelment ritual of AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2015 t

“seppuku.” Later, former Prime Minister After the war, however, the public image A moment after this picture was taken, Tojo unsuccessfully attempted suicide, of the kamikaze changed. Adoration for the incoming Zero crashed through the starboard side of USS Mi i The choosing a .32 cal. Colt pistol rather than them declined and so did interest in what bomb did not go off and no Americans seppuku. Tojo lived to be tried and hanged they had done. were killed. The battleship captain or- as a war criminal. “Over the decades since the end of dered a military funeral for the pilot. Moderate air base removed the American occupation in 1952, - the propellers and fuel from airplanes to kaze pilots gradually have regained the Veneration of the kamikaze gained prevent unauthorized suicide missions. status of national heroes that they once major momentum with the release of The last kamikaze was Vice Adm. Matome enjoyed during the final stages of the a new movie, “,” in Ugaki, commander of the Fifth Air Fleet, war,” says Bill Gordon, who operates December 2013, the Zero in the title to which naval suicide aircraft were as- a website about the kamikaze. “Much being the classic A6M. The pilot hero of signed. Late in the day on Aug. 15, Ugaki of the turnaround in public opinion the story joins a suicide unit in the last took off, accompanied by 10 other aircraft, came about through the efforts of the days of the war. He wants to survive but and headed toward Okinawa. About 7:30 Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze accepts his responsibility and dies in a p.m., a static-riddled radio transmission Pilots, which opened in 1975 on the blaze of glory. It is already one of the 10 reported that they were attacking, but there site of the former Chiran Air Base.” top-grossing Japanese films of all time. is no US report of a kamikaze action on Chiran and several other such mu- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described that date. Ugaki was not heard from again. seums “portray the pilots as brave himself as “deeply moved” by the film. Statistical records for the 10 months of young men who voluntarily sacrificed The film is based on a novel by Naoki the kamikaze operations vary considerably their lives to defend their country and Hyakuta, governor of the NHK public and the numbers are difficult to reconcile. families,” Gordon says. The museums broadcasting system. In a political A reasonable estimate is that the Japanese “generally remain silent on respon- speech in 2014, Hyakuta said that the flew 2,550 suicide sorties, not counting sibility for the war other than brief notorious massacre of Chinese civil- escorts and observers. explanations, such as western nations ians by Japanese soldiers at Nanjing in They sank 33 US ships and damaged cutting off imports of oil,” he says. 1937-1938 “never happened.” 286, killing 4,900 American sailors and Chiran draws visitors by the tens of The most recent recognition of the wounding 4,800. Some ships were hit by thousands. kamikaze was April 11, 2015, when more than one suicide attacker. The larg- The in Tokyo has the Battleship Missouri Memorial, now est of the American ships sunk were three a heroic statue of a kamikaze pilot. anchored at Pearl Harbor, remembered escort carriers and 13 destroyers. Smaller The city of Minamikyushu, home of the 70th anniversary of the attack on ships took most of the losses and damage. the Chiran museum, has asked the the battleship in 1945. Concurrently, an Almost 4,000 Japanese airmen died in United Nations to add letters from the exhibit opened onboard with artifacts various aspects of the kamikaze effort. kamikaze pilots to its Memory of the lent by the museum at Chiran. The ex- World register, which recognizes such hibit was scheduled to continue through EROE A AI documents as the Magna Carta. Veterans Day. J Japan posthumously promoted the de- ceased kamikazes by two ranks and pro- John T. Correll was editor in chief of A g for 18 years and is now a vided generous pensions for their families. contributor. His most recent article, “Their Finest Hour,” appeared in the July issue. AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2015