From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USS Bunker Hill, an aircraft carrier, was hit by two
kamikazes on 11 May 1945, resulting in 389 personnel dead or missing and 264 wounded.
Kamikaze (神風, pronounced [kamiꜜkaze]; "divine wind" or "spirit wind"), officially Shinpū Tokubetsu Kōgekitai (神風特別攻撃隊, "Divine Wind Special Attack Unit"), were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to destroy warships more effectively than with conventional air attacks. About 3,800 kamikaze pilots died during the war, and more than 7,000 naval personnel were killed by kamikaze attacks.
Kamikaze aircraft were essentially pilot-guided explosive missiles,
purpose-built or converted from conventional aircraft. Pilots would
attempt to crash their aircraft into enemy ships in what was called a
"body attack" (tai-atari) in aircraft loaded with bombs, torpedoes or other explosives. About 19% of kamikaze attacks were successful. The Japanese considered the goal of damaging or sinking large numbers of Allied ships to be a just reason for suicide attacks; kamikaze was more accurate than conventional attacks and often caused more damage. Some kamikazes were still able to hit their targets even after their aircraft had been crippled.
The attacks began in October 1944, at a time when the war was
looking increasingly bleak for the Japanese. They had lost several
important battles, many of their best pilots had been killed, their
aircraft were becoming outdated, and they had lost command of the air.
Japan was losing pilots faster than it could train their replacements,
and the nation's industrial capacity
was diminishing relative to that of the Allies. These factors, along
with Japan's unwillingness to surrender, led to the use of kamikaze tactics as Allied forces advanced towards the Japanese home islands.
The tradition of death instead of defeat, capture, and shame was
deeply entrenched in Japanese military culture; one of the primary
values in the samurai life and the Bushido code was loyalty and honor until death. In addition to kamikazes, the Japanese military also used or made plans for non-aerial Japanese Special Attack Units, including those involving Kairyu (submarines), Kaiten human torpedoes, Shinyo speedboats and Fukuryu divers.
Definition and origin
The Japanese word kamikaze is usually translated as "divine wind" (kami is the word for "god", "spirit", or "divinity", and kaze for "wind"). The word originated from Makurakotoba of waka poetry modifying "Ise" and has been used since August 1281 to refer to the major typhoons that dispersed Mongol-Koryo fleets who invaded Japan under Kublai Khan in 1274.
A Japanese monoplane that made a record-breaking flight from Tokyo to London in 1937 for the Asahi newspaper group was named Kamikaze. She was a prototype for the Mitsubishi Ki-15 ("Babs").
In Japanese, the formal term used for units carrying out suicide attacks during 1944–1945 is tokubetsu kōgekitai (特別攻撃隊), which literally means "special attack unit". This is usually abbreviated to tokkōtai (特攻隊). More specifically, air suicide attack units from the Imperial Japanese Navy were officially called shinpū tokubetsu kōgeki tai (神風特別攻撃隊, "divine wind special attack units"). Shinpū is the on-reading (on'yomi or Chinese-derived pronunciation) of the same characters as the kun-reading (kun'yomi or Japanese pronunciation) kamikaze in Japanese. During World War II, the pronunciation kamikaze
was used only informally in the Japanese press in relation to suicide
attacks, but after the war, this usage gained acceptance worldwide and
was re-imported into Japan. As a result, the special attack units are
sometimes known in Japan as kamikaze tokubetsu kōgeki tai.
History
Background
Lt. Yoshinori Yamaguchi's
Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33
Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against
USS Essex on 25 November 1944. The attack left 15 killed and 44 wounded. The
dive brakes are extended and the non-
self-sealing port wing tank trails fuel vapor and/or smoke.
Before the formation of kamikaze units, pilots had made
deliberate crashes as a last resort when their aircraft had suffered
severe damage and they did not want to risk being captured or wanted to
do as much damage to the enemy as possible, since they were crashing
anyway. Such situations occurred in both the Axis and Allied air forces.
Axell and Kase see these suicides as "individual, impromptu decisions
by men who were mentally prepared to die".
One example of this may have occurred on 7 December 1941 during the attack on Pearl Harbor. First Lieutenant Fusata Iida's aircraft had taken a hit and had started leaking fuel when he apparently used it to make a suicide attack on Naval Air Station Kaneohe.
Before taking off, he had told his men that if his aircraft were to
become badly damaged he would crash it into a "worthy enemy target". Another possible example occurred at the Battle of Midway when a damaged American bomber flew at the Akagi's
bridge but missed. But in most cases, little evidence exists that such
hits represented more than accidental collisions of the kind that
sometimes happen in intense sea or air battles.
The carrier battles in 1942, particularly Midway, inflicted irreparable damage on the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS), such that they could no longer put together a large number of fleet carriers with well-trained aircrews.
Japanese planners had assumed a quick war and lacked comprehensive
programs to replace the losses of ships, pilots, and sailors; and
Midway; the Solomon Islands campaign (1942–1945) and the New Guinea campaign (1942–1945), notably the Battles of Eastern Solomons (August 1942); and Santa Cruz (October 1942), decimated the IJNAS veteran aircrews, and replacing their combat experience proved impossible.
Model 52c Zeros ready to take part in a kamikaze attack (early 1945)
During 1943–1944, U.S. forces steadily advanced toward Japan. Newer U.S.-made aircraft, especially the Grumman F6F Hellcat and Vought F4U Corsair, outclassed and soon outnumbered Japan's fighters. Tropical diseases, as well as shortages of spare parts and fuel, made operations more and more difficult for the IJNAS. By the Battle of the Philippine Sea
(June 1944), the Japanese had to make do with obsolete aircraft and
inexperienced aviators in the fight against better-trained and more
experienced US Navy airmen who flew radar-directed combat air patrols.
The Japanese lost over 400 carrier-based aircraft and pilots in the
Battle of the Philippine Sea, effectively putting an end to their
carriers' potency. Allied aviators called the action the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot".
On 19 June 1944, aircraft from the carrier Chiyoda approached a US task group. According to some accounts, two made suicide attacks, one of which hit USS Indiana.
The important Japanese base of Saipan fell to the Allied forces on 15 July 1944. Its capture provided adequate forward bases that enabled U.S. air forces using the Boeing B-29 Superfortress
to strike at the Japanese home islands. After the fall of Saipan, the
Japanese High Command predicted that the Allies would try to capture the
Philippines, strategically important to Tokyo because of the islands' location between the oilfields of Southeast Asia and Japan.
Beginnings
A kamikaze aircraft explodes after crashing into Essex's flight deck amidships 25 November 1944.
Captain Motoharu Okamura, in charge of the Tateyama Base in Tokyo, as well as the 341st Air Group Home, was, according to some sources, the first officer to officially propose kamikaze
attack tactics. With his superiors, he arranged the first
investigations into the plausibility and mechanisms of intentional
suicide attacks on 15 June 1944.
In August 1944, it was announced by the Domei news agency that a flight instructor named Takeo Tagata was training pilots in Taiwan for suicide missions.
One source claims that the first kamikaze mission occurred on 13 September 1944. A group of pilots from the army's 31st Fighter Squadron on Negros Island decided to launch a suicide attack the following morning. First Lieutenant Takeshi Kosai and a sergeant
were selected. Two 100 kg (220 lb) bombs were attached to two fighters,
and the pilots took off before dawn, planning to crash into carriers.
They never returned, but there is no record of a Kamikaze hitting an
Allied ship that day.
According to some sources, on 14 October 1944, USS Reno was hit by a deliberately crashed Japanese aircraft.
Rear Admiral Masafumi Arima, the commander of the 26th Air Flotilla (part of the 11th Air Fleet), is sometimes credited with inventing the kamikaze tactic. Arima personally led an attack by a Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" twin engined bomber against a large Essex-class aircraft carrier, USS Franklin, near Leyte Gulf, on or about 15 October 1944. Arima was killed and part of an aircraft hit Franklin. The Japanese high command and propagandists seized on Arima's example. He was promoted posthumously to Vice Admiral and was given official credit for making the first kamikaze
attack. It is not clear that this was a planned suicide attack, and
official Japanese accounts of Arima's attack bore little resemblance to
the actual events.
On 17 October 1944, Allied forces assaulted Suluan Island, beginning the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Imperial Japanese Navy's 1st Air Fleet, based at Manila,
was assigned the task of assisting the Japanese ships that would
attempt to destroy Allied forces in Leyte Gulf. That unit had only 41
aircraft: 34 Mitsubishi A6M Zero ("Zeke") carrier-based fighters, three Nakajima B6N Tenzan ("Jill") torpedo bombers, one Mitsubishi G4M ("Betty") and two Yokosuka P1Y Ginga
("Frances") land-based bombers, and one additional reconnaissance
aircraft. The task facing the Japanese air forces seemed impossible. The
1st Air Fleet commandant, Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi, decided to form a suicide offensive force, the Special Attack Unit. In a meeting on 19 October at Mabalacat Airfield
(known to the U.S. military as Clark Air Base) near Manila, Onishi told
officers of the 201st Flying Group headquarters: "I don't think there
would be any other certain way to carry out the operation [to hold the
Philippines] than to put a 250 kg bomb on a Zero and let it crash into a
U.S. carrier, in order to disable her for a week."
First unit
26 May 1945. Corporal
Yukio Araki, holding a puppy, with four other pilots of the 72nd
Shinbu Squadron at
Bansei,
Kagoshima. Araki died the following day, at the age of 17, in a suicide attack on ships near Okinawa.
Commander Asaichi Tamai
asked a group of 23 talented student pilots, all of whom he had
trained, to volunteer for the special attack force. All of the pilots
raised both of their hands, volunteering to join the operation. Later,
Tamai asked Lieutenant Yukio Seki
to command the special attack force. Seki is said to have closed his
eyes, lowered his head, and thought for ten seconds before saying:
"Please do appoint me to the post." Seki became the 24th kamikaze
pilot to be chosen. He later said: "Japan's future is bleak if it is
forced to kill one of its best pilots" and "I am not going on this
mission for the Emperor or for the Empire ... I am going because I was
ordered to."
The names of the four subunits within the Kamikaze Special Attack Force were Unit Shikishima, Unit Yamato, Unit Asahi and Unit Yamazakura. These names were taken from a patriotic death poem, Shikishima no Yamato-gokoro wo hito towaba, asahi ni niou yamazakura bana by the Japanese classical scholar, Motoori Norinaga. The poem reads:
If someone asks about the Yamato spirit [Spirit of Old/True Japan] of Shikishima [a poetic name for Japan] – it is the flowers of yamazakura [mountain cherry blossom] that are fragrant in the Asahi [rising sun].
A less literal translation is:
Asked about the soul of Japan,
I would say
That it is
Like wild cherry blossoms
Glowing in the morning sun.
Ōnishi, addressing this unit, told them that their nobility of spirit would keep the homeland from ruin even in defeat.
Leyte Gulf: the first attacks
St Lo attacked by kamikazes, 25 October 1944
Starboard horizontal
stabilizer from the tail of a "Judy" on the deck of
USS Kitkun Bay.
The "Judy" made a run on the ship approaching from dead astern; it was
met by effective fire and the aircraft passed over the island and
exploded. Parts of the aircraft and the pilot were scattered over the
flight deck and the forecastle.
Several suicide attacks, carried out during the invasion of Leyte by Japanese pilots from units other than the Special Attack Force, have been described as the first kamikaze attacks. Early on 21 October 1944, a Japanese aircraft deliberately crashed into the foremast of the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia. This aircraft was possibly either an Aichi D3A dive bomber, from an unidentified unit of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, or a Mitsubishi Ki-51 of the 6th Flying Brigade, Imperial Japanese Army Air Force. The attack killed 30 personnel, including the cruiser's captain, Emile Dechaineux, and wounded 64, including the Australian force commander, Commodore John Collins. The Australian official history of the war claimed that this was the first kamikaze
attack on an Allied ship. Other sources disagree because it was not a
planned attack by a member of the Special Attack Force and was most
likely undertaken on the pilot's own initiative.
The sinking of the ocean tug USS Sonoma on 24 October is listed in some sources as the first ship lost to a kamikaze strike, but the attack occurred before the first mission of the Special Attack Force (on 25 October) and the aircraft used, a Mitsubishi G4M, was not flown by the original four Special Attack Squadrons.
On 25 October 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Kamikaze
Special Attack Force carried out its first mission. Five A6M Zeros, led
by Lieutenant Seki, were escorted to the target by leading Japanese ace
Hiroyoshi Nishizawa where they attacked several escort carriers. One Zero attempted to hit the bridge of USS Kitkun Bay but instead exploded on the port catwalk and cartwheeled into the sea. Two others dived at USS Fanshaw Bay but were destroyed by anti-aircraft fire. The last two ran at USS White Plains. One, under heavy fire and trailing smoke, aborted the attempt on White Plains and instead banked toward USS St. Lo, diving into the flight deck, where its bomb caused fires that resulted in the bomb magazine exploding, sinking the carrier.
By 26 October day's end, 55 kamikazes from the Special Attack Force had also damaged three large escort carriers: USS Sangamon, Santee, and Suwannee (which had
taken a kamikaze strike forward of its aft elevator the day before); and three smaller escorts: USS White Plains, Kalinin Bay, and Kitkun Bay. In total, seven carriers were hit, as well as 40 other ships (five sunk, 23 heavily damaged and 12 moderately damaged).
Main wave of attacks
The kamikaze hits Columbia at 17:29. The aircraft and its bomb penetrated two decks before exploding, killing 13 and wounding 44.
Early successes – such as the sinking of USS St. Lo – were followed by an immediate expansion of the program, and over the next few months over 2,000 aircraft made such attacks.
When Japan began to suffer intense strategic bombing by Boeing B-29 Superfortresses,
the Japanese military attempted to use suicide attacks against this
threat. During the northern hemisphere winter of 1944–45, the IJAAF
formed the 47th Air Regiment, also known as the Shinten Special Unit (Shinten Seiku Tai) at Narimasu Airfield, Nerima, Tokyo, to defend the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The unit was equipped with Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki ("Tojo") fighters, whose pilots were instructed to collide with United States Army Air Forces
(USAAF) B-29s approaching Japan. Targeting the aircraft proved to be
much less successful and practical than attacks against warships, as the
bombers made for much faster, more manoeuvrable and smaller targets.
The B-29 also had formidable defensive weaponry, so suicide attacks
against B-29s demanded considerable piloting skill to be successful,
which worked against the very purpose of using expendable pilots. Even
encouraging capable pilots to bail out before impact was ineffective
because vital personnel were often lost when they mistimed their exits
and were killed as a result.
On 11 March, the U.S. carrier USS Randolph was hit and moderately damaged at Ulithi Atoll, in the Caroline Islands, by a kamikaze that had flown almost 4,000 km (2,500 mi) from Japan, in a mission called Operation Tan No. 2. On 20 March, the submarine USS Devilfish survived a hit from an aircraft just off Japan.
Purpose-built kamikazes, opposed to converted fighters and dive-bombers, were also being constructed. Ensign Mitsuo Ohta had suggested that piloted glider bombs, carried within range of targets by a mother aircraft, should be developed. The First Naval Air Technical Bureau (Kugisho) in Yokosuka refined Ohta's idea. Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka rocket-powered aircraft, launched from bombers, were first deployed in kamikaze attacks from March 1945. U.S. personnel gave them the derisive nickname "Baka Bombs" (baka is Japanese for "idiot" or "stupid"). The Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi
was a simple, easily built propeller aircraft with a wooden airframe
that used engines from existing stocks. Its non-retractable landing gear was jettisoned shortly after takeoff for a suicide mission, recovered and reused. Obsolete aircraft such as Yokosuka K5Y biplane trainers were also converted to kamikazes. During 1945, the Japanese military began stockpiling Tsurugi, Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, other aircraft and suicide boats for use against Allied forces expected to invade Japan. The invasion never happened, and few were ever used.
Allied defensive tactics
An
A6M Zero (A6M2 Model 21) towards the end of its run at the
escort carrier USS White Plains on 25 October 1944. The aircraft exploded in mid-air moments after the picture was taken, scattering debris across the deck.
In early 1945, U.S. Navy aviator Commander John Thach, already famous for developing effective aerial tactics against the Japanese such as the Thach Weave, developed a defensive strategy against kamikazes called the "big blue blanket" to establish Allied air supremacy well away from the carrier force. This recommended combat air patrols (CAP) that were larger and operated further from the carriers than before, a line of picket destroyers and destroyer escorts at least 80 km (50 mi) from the main body of the fleet to provide earlier radar
interception and improved coordination between fighter direction
officers on carriers. This plan also called for around-the-clock fighter
patrols over Allied fleets. A final element included intensive fighter
sweeps over Japanese airfields, and bombing Japanese runways, using delayed-action bombs making repairs more difficult.
Late in 1944, the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) used the high-altitude performance of its Supermarine Seafires (the naval version of the Spitfire) on combat air patrol duties. Seafires were involved in countering the kamikaze attacks during the Iwo Jima landings and beyond. The Seafires' best day was 15 August 1945, shooting down eight attacking aircraft with a single loss.
An A6M5 "Zero" diving towards American ships in the Philippines in early 1945
Allied pilots were more experienced, better trained and in command of superior aircraft, making the poorly trained kamikaze pilots easy targets. The U.S. Fast Carrier Task Force
alone could bring over 1,000 fighter aircraft into play. Allied pilots
became adept at destroying enemy aircraft before they struck ships.
Allied gunners had begun to develop techniques to negate kamikaze attacks. Light rapid-fire anti-aircraft weapons such as the 20 mm Oerlikon autocannons were still useful though the 40 mm Bofors
was preferred, and though their high rate of fire and quick training
remained advantageous, they lacked the punch to take down a kamikaze
bearing down on the ship they defended. It was found that heavy anti-aircraft guns such as the 5"/38 caliber gun
(127 mm) were the most effective as they had sufficient firepower to
destroy aircraft at a safe range from the ship, which was preferable
since even a heavily damaged kamikaze could reach its target. The speedy Ohkas presented a very difficult problem for anti-aircraft fire, since their velocity made fire control extremely difficult. By 1945, large numbers of anti-aircraft shells with radiofrequency proximity fuzes, on average seven times more effective than regular shells, became available, and the U.S. Navy recommended their use against kamikaze attacks.
Final phase
The peak period of kamikaze attack frequency came during April–June 1945 at the Battle of Okinawa. On 6 April 1945, waves of aircraft made hundreds of attacks in Operation Kikusui ("floating chrysanthemums"). At Okinawa, kamikaze attacks focused at first on Allied destroyers on picket
duty, and then on the carriers in the middle of the fleet. Suicide
attacks by aircraft or boats at Okinawa sank or put out of action at
least 30 U.S. warships and at least three U.S. merchant ships,
along with some from other Allied forces. The attacks expended 1,465
aircraft. Many warships of all classes were damaged, some severely, but
no aircraft carriers, battleships or cruisers were sunk by kamikaze at Okinawa. Most of the ships lost were destroyers or smaller vessels, especially those on picket duty. The destroyer USS Laffey earned the nickname "The Ship That Would Not Die" after surviving six kamikaze attacks and four bomb hits during this battle.
U.S. carriers, with their wooden flight decks, appeared to suffer more damage from kamikaze hits than the armoured-decked carriers from the British Pacific Fleet. U.S. carriers also suffered considerably heavier casualties from kamikaze strikes; for instance, 389 men were killed in one attack on USS Bunker Hill,
greater than the combined number of fatalities suffered on all six
Royal Navy armoured carriers from all forms of attack during the entire
war. Bunker Hill and Franklin were both hit (in Franklin's
case, although by a dive bomber and not a kamikaze) while conducting
operations with fully fueled and armed aircraft spotted on deck for
takeoff, an extremely vulnerable state for any carrier. Eight kamikaze
hits on five British carriers resulted in only 20 deaths while a
combined total of 15 bomb hits, most of 500 kg (1,100 lb) weight or
greater, and one torpedo hit on four carriers caused 193 fatal
casualties earlier in the war – striking proof of the protective value
of the armoured flight deck.
Aircraft carrier
HMS Formidable after being struck by a
kamikaze off the
Sakishima Islands. The
kamikaze
made a dent 3 metres (9.8 ft) long and 0.6 metres (2 ft 0 in) wide and
deep in the armored flight deck. Eight crew members were killed,
forty-seven were wounded, and 11 aircraft were destroyed.
Kamikaze damage to the destroyer
USS Newcomb following action off Okinawa,
Newcomb was damaged beyond economical repair and scrapped after the war.
The resilience of well-armoured vessels was shown on 4 May, just
after 11:30, when there was a wave of suicide attacks against the
British Pacific Fleet. One Japanese aircraft made a steep dive from "a
great height" at the carrier HMS Formidable and was engaged by anti-aircraft guns. Although the kamikaze
was hit by gunfire, it managed to drop a bomb that detonated on the
flight deck, making a crater 3 m (9.8 ft) long, 0.6 m (2 ft) wide and
0.6 m (2 ft) deep. A long steel splinter speared down through the hangar
deck and the main boiler room (where it ruptured a steam line) before
coming to rest in a fuel tank near the aircraft park, where it started a
major fire. Eight personnel were killed and 47 were wounded. One
Corsair and 10 Grumman Avengers
were destroyed. The fires were gradually brought under control, and the
crater in the deck was repaired with concrete and steel plate. By
17:00, Corsairs were able to land. On 9 May, Formidable was again damaged by a kamikaze, as were the carrier HMS Victorious and the battleship HMS Howe.
The British were able to clear the flight deck and resume flight
operations in just hours, while their American counterparts took a few
days or even months, as observed by a U.S. Navy liaison officer on HMS Indefatigable who commented: "When a kamikaze hits a U.S. carrier it means six months of repair at Pearl Harbor. When a kamikaze hits a Limey carrier it's just a case of 'Sweepers, man your brooms'."occasionally used in planned kamikaze attacks. For example, Mitsubishi Ki-67 Hiryū ("Peggy") medium bombers, based on Formosa, undertook kamikaze attacks on Allied forces off Okinawa, while a pair of Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu ("Nick") heavy fighters caused enough damage for the destroyer USS Dickerson to be scuttled. The last ship in the war to be sunk, the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Callaghan, was sunk by an obsolete wood and fabric Yokosuka K5Y kamikaze biplane while on the radar picket line off Okinawa.
Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki,
the commander of the IJN 5th Air Fleet based in Kyushu, participated in
one of the final kamikaze attacks on American ships on 15 August 1945,
hours after Japan's announced surrender.
At the time of the surrender, the Japanese had more than 9,000
aircraft in the home islands available for Kamikaze attack, and more
than 5,000 had already been specially fitted for suicide attack to
resist the planned American invasion.
Effects
Ugaki, shortly before taking off in a
Yokosuka D4Y3 to participate in one of the final
kamikaze strikes, 15 August 1945
As the end of the war approached, the Allies did not suffer more
serious significant losses, despite having far more ships and facing a
greater intensity of kamikaze attacks. Although causing some of the heaviest casualties on U.S. carriers in 1945 (particularly as Bunker Hill was unlucky to get hit with fueled and armed aircraft on deck), the IJN had sacrificed 2,525 kamikaze
pilots and the IJAAF 1,387 – without successfully sinking any fleet
carriers, cruisers, nor battleships. This was far more than the IJN had
lost in 1942 when it sank or crippled three U.S. fleet carriers (albeit
without inflicting significant casualties). In 1942, when U.S. Navy
vessels were scarce, the temporary absence of key warships from the
combat zone would tie up operational initiatives. By 1945, however, the
U.S. Navy was large enough that damaged ships could be detached back
home for repair without significantly hampering the fleet's operational
capability. The only U.S. surface losses were escort carriers,
destroyers and smaller ships, all of which lacked the armor protection
and/or capability to sustain heavy damage. Overall, the kamikazes were unable to turn the tide of the war and stop the Allied invasion.
In the immediate aftermath of kamikaze strikes, British fleet carriers with their armoured flight decks recovered more quickly compared to their US counterparts. Post-war analysis showed that some British carriers such as HMS Formidable suffered structural damage that led to them being scrapped, as being beyond economic repair. Britain's post-war economic situation played a role in the decision to not repair damaged carriers, while even seriously damaged American carriers such as USS Bunker Hill were repaired, although they were then mothballed or sold off as surplus after World War II without re-entering service.
A crewman in an
AA gun aboard the battleship
New Jersey watches a
kamikaze aircraft dive at
Intrepid 25 November 1944. Over 75 men were killed or missing and 100 wounded.
The exact number of ships sunk is a matter of debate. According to a
wartime Japanese propaganda announcement, the missions sank 81 ships and
damaged 195, and according to a Japanese tally, kamikaze attacks accounted for up to 80% of the U.S. losses in the final phase of the war in the Pacific. In a 2004 book, World War II, the historians Willmott, Cross and Messenger stated that more than 70 U.S. vessels were "sunk or damaged beyond repair" by kamikazes.
According to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, from
October 1944 until the end of the war, 2,550 Kamikaze missions were
flown with only 475 (or 18.6%) achieving a hit or a damaging near miss.
Warships of all types were damaged including 12 aircraft carriers, 15
battleships, and 16 light and escort carriers. However, no ship larger
than an escort carrier was sunk. Approximately 45 ships were sunk, the
bulk of which were destroyers. To the United States, the losses were of
such concern that more than 2,000 B-29 sorties were diverted from
attacking Japanese cities and industries to striking Kamikaze air fields
in Kyushu.
According to a U.S. Air Force webpage:
Approximately 2,800 Kamikaze attackers sank 34 Navy ships, damaged 368 others, killed 4,900 sailors, and wounded over 4,800. Despite radar detection and cuing, airborne interception, attrition, and massive anti-aircraft barrages, 14 per cent of Kamikazes survived to score a hit on a ship; nearly 8.5 per cent of all ships hit by Kamikazes sank.
Australian journalists Denis and Peggy Warner, in a 1982 book with Japanese naval historian Sadao Seno (The Sacred Warriors: Japan's Suicide Legions), arrived at a total of 57 ships sunk by kamikazes. Bill Gordon, an American Japanologist who specializes in kamikazes, lists in a 2007 article 47 ships known to have been sunk by kamikaze aircraft. Gordon says that the Warners and Seno included ten ships that did not sink. He lists:
Recruitment
Japanese
Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka ("cherry blossom"), a specially built rocket-powered
kamikaze aircraft used towards the end of the war. The U.S. called them
Baka Bombs ("idiot bombs").
It was claimed by the Japanese forces at the time that there were many volunteers for the suicidal forces. Captain Motoharu Okamura
commented that "there were so many volunteers for suicide missions that
he referred to them as a swarm of bees", explaining: "Bees die after
they have stung." Okamura is credited with being the first to propose the kamikaze attacks. He had expressed his desire to lead a volunteer group of suicide attacks some four months before Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, commander of the Japanese naval air forces in the Philippines, presented the idea to his staff. While Vice-Admiral Shigeru Fukudome,
commander of the second air fleet, was inspecting the 341st Air Group,
Captain Okamura took the chance to express his ideas on crash-dive
tactics:
In our present situation, I firmly
believe that the only way to swing the war in our favor is to resort to
crash-dive attacks with our aircraft. There is no other way. There will
be more than enough volunteers for this chance to save our country, and I
would like to command such an operation. Provide me with 300 aircraft
and I will turn the tide of war.
When the volunteers arrived for duty in the corps, there were twice
as many persons as aircraft available. "After the war, some commanders
would express regret for allowing superfluous crews to accompany
sorties, sometimes squeezing themselves aboard bombers and fighters so
as to encourage the suicide pilots and, it seems, join in the exultation
of sinking a large enemy vessel." Many of the kamikaze pilots
believed their death would pay the debt they owed and show the love they
had for their families, friends and emperor. "So eager were many
minimally trained pilots to take part in suicide missions that when
their sorties were delayed or aborted, the pilots became deeply
despondent. Many of those who were selected for a body crashing mission
were described as being extraordinarily blissful immediately before
their final sortie."
As time wore on, modern critics questioned the nationalist portrayal of kamikaze pilots as noble soldiers willing to sacrifice their lives for the country. In 2006, Tsuneo Watanabe, editor-in-chief of the Yomiuri Shimbun, criticized Japanese nationalists' glorification of kamikaze attacks:
It's all a lie that they left filled with braveness and joy, crying, "Long live the emperor!"
They were sheep at a slaughterhouse. Everybody was looking down and
tottering. Some were unable to stand up and were carried and pushed into
their aircraft by maintenance soldiers.
Training
When
you eliminate all thoughts about life and death, you will be able to
totally disregard your earthly life. This will also enable you to
concentrate your attention on eradicating the enemy with unwavering
determination, meanwhile reinforcing your excellence in flight skills.
— Excerpt from a kamikaze pilots' manual.
Tokkōtai pilot training, as described by Takeo Kasuga,
generally "consisted of incredibly strenuous training, coupled with
cruel and torturous corporal punishment as a daily routine". The
training, in theory, lasted for thirty days, but because of American
raids and shortage of fuel it could last up to two months.
Daikichi Irokawa, who trained at Tsuchiura Naval Air Base,
recalled that he "was struck on the face so hard and frequently that
[his] face was no longer recognizable". He also wrote: "I was hit so
hard that I could no longer see and fell on the floor. The minute I got
up, I was hit again by a club so that I would confess." This brutal
"training" was justified by the idea that it would instil a "soldier's
fighting spirit", but daily beatings and corporal punishment eliminated
patriotism among many pilots.
We tried to live with 120 per cent intensity, rather than waiting for
death. We read and read, trying to understand why we had to die in our
early twenties. We felt the clock ticking away towards our death, every
sound of the clock shortening our lives.
Irokawa Daikichi, Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers
Pilots were given a manual that detailed how they were supposed to
think, prepare and attack. From this manual, pilots were told to "attain
a high level of spiritual training", and to "keep [their] health in the
very best condition". These instructions, among others, were meant to
make pilots mentally ready to die.
The tokkōtai pilot's manual also explained how a pilot may
turn back if he could not locate a target, and that a pilot "should not
waste [his] life lightly". One pilot, a graduate from Waseda University, who continually came back to base was shot after his ninth return.
The manual was very detailed in how a pilot should attack. A
pilot would dive towards his target and "aim for a point between the
bridge tower and the smokestacks". Entering a smokestack was also said
to be "effective". Pilots were told not to aim at a carrier's bridge
tower but instead to target the elevators or the flight deck. For
horizontal attacks, the pilot was to "aim at the middle of the vessel,
slightly higher than the waterline" or to "aim at the entrance to the
aircraft hangar, or the bottom of the stack" if the former was too
difficult.
The tokkōtai pilot's manual told pilots to never close
their eyes, as this would lower the chances of hitting their targets. In
the final moments before the crash, the pilot was to yell "hissatsu" (必殺) at the top of his lungs, which translates to "certain kill" or "sink without fail".
Cultural background
In 1944–45, US military leaders invented the term "State Shinto" as part of the Shinto Directive to differentiate the Japanese state's ideology from traditional Shinto practices. As time went on, Americans claimed, Shinto was used increasingly in the promotion of nationalist sentiment. In 1890, the Imperial Rescript on Education was passed, under which students were required to ritually recite its oath to offer themselves "courageously to the state" as well as protect the Imperial family. The ultimate offering was to give up one's life. It was an honour to die for Japan and the Emperor. Axell and Kase pointed out: "The fact is that innumerable soldiers, sailors and pilots were determined to die, to become eirei, that is 'guardian spirits' of the country. ... Many Japanese felt that to be enshrined at Yasukuni
was a special honour because the Emperor visited the shrine to pay
homage twice a year. Yasukuni is the only shrine deifying common men
which the Emperor would visit to pay his respects." Young Japanese people were indoctrinated from an early age with these ideals.
First recruits for Japanese Kamikaze suicide pilots in 1944
Following the commencement of the kamikaze tactic, newspapers
and books ran advertisements, articles and stories regarding the suicide
bombers to aid in recruiting and support. In October 1944, the Nippon Times
quoted Lieutenant Sekio Nishina: "The spirit of the Special Attack
Corps is the great spirit that runs in the blood of every Japanese ...
The crashing action which simultaneously kills the enemy and oneself
without fail is called the Special Attack ... Every Japanese is capable
of becoming a member of the Special Attack Corps." Publishers also played up the idea that the kamikaze were enshrined at Yasukuni and ran exaggerated stories of kamikaze bravery – there were even fairy tales for little children that promoted the kamikaze.
A Foreign Office official named Toshikazu Kase said: "It was customary
for GHQ [in Tokyo] to make false announcements of victory in utter
disregard of facts, and for the elated and complacent public to believe
them."
While many stories were falsified, some were true, such as that
of Kiyu Ishikawa, who saved a Japanese ship when he crashed his aircraft
into a torpedo that an American submarine had launched. The sergeant-major was posthumously promoted to second lieutenant by the emperor and was enshrined at Yasukuni.
Stories like these, which showed the kind of praise and honour death
produced, encouraged young Japanese to volunteer for the Special Attack
Corps and instilled a desire in the youth to die as a kamikaze.
Ceremonies were carried out before kamikaze pilots departed on their final mission. The kamikaze shared ceremonial cups of sake or water known as "mizu no sakazuki". Many kamikaze Army officers took their swords along, while the Navy pilots (as a general rule) did not. The kamikaze, along with all Japanese aviators flying over unfriendly territory, were issued (or purchased, if they were officers) a Nambu pistol with which to end their lives if they risked being captured. Like all Army and Navy servicemen, the kamikaze would wear their senninbari, a "belt of a thousand stitches" given to them by their mothers. They also composed and read a death poem, a tradition stemming from the samurai, who did so before committing seppuku. Pilots carried prayers from their families and were given military decorations. The kamikaze
were escorted by other pilots whose function was to protect them en
route to their destination and report on the results. Some of these
escort pilots, such as Zero pilot Toshimitsu Imaizumi, were later sent
out on their own kamikaze missions.
Chiran high school girls wave farewell with cherry blossom branches to departing
kamikaze pilot in a
Nakajima Ki-43-IIIa
Hayabusa.
While it is commonly perceived that volunteers signed up in droves for kamikaze missions, it has also been contended that there was extensive coercion and peer pressure
involved in recruiting soldiers for the sacrifice. Their motivations in
"volunteering" were complex and not simply about patriotism or bringing
honour to their families. Firsthand interviews with surviving kamikaze
and escort pilots has revealed that they were motivated by a desire to
protect their families from perceived atrocities and possible extinction
at the hands of the Allies. They viewed themselves as the last defense.
At least one of these pilots was a conscripted Korean with a Japanese name, adopted under the pre-war Soshi-kaimei ordinance that compelled Koreans to take Japanese personal names. Eleven of the 1,036 IJA kamikaze pilots who died in sorties from Chiran and other Japanese air bases during the Battle of Okinawa were Koreans.
It is said that young pilots on kamikaze missions often flew southwest from Japan over the 922 m (3,025 ft) Mount Kaimon. The mountain is also called "Satsuma Fuji" (meaning a mountain like Mount Fuji but located in the Satsuma Province
region). Suicide-mission pilots looked over their shoulders to see the
mountain, the southernmost on the Japanese mainland, said farewell to
their country and saluted the mountain. Residents on Kikaishima Island, east of Amami Ōshima, say that pilots from suicide-mission units dropped flowers from the air as they departed on their final missions.
Kamikaze pilots who were unable to complete their missions
(because of mechanical failure, interception, etc.) were stigmatized in
the years following the war. This stigma began to diminish some 50
years after the war as scholars and publishers began to distribute the
survivors' stories.
Some Japanese military personnel were critical of the policy. Officers such as Minoru Genda, Tadashi Minobe and Yoshio Shiga, refused to obey the policy. They said that the commander of a kamikaze attack should engage in the task first. Some persons who obeyed the policy, such as Kiyokuma Okajima, Saburo Shindo and Iyozo Fujita, were also critical of the policy. Saburō Sakai
said: "We never dared to question orders, to doubt authority, to do
anything but immediately carry out all the commands of our superiors. We
were automatons who obeyed without thinking." Tetsuzō Iwamoto refused to engage in a kamikaze attack because he thought the task of fighter pilots was to shoot down aircraft.
Film
- Saigo no Tokkōtai (最後の特攻隊, The Last Kamikaze in English), released in 1970, produced by Toei, directed by Junya Sato and starring Kōji Tsuruta, Ken Takakura and Shinichi Chiba
- Toei also produced a biographical film about Takijirō Ōnishi in 1974 called Ā Kessen Kōkūtai (あゝ決戦航空隊, Father of the Kamikaze in English), directed by Kōsaku Yamashita.
- The Cockpit, an anthology of short films containing one about a kamikaze pilot
- Masami Takahashi, Last Kamikaze Testimonials from WWII Suicide Pilots (Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources, 2008)
- Risa Morimoto, Wings of Defeat (Harriman, NY: New Day Films, 2007)
- Ore wa, kimi no tameni koso (2007, For Those We Love in English)
- Assault on the Pacific – Kamikaze (2007), directed by Taku Shinjo (Original title: "俺は、君のためにこそ死ににいく" Ore wa, Kimi no Tame ni Koso Shini ni Iku)
- The Eternal Zero (永遠の0 Eien no Zero) – 2013 film directed by Takashi Yamazaki
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