Why kamikaze pilots

It is a difficult question to answer if you don't understand the essence of the military," he said. Prof Sheftall says the pilots were asked to put their hand up in a big group if they didn't want to volunteer. Amid peer pressure, hardly anyone was able to say no to the mission. The kamikaze are often compared in modern time to terrorists who carry out suicide missions, but Mr Kuwahara said that's not accurate. With the so-called Islamic State the attacks are unpredictable.

Mr Yamada thinks the word kamikaze, which means "divine wind" in Japanese, is misunderstood and used inappropriately in English without understanding the historical context of what Japan was facing at the time. It was an innocent thing. It really was something pure. It was much more sublime. But now it is being discussed as if we were induced," he said.

After the war Mr Kuwahara, who had been reluctant about his mission, said he felt liberated and that he needed to think about how to rebuild the country.

It was the necessity to work, get food and survive in post-war Japan that kept him going. Haruo was one of more than 2, Japanese servicemen who perished in kamikaze attacks during the three month long battle for the island of Okinawa, located just miles south of mainland Japan, that raged from April 1 to June 22, They were at the centre of a desperate and ill-thought out strategy by the Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo—known as Operation Ten-Go—to defeat the next phase of the American advance in the Pacific.

It failed, though various forms of kamikaze attack—including planes, manned rockets and human torpedoes—did sink 36 American ships and damage a further , inflicting 10, casualties half of them killed.

To the Allies, steeped in the Judaeo-Christian tradition of the sanctity of life, the apparent willingness of Japanese servicemen like Araki to carry out suicide attacks was profoundly shocking. Instead, the Japanese samurai warrior code of bushido—heavily influenced by Shintoism, as well as Buddhism and even Confucianism—revered self-sacrifice and fighting to the bitter end for emperor and country. To surrender, on the other hand, was seen as dishonourable, hence the contempt the Japanese felt for prisoners of war.

We were sending our loved ones off to die… It was the least we could do on the home front. Saul David is a professor of Military History at the University of Buckingham, and an award-winning military historian, and broadcaster.

From the award-winning historian, Saul David, the riveting narrative of the heroic US troops, bonded by the brotherhood and sacrifice of war, who overcame enormous casualties to pull off the toughest invasion of WWII's Pacific theater—and the Japanese forces who fought with tragic desperation to stop them. Her gunners got nine kamikazes, but six others severely damaged the ship.

As on the similarly damaged U. Franklin, courage, and intensive training in firefighting, kept the Laffey afloat. By war's end, kamikazes had sunk or damaged more than U. Several thousand kamikaze planes had been set aside for the invasion of the Japanese mainland that never came. Ironically, the kamikaze — and the sacrificial philosophy behind them — were one of the reasons President Truman decided to drop the atomic bombs.

On the eve of the Japanese surrender, Onishi Takijiro committed suicide, leaving a note apologizing to his dead pilots because their sacrifice had been in vain. In these kamikaze attacks, more than 3, Japanese pilots were killed, and there were more than 7, casualties among American, Australian, and British personell. However, the tide of war was not turned. Japan lost the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and later the war. Japan was forced to accept an unconditional surrender less than a year later.

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