He bristles when asked about attempts by Japans conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to reinterpret the clause to allow troops to fight alongside allies overseas for the first time since the conflict that almost took his life. The fires were gradually brought under control, and the crater in the deck was repaired with concrete and steel plate. In view of the tide of the war turning beyond Japanese control, air commanders proposed the desperate act of suicide-crashing enemy ships with their planes. Thats when I knew we had lost the war. Kamikaze pilots killed more than 300 Americans during the battles. By 26 October day's end, 55 kamikazes from the Special Attack Force had also damaged three large escort carriers: USSSangamon, Santee, and Suwannee (which had The U.S. Fast Carrier Task Force alone could bring over 1,000 fighter aircraft into play. I just wanted to protect the father and mother I loved. Corrections? Five A6M Zeros, led by Lieutenant Seki, were escorted to the target by leading Japanese ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa where they attacked several escort carriers. Shortly afterwards, Japan was a defeated nation. [65], The tokktai 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". Why did kamikaze pilots shave their heads? They managed to hit targets around 14% of the time, sinking 34 Navy ships and damaging 368 others. As a devoted subject of the emperor, Horiyama longed for his moment of glory. In these cases, the pilots would often commit suicide by crashing their plane into the ground. 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. The Zero could hit a maximum speed of 332 mph. Such situations occurred in both the Axis and Allied air forces. The kamikazes traded six of their aircraft for a tank and a couple of cars. So what tactics were specifically used to convince the volunteers? The Japanese word kamikaze is usually translated as "divine wind" (kami is the word for "god", "spirit", or "divinity", and kaze for "wind"). Bunker Hill and Franklin were both hit (in Franklin's case, by a dive bomber, not a kamikaze) while conducting operations with fully fueled and armed aircraft spotted on deck for takeoff, an extremely vulnerable state for any carrier. Some pilots flew their planes into enemy ships, while others flew them into the side of mountains. ", Commander Asaichi Tamai asked a group of 23 talented student pilots, all of whom he had trained, to volunteer for the special attack force. 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. [citation needed], On 17 October 1944, Allied forces assaulted Suluan Island, beginning the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). On 19 August 1945, 11 young officers under Second Lieutenant Hitoshi Imada, attached to the 675th Manchuria Detachment, accompanied by two women of their engagement,[clarification needed] left the Daikosan airfield and made a final aerial suicide attack against one of the Soviet armoured units that had invaded Manchuria known as the Shinshu Fumetsu Special Attack Corps (Japanese: ),[49][50][51][52][53] the last kamikaze attacks were recorded on 20 August 1945. Ena, 92, had been drafted into the depleted ranks of the navy as a 20-year-old economics student at the prestigious Waseda university in Tokyo.
