The Japanese word kamikaze is usually translated as "divine wind" (kami is the word for "god", "spirit", or "divinity", and kaze for "wind"). Kamikaze’s father used to race cars and boats and acted as a second father to Chief. Ōnishi was a native of Ashida village (part of present-day Tamba City) in Hyōgo Prefecture. On October 17 when he took command of the 1st Air Fleet in the Philippines, Onishi realized that the military situation was really desperate and that his options for stopping the American Navy were limited. Ōnishi had opposed the attack on the grounds that it would lead to a full-scale war with a foe that had the resources to overpower Japan into an unconditional surrender. 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. Once again, AnimEigo's commitment to informative extras is in evidence. Her father embarked at sunrise with a flask of water, a samurai sword in the cockpit, a shaven head full of powerful incantations and enough fuel for a one-way journey into history The kamikaze fighter prepares for their suicide mission. Seafires were heavily involved in countering the kamikaze attacks during the Iwo Jima landings and beyond. [24] 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. "[54] 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. He became executive officer of the aircraft carrier Kaga on 15 November 1932. 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. He came to realize that the only way to force a negotiated solution was to convince the Americans that invading Japan would cause massive casualties on both sides. Vice Admiral Takajiro Ohnishi could see that Japan's defeat in WWII was inevitable. Two 100 kg (220 lb) bombs were attached to two fighters, and the pilots took off before dawn, planning to crash into carriers. By 17:00, Corsairs were able to land. 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. Five A6M Zeros, led by Lieutenant Seki, were escorted to the target by leading Japanese ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa where they attacked several escort carriers. The names of the four sub-units within the Kamikaze Special Attack Force were Unit Shikishima, Unit Yamato, Unit Asahi and Unit Yamazakura. As a result, the special attack units are sometimes known in Japan as kamikaze tokubetsu kōgeki tai. U.S. personnel gave them the derisive nickname "Baka Bombs" (baka is Japanese for "idiot" or "stupid"). 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. 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. 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. About 3,800 kamikaze pilots died during the war, and more than 7,000 naval personnel were killed by kamikaze attacks.[2]. 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. This brutal "training" was justified by the idea that it would instill a "soldier's fighting spirit", but daily beatings and corporal punishment eliminated patriotism among many pilots. On the morning of Oct. 25, 1944, a squadron of five Japanese kamikazepilots in Zero planes led by Yukio Seki soared over the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. On 20 March, the submarine USS Devilfish survived a hit from an aircraft just off Japan. Lo, plowing into the flight deck. The ultimate offering was to give up one's life. It's all a lie that they left filled with braveness and joy, crying, "Long live the emperor!" Early in the Pacific Campaign of World War II, Ōnishi was the head of the Naval Aviation Development Division in the Ministry of Munitions and was responsible for some of the technical details of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 under the command of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. They manned their guns and fired, but were still used to an enemy that, once disabled, would try to turn back home. Light rapid fire anti-aircraft weapons such as the 40 mm Bofors and 20 mm Oerlikon autocannons were highly effective,[33] but heavy anti-aircraft guns such as the 5"/38 caliber gun (127 mm) had the punch to blow kamikazes out of the air, which was preferable since even a heavily damaged kamikaze could complete its mission. He came to realize that the only way to force a negotiated solution was to convince the Americans that invading Japan would cause massive casualties on both sides. The Japanese high command and propagandists seized on Arima's example. The exact number of ships sunk is a matter of debate. Click to Play. It’s through Kamikaze’s father that he and Chief got into racing. [60][61] Some persons who obeyed the policy, such as Kiyokuma Okajima, Saburo Shindo and Iyozo Fujita, were also critical of the policy. 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. This will also enable you to concentrate your attention on eradicating the enemy with unwavering determination, meanwhile reinforcing your excellence in flight skills. [5] After his recall to Tokyo, Ōnishi became Vice Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff on 19 May 1945. Minato was immediately drawn to her bright red hair, finding it beautiful. Some of these escort pilots, such as Zero pilot Toshimitsu Imaizumi, were later sent out on their own kamikaze missions. 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. Before taking off, he had told his men that if his plane were to become badly damaged he would crash it into a "worthy enemy target". Many warships of all classes were damaged, some severely, but no aircraft carriers, battleships or cruisers were sunk by kamikaze at Okinawa. [21], According to some sources, on 14 October 1944, USS Reno was hit by a deliberately crashed Japanese plane. The First Naval Air Technical Bureau (Kugisho) in Yokosuka refined Ohta's idea. Overall, the kamikazes were unable to turn the tide of the war and stop the Allied invasion. More … Purpose-built kamikaze planes, as opposed to converted fighters and dive-bombers, were also being constructed. Some kamikazes were able to hit their targets even after their aircraft were crippled. [15] Japanese planners had assumed a quick war and lacked comprehensive programmes 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.[16]. Its non-retractable landing gear was jettisoned shortly after takeoff for a suicide mission, recovered and reused. [14] 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. 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. Allied aviators called the action the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". [25] 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]. Allied pilots became adept at destroying enemy aircraft before they struck ships. "Kamikaze" was written by contemporary British poet Beatrice Garland and published in The Invention of Fireworks (2013). • 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 While many stories were falsified, some were true, such as that of Kiyu Ishikawa, who saved a Japanese ship when he crashed his plane into a torpedo that an American submarine had launched. He was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy from the beginning of World War II, and became the head of the Naval Aviation Development Division in the Ministry of Munitions during the Pacific Campaign, where he eventually became known as the father of the Kamikaze. These instructions, among others, were meant to make pilots mentally ready to die. Watch Father of the Kamikaze (1974) SD. 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. 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. Its bomb caused fires that resulted in the bomb magazine exploding, sinking the carrier.[30]. A pilot would dive towards his target and "aim for a point between the bridge tower and the smoke stacks". 14 destroyers, including the last ship to be sunk. [18], 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. By 1945, large numbers of anti-aircraft shells with radio frequency proximity fuzes, on average seven times more effective than regular shells, became available, and the U.S. Navy recommended their use against kamikaze attacks. On 6 April 1945, waves of aircraft made hundreds of attacks in Operation Kikusui ("floating chrysanthemums"). When Kushina Uzumaki moved to Konoha, she was placed in the same class as Minato. Takijirō Ōnishi (大西 瀧治郎, Ōnishi Takijirō, 2 June 1891 – 16 August 1945) was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II, who came to be known as the father of the kamikaze. The attacks expended 1,465 planes. Ōnishi′s ashes were divided between two graves: one at the Zen temple of Sōji-ji in Tsurumi, Yokohama, and the other at the public cemetery in the former Ashida Village in Hyōgo Prefecture. "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." The task facing the Japanese air forces seemed impossible. [citation needed], On 17 October 1944, Allied forces assaulted Suluan Island, beginning the Battle of Leyte Gulf. "[46], When the volunteers arrived for duty in the corps, there were twice as many persons as aircraft available. Country: Japan. U.S. Such situations occurred in both the Axis and Allied air forces. With his superiors, he arranged the first investigations into the plausibility and mechanisms of intentional suicide attacks on 15 June 1944. [58] 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. Early on 21 October, a Japanese aircraft deliberately crashed into the foremast of the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia. Pilots would attempt to crash their aircraft into enemy ships in what was called a "body attack" (tai-atari) in planes loaded with bombs, torpedoes or other explosives. He also stated that he would offer his death as a penance to the kamikaze pilots and their families. 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. 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". 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. In this narrative poem, Beatrice Garland explores the testimony of the daughter of a kamikaze pilot. Inoguchi, Rikihei, The Divine Wind, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1958, p. 139. Some were unable to stand up and were carried and pushed into the plane by maintenance soldiers. In 1938, he had published a book on the subject: War Ethics of the Imperial Navy. Pilots Wrote Their Family Final Letters. He lists: It was claimed by the Japanese forces at the time that there were many volunteers for the suicidal forces. On 9 May, Formidable was again damaged by a kamikaze, as were the carrier HMS Victorious and the battleship HMS Howe. 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 On 25 October 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Kamikaze Special Attack Force carried out its first mission. There will be more than enough volunteers for this chance to save our country, and I would like to command such an operation. [citation needed], 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. At the base level, "Father of the Kamikaze" tells the story of Onishi Takijiro, a Vice Admiral of the Japanese navy. ", Commander Asaichi Tamai asked a group of 23 talented student pilots, all of whom he had trained, to volunteer for the special attack force. Allied gunners had begun to develop techniques to negate kamikaze attacks. 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." 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. Officers such as Minoru Genda, Tadashi Minobe and Yoshio Shiga, refused to obey the policy. The word originated from Makurakotoba of waka poetry modifying "Ise"[8] 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. 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. One, under heavy fire and trailing smoke, aborted the attempt on White Plains and instead banked toward USS St. The peak period of kamikaze attack frequency came during April–June 1945 at the Battle of Okinawa. We read and read, trying to understand why we had to die in our early twenties. [65], 1944–1945 Japanese suicidal aircraft attacks. Lo – were followed by an immediate expansion of the program, and over the next few months over 2,000 planes made such attacks. [2] Kamikaze attacks were more accurate than conventional attacks, and often caused more damage. [4], He addressed the first kamikaze unit and announced that its nobility of spirit would keep the homeland from ruin even in defeat. Pilots were told not to aim at a carrier's bridge tower but instead to target the elevators or the flight deck. Father Of The Kamikaze Foreseeing inevitable defeat, a respectful admiral champions a radical strategy to f-rce America to consider a negotiated peace. Like all Army and Navy servicemen, the kamikaze would wear their senninbari, a "belt of a thousand stitches" given to them by their mothers. 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. Axell and Kase see these suicides as "individual, impromptu decisions by men who were mentally prepared to die". On 1 May 1943, he was promoted to vice admiral. Kamikaze (神風, Japanese pronunciation: [kamiꜜkaze]; "divine wind" or "spirit wind"), officially Kamikaze/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. Director: Kôsaku Yamashita. [39][40], 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. Though it's not even listed on the Internet Movie Database, Father of the Kamikaze (Aa, kessen kokutai, 1974) was a massive production for Japan's Toei Studios. When you eliminate all thoughts about life and death, you will be able to totally disregard your earthly life. Ensign Mitsuo Ohta had suggested that piloted glider bombs, carried within range of targets by a mother plane, should be developed. Nevertheless, his 11th Air Fleet had a critical role in the operations in attacking American forces in the Philippines from Japanese-occupied Taiwan.[3]. As time went on, Americans claimed, Shinto was used increasingly in the promotion of nationalist sentiment. [38], U.S. carriers, with their wooden flight decks, appeared to suffer more damage from kamikaze hits than the armored-decked carriers from the British Pacific Fleet. "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 planes. 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"). [62][63] 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. No war-monger, Onishi actually opposed the attack on Pearl Harbor, foreseeing that it would launch Japan into a full-scale war with the US, a war they could never win. The Japanese considered the goal of damaging or sinking large numbers of Allied ships to be a just reason for suicide attacks. They had lost several important battles, many of their best pilots had been killed, their aircraft were becoming outdated,[dubious – discuss] and they had lost command of the air. The kamikaze shared ceremonial cups of sake or water known as "mizu no sakazuki". It was just his duty, but also, he saw it as a path toward glory — a way to finally prove himself to his father. Eight personnel were killed and 47 were wounded. Father of the Kamikaze (1974) 09/14/1974 (JP) War, Drama, History 3h 19m User Score. During World War Two, thousands of Japanese pilots volunteered to be kamikaze, suicidally crashing their planes in the name of their 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. Tokkōtai pilot training, as described by Takeo Kasuga,[52] generally "consisted of incredibly strenuous training, coupled with cruel and torturous corporal punishment as a daily routine". [22], 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. In ‘Kamikaze’ by Beatrice Garland, the speaker is certainly not the pilot, but his daughter whereby the poet explores the testimony of a Kamikaze pilot. This makes us feel a part of the pilot’s daughter’s reminiscences as she explains to her own children what her father must have felt like as he progressed on his suicide mission. When a kamikaze hits a Limey carrier it's just a case of 'Sweepers, man your brooms'.". The cold logic of suicide attacks, where one man and one plane could kill hundreds, seemed the only solution. Tropical diseases, as well as shortages of spare parts and fuel, made operations more and more difficult for the IJNAS. Late in 1944, the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) used the good high-altitude performance of its Supermarine Seafires (the naval version of the Spitfire) on combat air patrol duties. A final element included intensive fighter sweeps over Japanese airfields, and bombing of Japanese runways, using delayed-action bombs to make repairs more difficult.[32]. The “Father of the Kamikaze tactic”, the Japanese officer who officialized the use of kamikaze pilots is Vice Admiral Takahiro Onishi. 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. [9][10], A Japanese monoplane that made a record-breaking flight from Tokyo to London in 1937 for the Asahi newspaper group was named Kamikaze. 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. According to some accounts, two made suicide attacks, one of which hit USS Indiana.[17].