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Kamikaze (神風 from kami meaning "god" and kaze meaning "wind") is a Japanese word — usually translated as 'divine wind' — which came into being as the name of a typhoon which saved Japan from a Mongol invasion fleet in 1281.
However, when used in English — except perhaps in historical and scholarly works — the word is usually understood to refer to Japanese suicide attack pilots, who deliberately flew their aircraft into Allied targets, usually ships, towards the end of World War II.
Japanese forces, after their defeat at the Battle of Midway in 1942, lost the momentum they had at the beginning of the Pacific War (known officially as the Great Eastern Asian War in Japan). During 1943-44, Allied forces, backed by the industrial might and rich resources of the USA, were advancing rapidly towards Japan.
Japan's fighter planes were becoming outnumbered and outclassed by newer US-made planes. Because of combat losses, skilled fighter pilots were becoming extremely scarce. Finally, the low availibility of parts and fuel made even normal flight operation a problem.
Confronted with the loss of air superiority and progress by Allied naval forces, Admiral Takijiro Onishi suggested in October 1944 to organize suicide bombing attacks, through which pilots with basic training could direct explosive-loaded planes on one-way missions.
The official name of the mission was shinpū tokubetsu kōgeki tai (神風特別攻撃隊), literally "divine wind special attack unit." Japanese people usually abbreviate that name to tokkōtai (特攻隊, "special attack unit"). Though the word shinpū is written with the same characters as kamikaze, in Japan kamikaze is normally used only with its original meaning as the typhoon that saved Japan from the Mongol invasion fleet.
The first sortie by the tokkōtai took place at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, off the Philippines in 1944.
By the end of World War Two, the Japanese naval air service had sacrificed 2,525 kamikaze pilots and the army air force had given 1,387. According to an official Japanese announcement, the missions sank 81 ships and damaged 195 and according to a Japanese tally, suicide attacks accounted for up to 80 percent of US losses in the final phase of the war in the Pacific. But in reality only 34 ships were sunk and 288 were damaged. The military effect of kamikaze tactics was significant but not overwhelming. Even so, the psychological effect on Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen was profound.
The idea of kamikaze has been applied later in other parts of the world when the situation is hopeless. Instances are Selbstopfer in Nazi Germany in late World War II and terrorism that employs suicidal attack such as the September 11 terrorist attack, and suicide bombing in Israel by Palestinians.
On July 15, 1944, Saipan, an important base for the defense of Japan's home islands, finally fell to Allied forces. The capture of Saipan made it possible for US air forces, using B-29 Superfortress long-range bombers to strike the Japanese mainland. After the capture of Saipan, the Japanese Imperial Headquarters forecasted that the Allies would try to capture the Philippines, which were strategically important because of their location between the oil fields of Southeast Asia and Japan.
On October 17, 1944, Allied forces assaulted Suluan Island, beginning the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On the next day, the Japanese headquarters launched Shō ichi gō sakusen (捷１号作戦, Operation Shou No.1, to hold the Philippines. This plan called for Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's force (栗田), based in Brunei, to storm into Leyte Gulf and destroy the Allied forces. Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa's force (小沢) would act as a decoy; Rear-Admiral Shoji Nishimura's (西村) force and Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima's fleet (志摩) would act as as mobile strike forces.
The Japanese Navy's First Air Fleet, based at Manila was also deployed, to assist the mobile strike forces in attempting to destroy US landing forces in Leyte Gulf. However, the First Air Fleet at that time only had 40 airplanes: 34 Zeros (零戦), three Nakajima B6N Tenzan (Jill, 天山), one Mitsubishi G4M1 (Betty, 一式陸攻), two Yokosuka P1Y1 Ginga (Frances, 銀河) and one reconnaissance plane. The role of the First Air Fleet seemed totally with only 40 airplanes.
Because of the impossibility of this mission, the First Air Fleet became the first unit to form a Kamikaze Special Attack Force and the commandant of the First Air Fleet, Vice Admiral Onishi Takijirou (大西), became known as "the father of the kamikaze". In a historic meeting at Magracut Airport, near Manila on October 19, Onishi, visiting the 201st Navy Flying Corps headquarters suggested: "I don't think there would be any other certain way to carry out the operation than to put a 250kg [~552lb] bomb on a Zero, and let it crash into a US carrier, in order to disable her for a week."
With the official formation of the special attack force, Commander Asaiki Tamai asked 23 talented student pilots, whom he had personally trained, to participate in the operation. All of the pilots raised both of their hands, agreeing to join the operation. Although it was already becoming obvious at this point that Japan was starting to lose the war, the morale of the soldiers was very high.
Lieutenant waka or tanka) by the Japanese classical scholar, Motoori Norinaga. The poem reads:
It seems that the first kamikaze attack was not carried out by Tamai's unit. On October 21, 1944, the flagship of the Royal Australian Navy, the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia, was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg (441 pound) bomb, off Leyte Island. The name of the pilot and his unit is unknown, and the type of aircraft is unclear, although the pilot was perceived by observers to have made a suicide attack. The plane struck the superstructure of the Australia above the bridge, spewing burning fuel and debris over a large area. However, the bomb failed to explode; if it had, the ship may have been effectively destroyed. At least 30 crew members died as a result of the attack, including the commanding officer, Captain Emile Dechaineux; among the wounded was Commodore John Collins, the Australian force commander.
On October 25, the Australia was hit again and was forced to retire to the New Hebrides for repairs. (HMAS Australia returned to combat in January 1945; by the end of the war, she had survived being hit by kamikazes on six separate occasions, with the loss of 86 lives.)
That same day, five Zeros, led by Yukio, attacked a US escort carrier, the USS St. Lo, although only one kamikaze actually hit the ship. Its bomb caused fires that resulted in the bomb magazine exploding, sinking the carrier. Others hit and damaged several other Allied ships. Because many of them had wooden flight decks, US aircraft carriers were considered more vulnerable to kamikaze attacks than the British Royal Navy carriers operating in the Pacific.
These successes were followed by an immediate expansion of the program, and over the next few months over 2,000 planes made such attacks. This included new types of attacks, including purpose-built Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka rocket-bombs, small boats packed with explosives, and manned torpedoes, called the Kaiten.
The peak came during the Battle of Okinawa, when waves of planes made hundreds of attacks. The effort included a one-way mission by the battleship Yamato, which failed to get anywhere near the fight after being set upon by Allied fighters several hundred miles away.
Off Okinawa, Kamikaze aircraft attacks focused at first on Allied destroyers on "picket duty", and then on the carriers in the middle of the fleet. These attacks, which expended 1,465 planes, created havoc: accounts of losses vary, but by the end of the battle, at least 21 US ships had been sunk by kamikazes, along with some from other Allied navies, and dozens more had been damaged. It is claimed that about 5,000 Allied personnel were killed by kamikzes at Okinawa alone.
As stocks of older planes started to dry up, a new kamikaze-only plane, the Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi, was designed to provide a simple, easy-to-build plane that could use up existing stocks of engines in a wooden airframe. The undercarriage was non-retractable, to be jettisoned shortly after take-off for a suicide mission, to be reused. The Japanese were stockpiling hundreds of these planes, along with more Ohkas and boats, for the eventual invasion of Japan. They were never used.
According to legend, young pilots on kamikaze missions often flew southwest from Japan over the 922 metre (~3000 ft) Mount Kaimon. The mountain is also called "Satsuma Fuji" (meaning a geometrically symmetrical beautiful mountain like Mount Fuji, but located in the Satsuma region). Suicide mission pilots looked over their shoulders to see this, the most southern mountain on the Japanese mainland, while they were in the air, said "goodbye" to their country, and saluted the mountain.
Residents on Kikaijima island, east of Amami Oshima, say that pilots from suicide mission units dropped flowers from the air, as they departed on their final missions. Supposedly the hills above Kikaijima airport have beds of cornflower that bloom in early May. (Source: Jiro Kosaka, 1995, Kyou ware Ikiteari)
The article contains materials from Mr. Nobu's personal website with the permission for use
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