Kamikaze - World War II
Kamikaze "divine wind" or "spirit wind", officially Tokubetsu Kogekitai ("Special Attack Unit") and used as a verb as Tokko were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy warships more effectively than was possible with conventional attacks. During World War II, about 3,860 kamikaze pilots died, and about 19% of kamikaze attacks managed to hit a ship.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" in planes laden with some combination of explosives, bombs, torpedoes and full fuel tanks; accuracy was much better than a conventional attack, the payload and explosion larger, although a negative aspect to this tactic was that only 11% of kamikaze attacks were successful. A kamikaze could sustain damage which would disable a conventional attacker and still achieve its objective. The goal of crippling or destroying large numbers of Allied ships, particularly aircraft carriers, was considered by the Empire of Japan to be a just reason for sacrificing pilots and aircraft.
"Kamikaze" - it is a word that has become synonymous with all that is crazy, fanatical and self-destructive. I remember as a young schoolboy in Britain learning about the kamikaze pilots. To me, what they had done was inexplicable. For long afterwards, it coloured my view of Japan, and it left me with a nagging question: how did it happen? What caused thousands of ordinary young Japanese men to volunteer to kill themselves?
I had since quite a while ago longed for asking a kamikaze pilot that question. Thus it was that last week I wound up ringing the ringer of an open to looking house outside the city of Nagoya in focal Japan. Minutes after the fact, striding out to meet me came a little, lively and perfectly dressed old man, a wide grin all over.
Tadamasa Itatsu is a vivaciously 89-year-old with twinkling eyes and a firm handshake. He wiped out his tennis amusement since I was coming, he lets me know. It's difficult to trust that lively old man was before a kamikaze pilot.
In March 1945 Itatsu-San was a 19-year-old pilot. Several American and British war vessels and flying machine bearers were cruising towards Okinawa. He was approached by his administrator to volunteer for one of Japan's scandalous "exceptional assault" squadrons.
"In the event that Okinawa was attacked, then the American planes would have the capacity to utilize it as a base to assault the principle islands of Japan." He lets me know: "So we youngsters needed to keep that. In March 1945 it was an ordinary thing to be a kamikaze pilot. Every one of us who were requested that volunteer did as such."
Media inscription Watch Rupert Wingfield-Hayes' News night film in full Within Itatsu-San's house is a place of worship to his fallen companions, the dividers shrouded in grainy photographs of young fellows in flying suits. Again and again as we talk, he returns to a similar point - these young fellows were not enthusiasts, they trusted their activities could spare their nation from debacle.
"Common sense says you only have one life," he says, "so why would you want to give it away? Why would you be happy to do that? But at that time everyone I knew, they all wanted to volunteer. We needed to be warriors to stop the invasion from coming. Our minds were set. We had no doubt about it."
Itatsu-San did not die. As he flew south towards his target, his engine failed and he was forced to ditch in the sea. He returned to his unit, but the war ended before he could try again. A kamikaze attack on a US warship during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 1944 for many years afterwards he kept his story a secret, ashamed he had survived. He often thought of committing suicide, he says, but didn't have the courage.
Then, in the 1970s, he began to seek out the families of his dead comrades, asking them for letters and photographs from the dead pilots. His collection became the core of what is now known as the Kamikaze Letters.
Shoichi Yokoi in 1941, when he was enlisted to be sent to Manchuria for most of the 28 years that Shoichi Yokoi, a lance corporal in the Japanese Army of world War II, was hiding in the jungles of Guam, he firmly believed his former comrades would one day return for him.
Three decades in the jungle
What Japanese history lessons leave out from a series of long cardboard tubes Itatsu-San pulls thin pieces of paper covered in black calligraphy. He carefully unfurls one on the table and begins to read.
"Dear mother, my one regret is I could not do more for you before I die. But to die as a fighter for the emperor is an honour. Please do not feel sad."
A lot of the letters are in this vein. They appear to confirm the view that a whole generation of Japanese men had been brainwashed in to self-abnegation and blind obedience to the Emperor.
But there are others, which show a minority of kamikaze pilots had not swallowed the propaganda, and even some that appear to reject Japan's cause.
One of the most extraordinary is by a young lieutenant, Ryoji Uehara.
"Tomorrow, one who believes in democracy will leave this world," he wrote. "He may look lonely but his heart is filled with satisfaction. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany have been defeated. Authoritarianism is like building a Itatsu-san unfurls the "Kamikaze Letters"
So what should the world make of the Kamikaze Letters, and should they be given World Heritage status?
The people who died did so willingly. I thought at the time it was really bad luck to survive.
Itatsu-San clearly thinks they should. He describes them as a "treasure to be passed down to future generations". But even today with the benefit of 70 years' hindsight, Itatsu-San remains astonishingly deflective about what happened to him and his comrades.
"I never look back with regret," he says, "The people who died did so willingly. I thought at the time it was really bad luck to survive. I really wanted to die with them. Instead, I have to concentrate my efforts to maintain their memory."
Japan has immense problems with its memory of the war. Prominent politicians and media figures still frequently espouse absurd revisionist versions of history - that Japan never started the war, that the Nanjing Massacre never happened, that tens of thousands of comfort women "volunteered" to become sex slaves for the Japanese military.
The massive bombing of Japanese cities at the end of the war, and in particular the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has allowed the construction of a narrative of victimhood. Japan is the only country to have suffered an atomic attack. The firebombing of Tokyo, in one night, killed at least 100,000 civilians. But when talking about these horrors, what is often forgotten or omitted is how it all began.
