Battle of Okinawa, in a Fly: A Chilling Epitome on the Bloodiest Battle in Pacific Theater of World War 2 (War Classics In a Fly Book 4) by Edgar Wollstone

Author:Edgar Wollstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

What is a Kamikaze?

School children waving a kamikaze pilot

Kamikaze is nothing but a piloted aircraft that is mounted with copious amounts of explosives. Pilots would make a purpose attack on enemy warships that are heavily loaded with explosives or torpedoes. It is surmised that these attacks have a 19% success rate. Mostly these attacks inflicted brutal casualties than the conventional attacks. Sinking larger number of Allied ships was the impetus for these suicidal dives.

The Kamikaze attacks is said to have been invented in October 1944 when Japan was suffering severe losses in many battles of World War Two. They had lost many of their large battleships; it was becoming increasingly difficult to cope with the dwindling weapons, aircraft and even experienced pilots. After having to war on fronts for long 6 years was beginning to take toll on Japan’s industrial capacity. Japan’s fierce unwillingness to surrender in the teeth of such disastrous realities must have coerced them to resort to the Kamikaze attacks.

The valor and dignity of a soldier in dying for the sake of defending one’s country is revered deeply and this belief is entrenched in Japanese military culture. Equally shunned is the ignominy of surrendering or being captured by enemy. The Japanese prefer death than live a life of shame after being captured by enemy forces. The willing acceptance of death instead of defeat was traditionally a part and parcel of the Japanese military.

The literal translation of Kamikaze is “divine wind”. This also suggests the underlying association of valor in death to the divinity of God. Before the official formation of Kamikaze units, there were cases reported when in the event of a heavily damaged plane, the pilot crashes on to enemy, in order to escape being captured by enemy or in a bid to inflict severe damages on enemy since they were at any rate doomed to death. Such situations have occurred in both Axis and Allied sides. However, in these cases it was an impromptu and a personal decision made by an individual pilot and not a pre-meditated and informed decision like the Kamikaze attacks.

After an initial shock, the American soldiers tried their best to attack the kamikaze, but can a few fire shots deter a man determined to die? More often than not, the Allied ships were sitting ducks before a determined Kamikaze that was determined to crash. The Fifth Fleet suffered severe damages in the kamikaze attacks- 36 ships, 368 damaged, 4900 men killed or maimed, 763 aircraft lost.

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