Kamikazes: Suicide Patriots

21 Pages 5255 Words

The Japanese warrior culture is very interesting, especially the men who committed the ultimate acts of sacrifice; the Kamikazes. The suicide attack formations of the Japanese Army and Navy took on many different forms, using many different techniques, but all with the same goal; to win the war through physical and spiritual sacrifice. Their bravery in WWII was perhaps only equaled by the American sailors who had to fight against them. One US Navy sailor lauded the Kamikazes as, "Suicide at its best." Because of the absolute extremeness of these elite combat units, the mystique of the Kamikazes has become almost impossible to break through over 55 years later.
One hot summer afternoon in 1944, Lieutenant-Commander Tadanao Miki of Japan's Aeronautical Research Laboratory was called into his commander's office to sit in on a conversation with a visiting officer. Miki's research section had been struggling with the guidance problems which plagued the German rocket designs recently transferred to Japan via submarine. On this particular day, the visitor was Sub-Lieutenant Shioichi Ota, hardly an encouraging prospect. Miki, who was positive that this man had come to offer another ill-conceived idea for rocket guidance, sat down to listen. It was worse than anything he could have imagined. Ota and his superiors had "eliminated" the guidance problem by placing men on board rocket propelled bombs. The stunned Lieutenant-Commander quickly pointed out several shortcomings of such an idea; besides the terrible effect it would have on morale, the short range of the weapons would require that they be carried on "mother ships" which themselves would be vulnerable to the enemy's burgeoning airpower. Miki was outraged that his research team was being implicated in such a desperate and wasteful plan. But the decision had been made. Miki and his team would design an operational flying bomb, and they would begin soon. A year long cycle of increasing despe...