Naval
Historical Center #NH 62696
Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz once said that the only aspect of the Pacific War that was entirely unanticipated in prewar planning was the kamikazes. These were Japanese pilots who deliberately crashed their bomb-laden aircraft onto Allied ships during the desperate final year of the war. Kamikazes caused more Allied naval casualties during the war than any other Japanese weapon.
The name kamikaze means “divine wind” and alludes to a typhoon that destroyed an invading Mongol fleet in medieval times. The name is informal and the Japanese officially referred to the kamikazes as Special Attack Units (tokubetsu kōgeki tai.) They were a desperate response to the increasingly effective antiaircraft and fighter defenses of U.S. task forces. Since attacks on American ships had already become suicidal, some Japanese commanders took the logical step of making suicide a deliberate part of the attack pattern. A suicide pilot could be trained relatively quickly, since he only needed enough training to get off the ground, follow a lead plane to the target area, and point his aircraft at a ship. Furthermore, because of the nature of the attack, the plane had to be completely destroyed, not just damaged, if it was to be stopped.
Naval
Historical Center #NH 79448
The kamikazes were shot down in droves, but
enough got
through to cause terrible damage. The kamikazes had their most
successful day
on October 24, 1944, when 378 kamikazes managed to sink 16 Allied
warships off Okinawa.
The Allies were hard put to find an adequate
response to
this threat. Radar picket destroyers
proved effective at protecting the core of the fleet, but at the cost
of
dangerously exposing the destroyers themselves. There were clear
indications of
declining morale among destroyermen
as a result. A more effective
tactic was
to destroy the kamikazes before they could take to the air. Halsey threw a “Big Blue
Blanket” over Japan
with carrier strikes
that proved as effective as anything in
suppressing the
kamikaze threat. B-29s
were even briefly
diverted against kamikaze airfields,
over the loud protests of the Army
Air
Forces, who resented the use of their strategic bombers in a
tactical
role.
But the best defense against the kamikazes was the Allied blockade of
Japan,
which eliminated the supply of aviation fuel.
National Archives #80-G-270773
To the Americans, the kamikaze was a psychological as well as physical threat. The idea of deliberately sacrificing one’s life, with no chance at all of survival, was difficult for the average American sailor to fathom. But in the Japanese military, death in the service of the Emperor was a privilege. Perhaps even more significant was the Japanese concept of on, the unredeemable debt owed to one’s family and society. This is not a concept easily understood by Westerners.
The concept of sacrificing oneself to destroy many enemies has its echoes in the terrorist movements that plague the world today. The kamikazes were a form of asymmetric warfare, aimed less at the enemy's military might than at the enemy's resolve to fight the war to a conclusion. By exacting a terrible price in blood, the Japanese hoped to compel the Allies to offer more lenient terms. Tragically, the actual consequence was to convince the average American that the Japanese were mindless fanatics who would never surrender. This perception probably helped remove any remaining moral qualms against the fire bombing of cities and the use of nuclear weapons.
The tactics of the kamikazes are duplicated by modern antishipping missiles, which are essentially kamikaze aircraft with a computer chip in place of a human pilot.
References
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2007-2008 by Kent G. Budge. Index
