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Category: Japanese Kamikaze pilots  -- See latest WWII news here. See also 'WWII Flags', 'Imperial Army', 'Japan vs China', 'World War II Collectors'.

Kamikaze film "Wings of Defeat" digs behind WWII propaganda
Ordered to sacrifice themselves by crashing their aircrafts into U.S. warships as Japan vainly battled to stave off invasion in the final months of World War II, some young pilots instead returned alive. "I wanted to live," Kazuo Nakajima, one of the 'failed cherry blossoms' tells the filmmakers with an embarrassed laugh. "I didn't want to die." Director Risa Morimoto sought out former kamikaze: Instead of finding the fanatics, she met a group of gentle men who confessed their mixed emotions about the past. One veteran even criticized the emperor for failing to surrender sooner.     [ reuters :: 2007-07-22 :: Japanese Kamikaze pilots ]

Japan's right looks to kamikaze pilots as models for youth
On April 12, 1945, Lt. Shinichi Uchida faced a horrible mission: crash his plane into a U.S. warship. But the young kamikaze's final letter was full of bravado: "Now I'll go and get rid of those devils," he wrote. He never returned. For many, such words are redolent of the militarism that drove Japan to ruin in WWII. But for an increasingly bold cadre of conservatives, his words symbolize something else: just the kind of commitment that Japanese youth need today. Long a synonym for the waste of war, kamikaze pilots are now being glorified in a film by Shintaro Ishihara and a museum about the kamikazes in Chiran, gets more than 500,000 visitors a year.     [ iht :: 2007-07-08 :: Japanese Kamikaze pilots ]

The Kamikaze in Japanse and International Film
I saw two movies last week in Tokyo, feature and documentary. Both about World War II Kamikaze pilots. "I wanted to convey the corps' beauty to young people today." Writes Ishihara Shintaro at the start of "For Those We Love." His ability to move audiences by having them discover the "beauty" of the Kamikaze pilots instead of "madness", the beauty of their glorious self-sacrifice, was far more skilled than I thought it could be. Documentary Tokko (Special Attack Force, "Wings of Defeat") by Risa Morimoto. It reveals the pilots as their true selves. "I feel something doesn't quite fit when people say we died for the Emperor," says one former Kamikaze pilot.     [ japanfocus :: 2007-05-28 :: Japanese Kamikaze pilots ]

Kamikaze film sparks more of a pacifist than a patriotic response
"For Those We Love", a film of Japan's wartime kamikaze suicide pilots written by Tokyo's nationalist governor Shintaro Ishihara, opened in theatres sparking more of a pacifist than a patriotic response from audiences. The movie comes as Japan edges towards a vote on revising the U.S.-drafted constitution that has limited the country's military activities. The movie tells the true story of a Tome Torihama who became a key figure to many of the young men as they trained to crash explosives-laden aircraft into U.S. warships - the ultimate sacrifice as Japan tried to avert U.S. invasion in the final months of World War II.     [ iht :: 2007-05-13 :: Japanese Kamikaze pilots ]

Japanese movie honours world war II kamikaze pilots
Young girls wave flags as pilots set off to almost certain death in a film "I Go To Die For You" about Japan's "kamikaze" suicide missions during World War II. The movie sets the scene with historical background, as Vice-Admiral Takejiro Onishi announces the desperate strategy of using "kamikaze" pilots to fly their planes into U.S. ships. The first kamikaze attack took place in 1944 and its success inspired Onishi to recruit more men. He committed suicide by ritual seppuku the day after Japan surrendered in 1945. More than 2,000 planes were used and 34 U.S. ships were sunk. Other suicide attacks were also launched by manned torpedo, speed boat and divers.     [ scotsman :: 2007-02-24 :: Japanese Kamikaze pilots ]

The Reluctant Kamikazes in their bomb-armed Zero fighters
Oct 25, 1944: On the island of Mindanao, the six Japanese pilots went through a ceremony: They stood in a half-circle as their commanding officer poured each of them a drink and made a toast. "You are now as gods. Free from all earthly desires. I wish you success." The pilots drank to each other and to Emperor Hirohito. They then wrapped white scarves across their foreheads, climbed into their bomb-armed Mitsubishi Zero fighters and took off on a one-way flight to death. The last and largest naval battle of WW2 was being fought between the Japanese and U.S. fleets. It was at this moment that a new weapon was officially unleashed: kamikazes suicide bombers.     [ dailymail :: 2006-10-01 :: Japanese Kamikaze pilots ]

WWII kamikaze's life
Kamikaze pilot Masayuki Matsumuro escaped death twice near the end of World War Two. But it was a chance encounter with a U.S. soldier that changed his life forever. At 14, he signed up to be a pilot for the Japanese Imperial navy. At 15, he volunteered for a suicide squadron planning an attack on U.S.-occupied Okinawa in 1945. A month before that mission, he visited his home in Hiroshima. At dawn on Aug. 6, he boarded a train to return to his base. Two hours later, a U.S. B-29 Super Fortress named the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city, destroying everything he had ever known. The kamikaze mission was cancelled, and the war soon ended.     [ estripes :: 2006-06-25 :: Japanese Imperial Army ]

Battle of Okinawa mass suicides recalled, debated
Masahide Ota fought as a member of a "Blood and Iron Corps" of students mobilised to defend the southern Japanese island against American invaders. As many as one-third of Okinawa's inhabitants were killed in the battle, described by many historians as a doomed sacrifice ordered by Japan's military leaders to delay an invasion of the mainland. Many civilians, often entire families, died in mass suicides, by some accounts at the order of fanatical Japanese soldiers. Ota and others argue that whether or not there was a direct military order to commit suicide is not the point.     [ tiscali :: 2006-03-27 :: Battle of Okinawa: Marines ]

The German Kamikazes
The Nazi suicidists were laying their plans long before Japanese conceived the idea of Kamikaze pilots. Only bureaucratic inefficiency, and disinterest in official circles forstalled the appearance of Nazi Kamikazes. Hitler objected to the philosophy of suicide, and pointed out that there was no precedent in German history like it. After D-day Goering remembered that in his Luftwaffe there were pilots who had volunteered for a suicide mission. Plans to use a Focke Wulf 190, carrying a 4,000-pound bomb, to crash into selected targets were made, but Hitler heard about it and ordered the project abandoned.     [ lonesentry :: 2006-03-10 :: Wehrmacht: German Armed Forces ]

Kamikaze pilot - We were ready to die for Japan
The story of a kamikaze pilot: He was 21 and preparing for what was supposed to be his valedictory contribution to the Japanese war effort as a member of the elite Tokkotai Special Attack Squadron - the kamikaze. Late 1944 he was in the Philippines preparing for a suicidal attack on a British cruiser. But for the first time in his flying career, his beloved Zero fighter let him down. When the aircraft developed engine trouble, Mr Hamazono was forced to return to another base in Taiwan. By the time he returned to Japan, doubts were surfacing about the value of the men of the Tokkotai: the 2,000 kamikaze aircraft dispatched had managed to sink only 34 ships.     [ guardian :: 2006-03-03 :: Japanese Kamikaze pilots ]

No proof of soviet teenage suicide bombers' WWII camp - FSB
Article no longer available from the original source.
The Federal Security Service's archives contain no documents suggesting that orphaned children were trained as suicide bombers at a Russian secret police special camp in the Alatau Mountains outside Almaty during WWII. Veterans' organizations inquired about this after a film with the same name was released in Russia. However, "The FSB has materials describing a German school which trained teenage saboteurs, organized by Abwehrkommand-203 in Hemfurth near Kassel, Germany, in July 1943. The children were taken from orphanages in Orsh and Smolensk, in occupied Russian territory."     [ interfax :: 2006-02-02 :: Special Forces & Missions ]

Female Pilot Pitches Suicide Squad to Hitler
Hanna Reitsch, Nazi Germany's celebrated female test pilot, suggested that Adolph Hitler should create a suicide squadron of glider pilots. Hitler was skeptical of the idea, believing that such a squadron would not be an effective use of Germany's limited resources. The delicate blonde's enthusiasm finally won him over; he agreed to investigate the possibility of adapting the V-1, which was designed to be a pilotless robotic bomb, to a kamikaze vehicle. Reitsch promptly formed a Suicide Group, and was herself the first person to take the pledge: "I hereby...voluntarily apply to be enrolled in the suicide group as a pilot of a human glider-bomb. I fully understand that employment in this capacity will entail my own death."     [ News of the Odd :: 2005-10-29 :: Hanna Reitsch - Test Pilot ]

See also

'WWII Flags'

'Imperial Army'

'Japan vs China'

'World War II Collectors'.

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Although the articles linked from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich 1933-1945 and World War II in the News are reviewed and specially selected, they do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, who is not responsible for the content of any external sites. This service is © Joni Nuutinen 2005-2008. All rights reserved.