A Tale of a Kamikaze Pilot Who Survived

[AProudLefty]

I know it is not December yet but I was in the mood to watch "Pearl Harbor" so I thought I'd share.

A few years ago, when I was making a BBC TV documentary series about the Japanese and World War II, I mentioned to a colleague that I was leaving for Tokyo in order to meet a kamikaze pilot. “Are you crazy?” he said. “How can you meet a kamikaze pilot? These guys all killed themselves in suicide attacks on Allied ships! They disintegrated into a million pieces 60 years ago!”

He was wrong. Unlikely as it may seem, a number of Japanese kamikaze pilots did survive the war. All had been instructed to return to base if their planes developed a fault on the way to their targets. That is how I came to meet Kenichiro Oonuki. Back in April 1945 he had been forced to land his plane—stuffed with explosives—because of engine trouble while he was en route to attack the American fleet off Okinawa. He was rescued by the Japanese navy and interrogated about the reasons for the failure of his mission. Meanwhile, the war in the Pacific ended.

He told me that his survival had given him “a sense of a burden.” He knew he wasn’t supposed to be talking to me 60 years after the end of the war—that he should have, as my colleague had said, smashed his plane into the superstructure of an American warship. But the fact that he did survive meant that he was able to correct the central myth of the kamikaze—that these young pilots all went to their deaths willingly, enthused by the Samurai spirit.

On the contrary, Oonuki said, when he and his fighter pilot colleagues were first asked to volunteer for this “special attack mission” they thought the whole idea “ridiculous.” But, given the night to think about their decision, the men reconsidered. They feared that if they did not volunteer, their families would be ostracized and their parents told that their son was “a coward, not honorable, shameful.”

My friend in Japan and I talked about this. He said that indeed it's better to die than to have dishonor on one's family.

Now he warns that in a time of crisis, like the Second World War, “you are drawn into this major vortex and swirl around without your own will.”

Sounds familiar?

Before I met Kenichiro Oonuki I thought the Japanese kamikaze pilots must have been—literally—deranged. But I emerged, having listened to his calm, measured explanation, thinking something much more terrifying—the kamikaze were quite, quite sane.

Yep. Sane people have been caught in wars that they have no control over.

God bless the soldiers, no matter who they are.

Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima" is an awesome movie.

[PoliTalker]

Not surprised they were pressured to do it.

[AProudLefty]

Not surprised they were pressured to do it.

The irony is that they were being dishonorable by telling them they would dishonor their families if they didn't do the mission.

[ThatOwlWoman]

I did not know this about them, or even that any had survived. Great OP.

[AProudLefty]

Chilling words - "Your lives are more important than mine."

[AProudLefty]

It's always the same thing. Soldiers feel it's their duty to protect their children, families, fellow soldiers and nations. To bring honor to them.

To take advantage of that is despicable.

[T. A. Gardner]

It was actually a reasonable military strategy. Kamikaze pilots were about three times as likely to successfully hit and damage or even sink their target than aircraft using conventional bombing / torpedo attacks were with only about 25% more losses. That is, by late 1944 Japanese aircraft were highly unlikely to survive an attack mission on the US Navy regardless of how it was conducted while kamikaze pilots were far more likely to succeed in actually damaging their target.

To defeat a kamikaze attack it wasn't enough to distract the plane and make it miss bombing or dropping a torpedo. Damaged it still would potentially end up hitting the target. Thus it had to be destroyed / shot down before arriving at the target. For the US Navy, this required a new set of tactics and changes in weapons. Previously, the 20mm was highly effective in damaging and distracting aircraft with high volumes of fire. Against kamikaze it couldn't do enough damage and the kamikaze usually would get through. 40mm and larger weapons like 3" and 5" guns could destroy a kamikaze but were fewer in number on ships. The Navy started removing 20mm and trying to find ways to put more 40mm on ships in their place. They also developed an automatic 3" gun to replace the 40mm guns.

Kamikaze also brought in a huge emergency development program to build a surface to air missile that could shoot down a kamikaze at much longer ranges than guns could. This was project Bumblebee, and postwar it resulted in what could arguably be called the most successful military missile family in history to date.

The ultimate kamikaze was the MXY-7 Ohka. This was literally a pilot controlled guided missile launched from a mother plane near the target. The pilot simply replaced the computer--which wasn't available to the Japanese in 1945--as a guidance system.

[cawacko]

I know it is not December yet but I was in the mood to watch "Pearl Harbor" so I thought I'd share.

A few years ago, when I was making a BBC TV documentary series about the Japanese and World War II, I mentioned to a colleague that I was leaving for Tokyo in order to meet a kamikaze pilot. “Are you crazy?” he said. “How can you meet a kamikaze pilot? These guys all killed themselves in suicide attacks on Allied ships! They disintegrated into a million pieces 60 years ago!”

He was wrong. Unlikely as it may seem, a number of Japanese kamikaze pilots did survive the war. All had been instructed to return to base if their planes developed a fault on the way to their targets. That is how I came to meet Kenichiro Oonuki. Back in April 1945 he had been forced to land his plane—stuffed with explosives—because of engine trouble while he was en route to attack the American fleet off Okinawa. He was rescued by the Japanese navy and interrogated about the reasons for the failure of his mission. Meanwhile, the war in the Pacific ended.

He told me that his survival had given him “a sense of a burden.” He knew he wasn’t supposed to be talking to me 60 years after the end of the war—that he should have, as my colleague had said, smashed his plane into the superstructure of an American warship. But the fact that he did survive meant that he was able to correct the central myth of the kamikaze—that these young pilots all went to their deaths willingly, enthused by the Samurai spirit.

On the contrary, Oonuki said, when he and his fighter pilot colleagues were first asked to volunteer for this “special attack mission” they thought the whole idea “ridiculous.” But, given the night to think about their decision, the men reconsidered. They feared that if they did not volunteer, their families would be ostracized and their parents told that their son was “a coward, not honorable, shameful.”

My friend in Japan and I talked about this. He said that indeed it's better to die than to have dishonor on one's family.

Now he warns that in a time of crisis, like the Second World War, “you are drawn into this major vortex and swirl around without your own will.”

Sounds familiar?

Before I met Kenichiro Oonuki I thought the Japanese kamikaze pilots must have been—literally—deranged. But I emerged, having listened to his calm, measured explanation, thinking something much more terrifying—the kamikaze were quite, quite sane.

Yep. Sane people have been caught in wars that they have no control over.

God bless the soldiers, no matter who they are.

Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima" is an awesome movie.

Good read. Man, the psychology of that. Anyone who goes into battle knows there is a good chance they may not come out alive but yet there is still a chance. With Kamikaze’s not so much.

I only know a little about Japanese culture but they are a very proud people and at that time especially, dishonoring your family/country was about the worst offense imaginable. Hence why people would do it.