Kamikaze

Kamikaze, meaning “divine wind,” echoed Japan’s legendary past as the name of a wind god said to have sent a typhoon that repulsed a Mongol invasion fleet heading for Japan in 1281. Nearly seven centuries later, the divine wind again became the anathema to an invading armada as Japan turned to desperate measures in war. Air battles from the Coral Sea to the Marianas had stripped the nation of its best pilots, and American submarines had sunk so many oil tankers that training flights were severely curtailed. Many student pilots had no time to learn conventional bombing and torpedo tactics. Faced with these grim realities, Admiral Takhiro Onishi, who more than three years earlier had favorably assessed the idea of attacking Pearl Harbor, conceived the extreme measure of using navy planes to crash-dive into enemy ships. The result was a Kamikaze Corps of young volunteers, glad to have the opportunity to serve in so special a role. The Japanese based their lives on obedience to Emperor and Nation, and also wished for the best place in death according to Bushido, the ancient warrior code. One Kamikaze pilot offered a simpler explanation of his role: “I am nothing,” he wrote on the eve of his sacrifice, “but a particle of iron.”

Corpus Christi, Texas · United States