During the deadly air
battles of World War II, being one of Japan's
infamous kamikaze pilots wasn't exactly a
walk in the park. Compelled and conditioned to
make the ultimate sacrifice in the service of
Emperor Hirohito, young pilots embarked on
deadly suicide missions throughout World War II. Today, we're looking at the
short, complicated lives of Japan's kamikaze pilots. But before we get started,
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below one other World War II topics you would
like to hear about. OK, let's get back
to World War II. [MUSIC PLAYING] Japan's kamikaze forces
are infamous for the damage and destruction they caused to
American fleets during the war. But there is a very
sad and human story behind their actions. Known as the
"Tokkatai" in Japan, kamikaze forces were led by Vice
Admiral Takijiro Onishi, who believed the only way to
assure any kind of victory for the Japanese was
to use their planes and bombs to organize suicide
attacks against the enemy. Thus, the idea of the Special
Attack Forces was born. They took the name from
the legendary divine wind that protected Japan from
Kublai Khan's invading Mongol army. The idea was that the force
would consist of volunteers. But building a force
of kamikaze pilots wasn't as simple as that. Some pilots enthusiastically
volunteered, but that wasn't the norm. Potential pilots
received a notice containing three options-- volunteer with a strong desire,
simply volunteer, or decline. The papers also contained
something else-- the name of the pilot. This made it much more
difficult to decline the offer. The pressure to
volunteer was intense. Sometimes the army asked a
room full of potential pilots who didn't want to volunteer. In these situations,
peer pressure and the norms of
Japanese society made it much more
difficult to decline. Declining might make
a soldier's life miserable for the immediate
future, and in some cases, saying no didn't work anyway. One soldier, Emiko
Ohnuki-Tierney, wrote about this experience
in his book, Kamikaze Diaries, writing, "Kuroda Kenjiro
decided not to volunteer, only to be taken by
surprise when he found his name on the
list of volunteers for the Mitate Navy
Tokkatai corps." His superior had
reported proudly that all the members of
his corps had volunteered. That kind of thing
happened often, and many of the pilots
believed sacrificing themselves in battle would
earn them a place at Japan's Yasukuni
shrine, a resting place to honor Japan's dead. The Yasukuni shrine
gets mentioned often in the writings of
kamikaze pilots, and it's presently home
to 2,466,000 divinities-- soldiers who perished in
various Japanese wars. [MUSIC PLAYING] Soldiers from
other countries are expected to fight for their
country in times of war. But the Japanese soldiers had a
different set of expectations. Before 1945, the Emperor
was seen as a living god under Japan's Shinto religion. This unquestioning
loyalty to the Emperor meant they'd fight and die
for him above all else. The pilots were expected to
accept and embrace their death as true patriots of Japan. Some of them did so with honor. A few even kept a samurai
sword and a picture of the Emperor in their
cockpits while in flight. Kamikaze pilots demonstrated
this sense of loyalty to Hirohito through attacks. Following World War II, Emperor
Hirohito became a figurehead with no actual political power. But for a time before that,
he was an influential figure in Japanese history. [MUSIC PLAYING] Becoming a Japanese soldier
during the Second World War was a grim business. During the war, the Japanese
military mandate was simple-- death before surrender. When faced with capture, a
Japanese pilot or soldier was trained to end
their own lives rather than become
a prisoner of war. But it wasn't through
cyanide capsules or seppuku. Japanese forces trained
personnel to use a rifle to accomplish the deed. This wasn't unique
to kamikaze pilots. When facing inevitable defeat
at the hands of the enemy, Japanese soldiers engaged
in banzai charges. And things got ugly from there. If a soldier decided
to flee instead, his comrades were
required to shoot him from behind,
ensuring there would be no capture or surrender. [MUSIC PLAYING] During wartime,
soldiers from all sides write letters to home. In the case of a kamikaze
pilot, however, the letter was an integral
part of the mission. Before his mission, the
kamikaze pilot's final act was to write a letter to his
parents, wife, or family. After his mission,
the family members were supposed to read the
heavily censored letters. These writings captured the
final thoughts of a pilot before he made his attack. Many letters and poems
survived to this day, but only a handful have been
translated into English. One such letter was written by
Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, the pilot of the second plane that
took out the USS Bunker Hill, ultimately
decommissioning the ship and wiping out over
300 crew members. The letter isn't quite what
you'd expect from someone embarking on such a mission. Ogawa expressed
gratitude to his parents and the honor he feels for being
a member of the Special Attack corps, writing, "Beyond
those boundless white clouds, I will make my attack
with a calm feeling. Not even thoughts of life
and death will come to mind. A person dies once. It will be an honorable day
to live for the eternal cause. Father and Mother,
please be glad for me." The Ensign signed off with
the wish of good health to his mother,
telling both parents he'd be watching over them
at the Yasukuni shrine, ending the letter
with the phrase, "I will go smiling, both on the
day of my sortie and forever." To this day it's
difficult to determine if these letters represent
a pilot's true feelings, or soldiers wrote them in a way
that demonstrated the pilot's courage to their families. Other pilots wrote
similar letters, but there was never a guarantee
the military would pass them along to the pilots' families. Several books of
these final writings were compiled, translated,
and saved for posterity so that future
generations can learn about the lives of
these doomed men from a dark time in
Japanese history. [MUSIC PLAYING] Serving in the Japanese army
could be cruel at times, especially since
corporal punishment was baked into the framework
of the armed forces. Beatings and violence were
common among the ranks. Anything from a missing button
to failure to snap to attention could ignite a superior
officer's wrath. A soldier might
receive a beating for standing on a newspaper
photo of the Emperor. While many Japanese
soldiers were drafted into military service
with some level of patriotism in their hearts, the beatings
and regular punishments left indelible scars
on the soldiers that would last a lifetime. And if that weren't bad
enough, corporal punishment permeated the
entire armed forces. Anyone above your rank might
beat you for any reason. Their superiors would
treat them the same way. And it went all the
way up the ladder to Japan's Prime
Minister, Hideki Tojo. One kamikaze pilot,
named Irokawa Daikichi, was drafted into
military service but never conducted
a kamikaze mission. When he later
became a historian, he wrote a harrowing
account of the brutality he suffered while enlisted. One terrible incident occurred
after his superiors accused his company of eating
with the local farmers to ease their hunger. He wrote, "Each of us was
called into the officer's room. When my turn came, as soon
as I entered the room, I was hit so hard that I
could no longer see and fell to the floor. The minute I got up, I
was hit again by a club so that I would confess. A friend of mine was
thrown with his head first to the floor,
lost consciousness, and was sent to a hospital. He never returned. All this savagery was
orchestrated by the corp commander, named Tsutsui. I am still looking
for this fellow." During his training, he
was struck in the face until it was no
longer recognizable. One day in 1945, a fellow
ensign hit him in the face repeatedly until his teeth badly
cut the inside of his mouth. On another day,
his unit was forced to sit on a frozen concrete
floor and beaten with clubs. [MUSIC PLAYING] When the Special Attack
Force first formed in 1944, no military academy trained
officers volunteered to join. So instead, the deadly
kamikaze missions were left entirely up to the new
recruits and junior personnel to take on the unpleasant role. Japan's kamikaze force
consisted of approximately 4,000 kamikaze pilots. At least 3,000 of
them were boy pilots that had recently
been conscripted into the Japanese army. Around 1,000 of them
were student soldiers whom the government decided to
graduate from university early to make them eligible
for the draft. These men were
exceptionally well-educated, spending most of the time at
university reading and writing. As a result, most
accounts of the reality of serving in the
Special Attack Force come from these
student soldiers. They probably didn't
think about the enemy much at all, especially
since most of them never saw actual combat. According to writer Yuki
Tanaka, of the Hiroshima Peace Institute, their
diaries and letters don't often discuss
their enemies. Instead, they offer a profoundly
philosophical approach to describing their
lives and experiences. There's no hatred of the
enemy within their pages. Instead, they capture
their struggle to understand their
imminent deaths and come to term
with their fate. And, in the end,
they often pondered how to spend the remaining
time in a meaningful way and to justify the suicidal
act they were required to make on behalf of their country. [MUSIC PLAYING] It may seem strange, but taking
off on a kamikaze mission wasn't always a death sentence. Mechanical failure
or engine problems required pilots to divert their
flight and return to base. A lot of Japanese aircraft
were old, outdated, and beginning to fail. As the war raged
on, more pilots had to divert their missions
due to these problems. Kamikaze pilot Takehiko Ena
survived a few planned missions as a direct result
of this policy. He was supposed to be
part of a crew of three flying a bomber during
Operation Kikusui. But luck was on Ena's side. On his first mission, he
couldn't get his plane off the ground. His second mission
didn't fare much better. Engine trouble forced
an emergency landing. On the third time out, engine
trouble forced a crash landing into the sea. Ena, his co-pilot, and
the communications officer swam to nearby
Kuroshima Island, where they stayed for
nearly three months until a Japanese
submarine picked them up. Ena was relieved he
survived and felt optimistic about his future. After the war, the new
US-written Constitution's Article 9 restricted Japan's
military to a defensive role. 70 years later, he
reflected on his experience, telling The Guardian,
"For 70 years, we have been protected by a
peace-oriented Constitution. I'm very grateful
that we haven't gone to war in that time. The Japanese people should
be happy about that." His sentiment isn't unique
among surviving kamikaze pilots, but it's strange to think that
more kamikaze missions might have been successful, if
it weren't for their poorly maintained planes. [MUSIC PLAYING] While many young Japanese men
were drafted into serving, firstborn sons weren't allowed
to become kamikaze pilots. In 1944, firstborn sons
got the opportunity to stay alive to carry
on the family name. Everyone else was expected
to sacrifice themselves to the service of the Emperor. Second sons bore the
brunt of kamikaze service. Okinawa native Paul
Saneaki Nakamura volunteered for the Special
Attack Force training on a glider due to
plane shortages. Nakamura was never
called upon to conduct a mission of his own,
and he survived the war. But he was far too poor to
return to his home in Okinawa right away. When he finally made it back,
he discovered all the first sons who'd remained behind during
the war met their demise the Battle of Okinawa. After his horrifying
discovery, Nakamura became an Anglican priest
and spread Christianity throughout the land. [MUSIC PLAYING] There was one ritual all
kamikaze pilots practiced before their mission-- a final ceremonial drink. Pilots drank a cup
of sake, or water, before boarding their planes. In some ways, this is
similar to the tradition of giving a man a
blindfold and a cigarette before sending him to
face the firing squad. A surviving pilot,
named Keiichi Kuwahara, remembered the ceremonial
drink and the mission he was supposed to fly afterward. As he flew out to sea, he
looked back at his homeland with tears in his eyes. On his way to Okinawa to
destroy an American warship, his plane experienced
engine trouble and forced a crash landing. He later said, "I struggled to
convince myself I had to die. I thought my death
would be pointless. Even if Japan won the war, my
family would die in the gutter, because I would not be
there to support them. It tormented me. I felt like I was
losing my mind. We were told that rather
than accept defeat, we should offer our lives. There was no choice. We had to follow orders
when push came to shove. But we didn't wish for death." His second mission was also
avoided due to engine failure. Kuwahara's gratitude
for being alive far outweighed any dishonor
or fear of poor treatment from other pilots. His guilt, however, stayed
with him for a long time, and he continued to
lay flowers every year for the kamikaze pilots who
died during active service. So what do you think? What would you do if you were
put in a similar situation? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History. [MUSIC PLAYING]
