In 1890, the Imperial Rescript on Education was passed, under which students were required to ritually recite its oath to offer themselves "courageously to the state" as well as protect the Imperial family.
Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909–1941.
The word originated from Makurakotoba of waka poetry modifying "Ise" and has been used since August 1281 to refer to the major typhoons that dispersed Mongol-Koryo fleets who invaded Japan under Kublai Khan in 1274. A Japanese monoplane that made a record-breaking flight from Tokyo to London in 1937 for the Asahi newspaper group was named Kamikaze.
One example of this may have occurred on 7 December 1941 during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
But in most cases, little evidence exists that such hits represented more than accidental collisions of the kind that sometimes happen in intense sea or air battles. The carrier battles in 1942, particularly Midway, inflicted irreparable damage on the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS), such that they could no longer put together a large number of fleet carriers with well-trained aircrews.
Japanese planners had assumed a quick war and lacked comprehensive programmes to replace the losses of ships, pilots and sailors; and Midway; the Solomon Islands campaign (1942–1945) and the New Guinea campaign (1942–1945), notably the Battles of Eastern Solomons (August 1942); and Santa Cruz (October 1942), decimated the IJNAS veteran aircrews, and replacing their combat experience proved impossible. During 1943–1944, U.S.
carriers in 1945, the IJN had sacrificed 2,525 kamikaze pilots and the IJAAF 1,387far more than it had lost in 1942 when it sank or crippled three carriers (albeit without inflicting significant casualties).
Japanese planners had assumed a quick war and lacked comprehensive programmes to replace the losses of ships, pilots and sailors; and Midway; the Solomon Islands campaign (1942–1945) and the New Guinea campaign (1942–1945), notably the Battles of Eastern Solomons (August 1942); and Santa Cruz (October 1942), decimated the IJNAS veteran aircrews, and replacing their combat experience proved impossible. During 1943–1944, U.S.
Some kamikazes were able to hit their targets even after their aircraft were crippled. The attacks began in October 1944, at a time when the war was looking increasingly bleak for the Japanese.
She was a prototype for the Mitsubishi Ki-15 ("Babs"). In Japanese, the formal term used for units carrying out suicide attacks during 1944–1945 is tokubetsu kōgekitai (特別攻撃隊), which literally means "special attack unit".
By the Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 1944), the Japanese had to make do with obsolete aircraft and inexperienced aviators in the fight against better-trained and more experienced US Navy airmen who flew radar-directed combat air patrols.
Allied aviators called the action the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". On 19 June 1944, planes from the carrier approached a US task group.
According to some accounts, two made suicide attacks, one of which hit . The important Japanese base of Saipan fell to the Allied forces on 15 July 1944.
With his superiors, he arranged the first investigations into the plausibility and mechanisms of intentional suicide attacks on 15 June 1944. In August 1944, it was announced by the Domei news agency that a flight instructor named Takeo Tagata was training pilots in Taiwan for suicide missions. One source claims that the first kamikaze mission occurred on 13 September 1944.
They never returned, but there is no record of an enemy plane hitting an Allied ship that day. According to some sources, on 14 October 1944, was hit by a deliberately crashed Japanese plane. Rear Admiral Masafumi Arima, the commander of the 26th Air Flotilla (part of the 11th Air Fleet), is sometimes credited with inventing the kamikaze tactic.
Arima personally led an attack by about 100 Yokosuka D4Y Suisei ("Judy") dive bombers against a large Essex-class aircraft carrier, , near Leyte Gulf, on or about 15 October 1944.
It is not clear that this was a planned suicide attack, and official Japanese accounts of Arima's attack bore little resemblance to the actual events. On 17 October 1944, Allied forces assaulted Suluan Island, beginning the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Early on 21 October 1944, a Japanese aircraft deliberately crashed into the foremast of the heavy cruiser .
During the northern hemisphere winter of 1944–45, the IJAAF formed the 47th Air Regiment, also known as the Shinten Special Unit (Shinten Seiku Tai) at Narimasu Airfield, Nerima, Tokyo, to defend the Tokyo Metropolitan Area.
A final element included intensive fighter sweeps over Japanese airfields, and bombing of Japanese runways, using delayed-action bombs to make repairs more difficult. Late in 1944, the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) used the good high-altitude performance of its Supermarine Seafires (the naval version of the Spitfire) on combat air patrol duties.
In the final moments before the crash, the pilot was to yell "hissatsu" (必殺) at the top of his lungs, which translates to "certain kill" or "sink without fail". ==Cultural background== In 1944–45, US military leaders invented the term "State Shinto" as part of the Shinto Directive to differentiate the Japanese state's ideology from traditional Shinto practices.
In October 1944, the Nippon Times quoted Lieutenant Sekio Nishina: "The spirit of the Special Attack Corps is the great spirit that runs in the blood of every Japanese ...
Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka rocket planes, launched from bombers, were first deployed in kamikaze attacks from March 1945.
During 1945, the Japanese military began stockpiling hundreds of Tsurugi, Ohkas, other aircraft and suicide boats for use against Allied forces expected to invade Japan.
The invasion never happened, and few were ever used. ===Allied defensive tactics=== In early 1945, U.S.
The Seafires' best day was 15 August 1945, shooting down eight attacking aircraft with a single loss. Allied pilots were more experienced, better trained and in command of superior aircraft, making the poorly trained kamikaze pilots easy targets.
By 1945, large numbers of anti-aircraft shells with radio frequency proximity fuzes, on average seven times more effective than regular shells, became available, and the U.S.
Navy recommended their use against kamikaze attacks. ===Final phase=== The peak period of kamikaze attack frequency came during April–June 1945 at the Battle of Okinawa.
On 6 April 1945, waves of aircraft made hundreds of attacks in Operation Kikusui ("floating chrysanthemums").
carriers in 1945, the IJN had sacrificed 2,525 kamikaze pilots and the IJAAF 1,387far more than it had lost in 1942 when it sank or crippled three carriers (albeit without inflicting significant casualties).
By 1945, however, the U.S.
Air Force webpage: Australian journalists Denis and Peggy Warner, in a 1982 book with Japanese naval historian Sadao Seno (The Sacred Warriors: Japan's Suicide Legions), arrived at a total of 57 ships sunk by kamikazes.
In a 2004 book, World War II, the historians Willmott, Cross and Messenger stated that more than 70 U.S.
In 2006, Tsuneo Watanabe, editor-in-chief of the Yomiuri Shimbun, criticized Japanese nationalists' glorification of kamikaze attacks: It's all a lie that they left filled with braveness and joy, crying, "Long live the emperor!" They were sheep at a slaughterhouse.
Bill Gordon, an American Japanologist who specializes in kamikazes, lists in a 2007 article 47 ships known to have been sunk by kamikaze aircraft.
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