Suicide pilots honoured in film

Sat 24 Feb 2007

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1321&id=294882007

Suicide pilots honoured in film tribute to kamikaze

FAMILIES weep and young girls wave flags or offer gifts of cherry blossom as fresh-faced pilots set off to almost certain death in a new film about Japan's kamikaze suicide missions during the Second World War.

I Go To Die For You, to be released in Japan in May, is a dream come true for nationalist writer-turned-politician Shintaro Ishihara, 74, who waited years for financing to get his script produced.

The film sets the scene with historical background, as Vice-Admiral Takejiro Onishi announces the desperate strategy of using kamikaze pilots to fly their planes into enemy ships when Japan is on the verge of losing the Philippines to US forces. The first kamikaze attack took place off the island of Leyte, in the Philippines, in 1944 and its success inspired Onishi to recruit more young men for suicide missions.

More than 2,000 planes were used and 34 US ships were sunk in Japanese suicide attacks in the final few months of the war.

Other suicide attacks were launched by manned torpedo, by speedboat and even by divers in the final months of the war.

But the bulk of the film focuses on the feelings of the young pilots facing death.

Before striding to their planes, they toast their mission in sake and cheerfully agree to meet "under the cherry trees at Yasukuni shrine", in Tokyo, where Japan's military war dead are honoured.

"Don't come back alive," their commanding officer urges.

Few express any doubt about offering their lives, and pity is reserved for those who are not killed - known after the war as "failed cherry blossom".

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Well, let´s hope it´s done with "the best possible taste" .....( remember Kenny Everett ! )

 

Well, I for one don't think it improper to honor the sacrifice of the kamikazes. They were willing to not just risk their lives for the cause they believed in, but to knowingly die for it. We may disagree that their cause was so honorable as to be worth dying for, but they believed in their cause as strongly as our boys did. They all need to be honored for making the ultimate sacrifice. The kamikazes were brave men and unlike the current crop of suicide bombers in the Middle East, attacked exclusively military targets.

 

Marienburg, agreed. However much the Japanese may have been enemies, you can't do much else but respect for their loyalty and sacrifice, they truly did model themselves after samurai.

 

I remember reading a review of a book on this subject with a study on exactly how volunteer these Divine Wind pilot were, and the result was not so rosy, a substantial number were conscripts forced to do exactly that for the lack of true volunteers so here's another pretty bubble punctured.

I'll try and find out exactly what book that was.

 

very interesting Za. Everything that i have heard about the subject is that they actually had to turn down volunteers because they had so many. I'd like reading something that offers a different opinion.

 

Found it!

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Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers.

By Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney.
University of Chicago Press; 246 pages; $25

Jul 6th 2006
From The Economist print edition


“HOW unbearable to die in the sky,” wrote Tadao Hayashi, a student pilot, in his diary on July 27th 1945, the night before his plane was shot down. Hayashi's writings, like those of the other Japanese student soldiers compiled in this book, contradict the caricature of the fanatical kamikaze pilot imagined by Americans and Britons during the war, and challenge the myth of the nationalist hero spun by conservative institutions in Japan.

The student soldiers, argues the author, were wantonly sacrificed in the military government's final gambit of the war. She reveals that the tokkotai (“special attack force”, which is how the kamikaze are referred to in Japan) had no volunteers when it was formed in October 1944. Instead, new recruits were either assigned by their superiors or forced to sign up using pressure tactics. No senior officer offered his life for this mission; instead the “volunteer” corps comprised newly enlisted boy-soldiers barely of age and student conscripts from the nation's top universities.

The poems, letters and diaries featured in this book give the lie to the notion that Japan was unified behind the war. The voices of the student soldiers speak thoughtfully and eloquently about their dilemma between duty to the nation and wanting to stay alive. Most of them had been drafted late in the war and represented the country's intellectual elite. Well-read, many of them turned to European literature and philosophy to rationalise their deaths. “Zwei Seelen wohnen ach in mein Herz!” (“Ah, two souls reside in my heart!”) cries Hachiro Sasaki, as he seeks to reconcile his patriotism with his desire to live. Another pilot carries Soren Kierkegaard's “The Sickness Unto Death”, together with the Bible, on his final flight. Just like any young adolescents far from home, the student soldiers were intensely lonely. At Tsuchiura naval air base, home for many of the tokkotai, the song they sung most often was nothing patriotic, but a lullaby in the Kumamoto dialect that went: “I am here far away from home. Even when I die, no one will cry for me; how lonely it is only to hear cicadas cry.” Death for these young intellectuals came not in a burst of fire and glory, but at the end of a long struggle they fought alone.

The word “kamikaze” entered the English language during the second world war and has endured as a symbol of Japan's zealous militarism. After the September 11th 2001 attacks on New York, they were reborn as the 20th century's suicide-bombers. The author argues that both characterisations are deeply flawed. The tokkotai, as she prefers to call them, did not commit suicide but were handed down death sentences in the military missions they were assigned. The al-Qaeda terrorists, on the other hand, sought death in their attempt to exert maximum civilian damage. “Kamikaze Diaries” is a timely and necessary correction of a popular myth, and an important contribution to the understanding of Japan at war.

 

One of the documentaries if have contains a post war interview of a Japanese pilot who was ordered to volunteer to be a kamikaze pilot. His first reaction was “are you crazy?” He later found himself experiencing engine failure and ditched in the ocean. Later, he was scorned and reprimanded by his superiors for surviving. It would be interesting to see if the issue of force has been included in the new film. I can understand recognizing the pilots for their commitment, but disagree with honoring them.

My father-in-law has discussed the barren cockpit conditions of the kamikaze planes they downed. Understandably, they had only few gauges. He was in the 202D Anti-Aircraft Artillery/Automatic Battalion (Semi-Mobile). My honor will go to him and people like him that fought to protect against the aggressor.

 

I wouldn't take the book "Kamikaze Diaries" as the last word on kamikaze forces. The following review highlights a number of the mistakes and failings of the book:
http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/kamikaze/writings/books/ohnuki-tierney/index.htm

The biggest problem with the book is that it takes a handful of Japanese (not all of whom were kamikaze fliers) and assumes that they are representative of the forces as a whole. They are not. There were indeed many, many Japanese willing to die for their homeland.

 

I'm not shocked they are honored in a movie, like any other soldiers can be.

As long as the movie does not pay an hommage to the nationalism, ideology or fanatism that led them, more or less willingly, to do such a thing.

 

It´d be interesting if anyone has been studying the message of the " New wave Japanese " movies.

I mean, in Yamato alot was on comradeship and courage, although it was pointed out by the commanders how stupid it was and a total suicide mission but after they had said that they just went on without bothering themselves whether they were doing the right thing or not.

I may be wrong but I think that the Germans and Japanese see their part in WW2 totally differently.

 

The trouble is that every Hollywood war movie is saturated with nationalism, ideology and fanatacism. It's just our nationalism, ideology and fanaticism and these have led to a lot of imperialistic wars by Anglo-Americans. Our own propaganda tries to make it seem as if everyone benefits from and should embrace our way of life but the facts don't always match the claims and we've engendered a lot of people who hate America for its own version of imperialism.

If you really want to stop future wars you need to always consider the other side's perspective and not constantly try and paint the world black and white, where we area always the latter and everyone who opposes us, past or present, is as black as sin. Sadly, not many people will pay to see a historical movie that admits that our enemies weren't always evil madmen or duped by depraved ideologies and mindless fanaticism and so we will continue to be fed movies that portray our enemies in a completely negative light. I haven't seen Letters from Iwo Jima but from what I've heard it is one of the rare movies that tries to put a different perspective on at least the Pacific side of the Great War.

 

Interesting, since only a few weeks ago the issue was raised in the RAF of today with a senior officer passing it past RAF fighter pilots, with the scenairo and published by most media I might add, that you have no weapon availablity, the terrorist truck, plane, ship, handcart with a donkey and a monkey in it with yesterdays washing, is going to get through. What do you do?

I dont know the individual pilots replies, but the intimation was there that although wouldnt be ordered, it would be expected.

If that is the case today, we have no right to object to the past Kamikaze.
And I for one never did.

 

That seems to be the case


Miguel,

Great find and an interesting read.

 

In 2006, Watanabe Tsuneo, 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. Everybody was looking down and tottering. Some were unable to stand up and were carried and pushed into the plane by maintenance soldiers."

Convection was gods created their country as the center of the universe and destine to rule the world. Hirohito, the 124th emperor was direct descendant of Amaterasu, a mythological sun goddess, Hakko ichiu was linked to the new conviction that Japan's emperor should be a charismatic leader who promotes to each nation the process of civilization and enlightment under his leadership. To bring the eight corners of the world together under one roof was part of Hirohito’s hierarchy. During the Showa era, and under the influence of theorists like Sadao Araki and Fumimaro Konoe, this concept was used to promote the "superiority" of the Japanese race over its neighbors and justify the right of Japan to conquer Asia.

 

Again, the trouble is that you are taking a single individual's account and trying to claim that it is representative of the whole. There are many, many accounts that demonstrate that many (and I would definitely argue most) of the kamikazes were indeed voluntary and considered it an honor to die for Emperor and Japan. Heck, during the Pearl Harbor attack at least one damaged plane attempted a last kamikaze dive. How many Japanese land forces surrendered during the war? And how many died in banzai charges that were simply the infantry version of a kamikaze attack? The fact is that the spirit of the kamikaze was already clear at the beginning of the war, and in fact, was a part of Japanese culture for over a thousand years. Should we then be at all surprised that the Japanese would come up with a kamikaze force towards the end of the war?

I despise revisionist history where the underlying motive is clearly modern politics and political correctness. Because people today can't imagine giving up their lives for any cause they assume that no one could have ever existed who actually thought like that. The editor you quote wrote just last year and we all know (or should know) that Japan today is definitely not the Japan of WWII. While the spirit of Japan wasn't as completely emasculated as that of Germany was after the war, there are far more people with anti-war sentiment today than there was in the past. I would not take Watanabe Tsuneo's personal opinion, no matter how loudly stated, as the last word on the subject.

 

Well, if as we see there were dissenting opinions it shows that it was not all a Ride for Glory. Some were quite enthusiastic volunteers, others were reluctant conscripts. There are more shades of grey than of black and white.

 

Marienburg:

I enjoyed the first sentence of your last paragraph.

I was about to give up hope on reality, (not really).

I'm glad there are others who will not be led by Martyrs, Saviors, Heros who abuse "Revisionist History" as an excuse to blame eachother for the problems of today.

Life is, History was.......Deal.

 

No, actually I disagree with the his use of the word "everyone." It is quite illogical. I completely agree with your previous comment, "many, many Japanese willing to die for their homeland." It was a great honor for many and they were taught that if they died in battle, especially if heroically, they would become gods and join other spirits of their nation. Regarding Japanese pilots flying their damaged plans into strategic targets at Pearl Harbor, U.S. pilots were instructed that if they were shot down, to direct their damaged aircraft into Japanese targets. Some were successful. Regarding the banzai charges, my father-in-law's battalion was on the receiving end of their charges.

Well put.

 

There always are. I have yet to meet a complete saint or a pure demon and I'm actually rather glad for that. Life would be rather boring otherwise.

 

I should also admit that I also despise revisionist history of the more typical sort we're all familiar with. I just don't understand those neo-Nazis who on the one hand want to agree with Hitler's irrational hatred of all non-whites and yet fight tooth and nail against any notion that Hitler actually tried to do something about them. If you think that all other races are inferior and out to get your precious little "white minority" then why wouldn't you think that Hitler should have tried leveling the playing field, so to speak, by eliminating the untermensch threat to the Aryans? He would have been an idiot not to have tried pulling the Holocaust when he was in power. Again, the revisionist history is irrational, contradicted by facts, and clearly is being used as a tool to support a political/religious point of view. I have little use for the PC crowd or the neo-Nazi crowd. If people could wean themselves off of their irrational beliefs (usually political or religious in nature) and insist on believing only that which has a rational basis I think we'd be far closer to avoiding a Third World War in the future. But that's just my rant and I'll let the thread return to its proper topic, Japanese kamikaze pilots!