Imperial Japan wasn’t the only belligerent nation of the Second World War to deploy
suicide attacks. The Chinese, Soviets, and Germans did so too, but they never came close
to the scale of Japanese Kamikaze operations. In the final years of the Second World War,
as their Empire crumbled around them, Imperial Japanese commanders deployed an array of suicidal
last-ditch vehicles that they hoped would cause just enough bloodshed to turn the war.
We’re starting with the now-infamous “Special Attack Force” — the first Kamikazes. These were 24
naval aviators hand-selected by Commander Asaichi Tamai for a mission he knew would be their last:
a Kamikaze attack on the US fleet in the Leyte Gulf. They were all particularly young—some
weren’t even 18—and were well-educated. They weren’t volunteers, nor were they fanatics. When
Tamai asked Lieutenant Seki to lead the mission, he lowered his head in sorrow and said “I am not
going on this mission for the Emperor or for the Empire ... I am going because I was ordered to.”
Seki’s grim acceptance of death was expected of all Kamikazes, even if they had strong
personal reservations. From their writings, it's clear these men were desperately searching for the
reason they were sacrificing their lives. “Am I simply to die without giving meaning to my life?”
“Why must we fight? We no longer have any purpose for fighting.”
Even military high command was grasping at straws.
Just before the first planned Kamikaze attack, Admiral Ohnishi gave the following speech:
"Japan is in grave danger. The salvation of our country is now beyond the power of the
ministers of state, the General Staff, and lowly commanders like myself. It can come only from
spirited young men such as you. Thus, I ask of you this sacrifice, and pray for your success."
On October 25th 1944, the aforementioned Seki led the first Kamikaze attack. One plane in his
unit succeeded in sinking the escort carrier USS St Lo. Perhaps this proved the concept
for Admiral Ohnishi and his colleagues. Many more suicide missions were to come.
Beneath the waves, a different sort of Kamikaze was at work.
“Kaiten” torpedoes honed in on their targets, driven by human pilots.
The Kaiten was an adaption of the remarkably successful Japanese Type 93 torpedo. Its
designers had essentially cut the torpedo in half and added a pilot’s compartment in the middle.
They also fitted the Kaiten with steering controls and a periscope.
Development was fraught with issues. One of the Type 1 Kaiten’s chief designers,
Lieutenant Hiroshi Kuroki, asphyxiated when the torpedo he was test-piloting sank and
became stuck in the mud. Before running out of air, he identified the mechanical
defect and scrawled a note detailing its fix. Despite not being at fault,
he also apologised for sinking one of the Emperor’s watercraft.
The later model, the Type 2, was marginally more reliable.
It could submerge in up to 100 metres of water and had a maximum range of 83 kilometres.
But this was rarely seen in practice. The Kaiten was unstable at sea and difficult to launch in
rough conditions. Ships and submarines had to be modified to carry it, which compromised both
their speed and manoeuvrability—with disastrous results. No less than eight submarines carrying
Kaiten into battle were sunk with all hands trying to launch them—a combined loss of 846 men.
Despite a human pilot, the Kaiten was actually less successful than
the standard Japanese naval torpedo and much more expensive to produce. Only
two US ships were definitely sunk by Kaitens during the war.
Torpedos weren’t the only munition that the Japanese put a pilot inside.
They also put young men inside rockets.
This idea came from Ensign Mitsuo Ohta and a consortium of students
from the University of Tokyo. Like all Japanese suicide craft, both the designers
and pilots were young—too young—far younger than the average Japanese sailor or footslogging grunt.
Ohta and his colleagues designed several prototype human-guided rockets, but only the Type 11 saw
service. This aircraft was towed to its target on the belly of a Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” twin-engine
bomber. When near enough to the target, the Ohka would detach and accelerate to lightning-fast
speeds by means of three solid-fuel rockets. Speed allowed it to penetrate enemy defences and inflict
massive casualties on enemy shipping. At least, that was the theory.
In reality, the Ohka, which US forces dubbed [5][“Baka Bombs,”][5] [Text: “Baka” means
idiotic in Japanese.] didn’t live up to the hype. They were deployed very late in the war, when the
US Navy was battle-hardened and its sailors very experienced. They knew the value of AA defence,
especially when it came to Kamikaze attacks. US Navy task groups expanded their highly effective
“Defensive Ring” system outwards and focussed on destroying the Ohkas before they got to the combat
zone—when they were attached to the Betties and helpless. Scores of Ohkas were also lost
when the US submarines Archerfish and Redfish sank the Japanese carriers Shinano and Unryu.
Seventy-four Ohkas were deployed during the war, and fifty-six met their ultimate end, along with
their pilots, in fiery explosions. Ohkas sank two smaller ships in the sea battle off Okinawa in
April 1945. They made a negligible impact on the war but led many a bomber crew to their deaths.
If planes, torpedos, and rockets weren’t enough,
Imperial Japan also turned motorboats into suicide craft. These were called Shinyo.
In May 1944, Shinyo boats went into mass production. They were originally
intended to be made from steel, but, due to shortages, were actually built with wood.
They were powered by third-rate car engines and carried a 300-kilo bomb in the nose. The
one-man Shinyo Class One displaced just one ton and measured five feet long,
while the two-man variant, the Class Five, was double this. Six thousand Shinyo boats were built
during the war, and 150 pilots, whose average age was just 17, were “voluntordered” to drive them.
Like their compatriots piloting Kamikaze planes, torpedoes, and rockets,
they were mostly students recruited straight from school or university.
The Imperial Japanese Army also experimented with boats of this kind
but decided against using them for suicide missions. The navy had no such qualms.
Shinyo sank three US landing boats off Luzon in the Philippines and
another one off Okinawa. Many more attacks were launched, but these were largely unsuccessful.
US forces soon developed countermeasures against suicide motorboats,
and once they had, Shinyo became sitting ducks in open water.
As resources dwindled and the Allies encroached on the Home Islands, the Imperial Japanese Navy
had to find even more creative ways to sacrifice their own men. One idea they came up with was
Fukuryu program. Officials planned for 6,000 men to be equipped with specially-made diving
suits and trained as underwater guerillas. These men would deploy from secret underwater foxholes
and march for up to 10 hours totally submerged. They would travel underwater to a predetermined
point roughly five metres below the surface. Here they would lie in wait.
Each man was equipped with a single weapon: a bamboo pole with a contact-triggered mine fixed
to the end. He was to crouch on the seabed, then leap upwards once a US landing craft
sped across the surface. After thrusting his pole into the landing craft’s soft underbelly,
the mine would detonate and kill the frogman as well as the vessel’s occupants.
Two battalions of these kamikaze frogmen were trained and deployed to Yokosuka naval
base in preparation for the coming Allied invasion, but only one was fully equipped.
Rubber for diving suits was scarce,
and their production was further hampered by a lack of workers and suitable machinery.
In the end, the Fukuryu were never sent on their suicide missions. The atomic
bombing of Japan forced the government to its knees without a costly invasion.
But what do YOU think? Why was it that military officials forced the youth to pilot their
suicidal attack craft? Did you know most of them weren’t actually willing volunteers or that they
questioned their orders? How do you think YOU would cope with being ordered to undertake a
suicide mission as an Ohka rocket or Kaiten torpedo pilot? Let us know in the comments!