Kiyoshi looks out of the cockpit window. Flying next to him are his kamikaze comrades. Many of
them bask in the glory of being able to sacrifice their own lives for their emperor and nation. But
Kiyoshi doesn’t want to be here. He thinks about his mother back home and how he will never see
her again. Suddenly, there is an explosion in the sky. The plane next to him explodes
into flames and hurtles towards the ocean below. The man flying it was one of his best friends.
Kiyoshi looks down and can see the flashes of anti-aircraft guns firing from the American fleet.
He takes a deep breath and shoves the flight stick forward; his plane speeds towards a battleship as
he prays for some kind of divine intervention to save his life. When he opens his eyes,
he can just make out the sailors on the deck of the ship diving for cover as his
plane hurtles towards them at 260 miles per hour. Then, everything goes black.
Just over a month ago, Kiyoshi woke up on a warm August morning in 1944. He stretched as
he got out of bed and walked into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of hot tea. Before going
into town to run some errands, his mother made a pot. Kiyoshi had just celebrated his
17th birthday and was getting ready to attend his second semester of university in the coming
weeks. Most of his friends had volunteered for the army and were deployed around the Pacific
to aid Japan in their expansionist efforts and destroy the Allied threat in the area.
Kiyoshi flipped through the pages of the newspaper on the table. Almost every story
was about the ongoing war or interviews with Emporer Hirohito, who explained that it was
the duty of every Japanese citizen to help Japan defeat the enemy threat. To the Japanese people,
the Emporer was the living embodiment of a god, and there was no higher honor
than serving him. Kiyoshi loved Japan, but his favorite teacher had taught him the importance
of critical thinking. He wasn’t sure he believed everything the Emporer said, but he would never
admit that to his mother or anyone else who blindly followed whatever Hirohito said.
Today’s paper was full of anti-American propaganda and a call to arms. This had
been all that was printed for the last several years. Ever since Japan launched
its attack on Pearl Harbor three years ago and dragged the nation into World War II,
there had been very little else anyone talked about. The newspaper was filled with national
rhetoric and explained how it would only be a matter of time until Japan would be victorious.
Kiyoshi had seen countless boys from his region head off to war years ago and never return,
so it seemed as if victory might be further away than the press was making it out to be.
Kiyoshi shook his head. What is the world coming to? he thought. Kiyoshi sighed and
threw the newspapers in the garbage. He took out a heavily read copy of Kokoro by Natsume
Sōseki and began reading it for the eighteenth time. The story of the young man and his Sensei
reminded Kiyoshi of his own relationship with his favorite professor at the university.
He hadn’t gotten very far into the first chapter when his mother burst through the front door.
“Kiyoshi!” she called. He put down his novel and walked into the next room. His mother was holding
a white envelope; a look of pride filled her face. “This came from you today. It’s from the Emperor.”
Kiyoshi’s heart sank. There could only be one message sent to him from the emperor.
He was going to be forced to join the military. Kiyoshi slowly reached out and took the letter
from his mother. She smiled at him and placed her hand on his shoulder. “I am so proud of
you. You will be following in your father’s footsteps by serving the Emporer’s army.”
“If dad were still here, I’m not sure he’d agree with you,” replied Kiyoshi.
His mother’s smile turned into a frown. “Your father did his
duty for Japan. The war cost him his life, but he died honorably.”
Kiyoshi disagreed but nodded his head up and down anyways. He looked down at the white envelope and
opened it. Inside was a piece of paper with a short paragraph about what an honor it would be
to serve the Emporer. It also explained he would be joining a new contingent of elite
soldiers who would be given a special mission. They would be known as kamikazes or the “divine
wind.” Below the message were three options that Kiyoshi could choose from. They were:
to volunteer willingly, to simply volunteer, or refuse the invitation to serve the Emporer.
Kiyoshi desperately wanted to refuse, but he knew that was not an option. His mother would
disown him. The university would expel him. He would be cast out and shunned by his village.
Simply volunteering wasn’t an option either. He had to willingly volunteer whether he liked it or
not, or his loyalty would be questioned. Kiyoshi picked up a pen resting on the table and marked an
“X” in the first box. He kissed his beaming mother on the forehead, turned around, and proceeded into
his room to pack his bag for the trip to the military recruitment center in the nearby city.
When Kiyoshi arrived at the military base, he gave his letter to the officer sitting
behind the desk. The man looked it over, glanced up at Kiyoshi, and reached out his
hand. “You are going to serve the Emporer and make your country proud,” the officer said as
he shook Kiyoshi’s hand. He gave Kiyoshi a uniform and instructions to head to one of
the barracks on the base, where he would meet others who had been recruited to be kamikazes.
Kiyoshi walked into the barracks where young men like himself were
talking to one another in hushed tones. Everyone was waiting for the commanding
officer to come in and explain to them exactly what their special mission would
be. Kiyoshi set his stuff down and kept quiet as the other men chatted.
Another cadet named Hisao approached Kiyoshi. “This is exciting,” said the
Hisao. “We finally get to serve our emperor and aid in the glorious expansion of the
Japanese empire.” Kiyoshi just nodded his head. At that moment, the doors burst open.
A man dressed in an officer’s uniform covered in war medals walked in.
“You have all been chosen for a special mission,” the general declared. “There
is nothing more honorable than sacrificing your life for the Emperor. That is why being
a kamikaze is one of the most elite positions in the Japanese military. You will be tasked
with flying heavily armed aircraft into key targets to destroy them and deal a fatal blow
to the enemy.” The men in the barracks looked at one another uncertainly. Most knew it was
their duty and would do as they were told. Others were less enthusiastic about the thought of being
sacrificial weapons used to damage enemy targets. Kiyoshi couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Now more than ever, he wanted to run away. But where would he go? He couldn’t return home after
deserting the military. His mother would disown him. His friends would turn him in. It seemed as
if the entire country had gone mad. The general gave the cadets their orders. They would be
shipped out to a nearby Japanese airforce base for training. Kiyoshi had never been in a plane,
let alone flown one. But this was his duty, and if he refused, his life would be over.
The young Japanese soldiers gathered their belongings and proceeded out of the barracks,
where a transport vehicle was waiting for them. “This is exciting!” Hisao exclaimed.
“The Emporer says the kamikaze are the future of Japanese warfare. I heard the
great commander Motoharu Okamura’s exact words were: ‘I firmly believe that the
only way to swing the war in our favor is to resort to crash-dive attacks with our planes.
There is no other way. Provide me with 300 planes, and I will turn the tide of war.’”
Kiyoshi just smiled and kept his mouth shut. He hoped that if he kept his head down and
followed orders, the war might end before he or any of the men in his new squadron
would be sent to their deaths by power-hungry generals. The group of soldiers hopped onboard
the idling transport vehicle and left the base. They drove for several hours before an airfield
appeared on the horizon. Kiyoshi lost himself in a daydream of peace. He was brought back to
reality when the truck hit an exceptionally large bump, and his head hit the ceiling.
He looked out of the vehicle just as it passed through the gates to the airfield.
The guards waved to the men on board the transports as they proceeded down
the dirt road and towards one of the hangers at the far end of the tarmac.
The truck pulled into the hanger and came to a stop. The commanding officer ordered
all of the men out of the vehicle. There was someone who wanted to talk to them.
Kiyoshi climbed down from the back of the truck and formed a straight line across
the entrance to the massive hanger with the rest of the cadets. They could see
a cloud of dust rising at the far end of the base. It got closer and closer until
Kiyoshi could make out the silhouettes of men riding horses coming toward them.
“Stand at attention for your Emporer men!” the commander shouted. Everyone stood up
as straight as possible. They couldn’t believe their eyes. As the dust settled,
the Kamikaze recruits looked upon Emporer Hirohito
of Japan. He rode a brilliantly white horse and was flanked by his generals.
“The mission you are about to embark on is of the utmost importance,” said the Emperor.
“You have been selected to train for one of the most elite units in all of the Japanese
military. You will sacrifice your life for the country and for me. When you do this,
you will be rewarded greatly. You are invincible, and as long as you do your duty,
you will make me and your nation proud. Your sacrifice will strike fear into the hearts
of the enemy. Follow your commander’s orders and remember what you fight for.”
The men looked wide-eyed at the god-king and hung on every one of his words. Kiyoshi
kept his eyes forward but felt a sickening feeling fill his stomach. Until this point,
he thought he would be enlisted to aid in the war. But now, the Emporer was telling
him that his sole duty was to sacrifice himself to kill others. Hirohito looked
at each one of the Kamikaze recruits and nodded his head. Then he rode off.
The recruits were put through basic combat training each morning and flight training
in the afternoons. Kiyoshi and the other men would breathe in the fumes of aircraft all
day as they prepared for the missions ahead. When he went to bed at night,
Kiyoshi would have nightmares and awake covered in sweat.
They always seemed to consist of men screaming and fire consuming his body.
The flight training started with the recruits being brought up into the skies over Japan by
a trained flight instructor who would carry out different maneuvers to ensure that the kamikaze
cadets could withstand the motion and G-forces that were exerted on the body during flight.
It would do the Emporer no good if his Kamikaze pilots passed out while en route to their target.
Kiyoshi looked out of the cockpit window at the landscape below. Japan was a beautiful country,
but how long would it stay that way? Eventually,
the war would reach the shores of the island, and then it would be consumed in fire and death,
just like the other parts of the Pacific that served as battlefields.
After several days of training flights, it was time for the future kamikaze pilots to
get behind the stick of the plane. Kiyoshi watched as one of the other recruits entered the cockpit.
The engine roared to life. Each soldier was given a notepad to write down their thoughts
and improve their skills. The Mitsubishi Ki-51 raced down the runway, its engines
screamed as it approached the necessary speed for liftoff. The wheels left the ground, however,
only a few moments later, the engine stalled, and the plane plummeted back to the ground.
The impact caused the wings to rip off and the fuel tank to ignite. Kiyoshi and the
other trainees watched in horror as one of their fellow kamikaze pilots was consumed by fire before
he even got a chance to reach the battlefield. The aircraft they were training on were older
models that had been stripped to the bones. The Japanese military couldn’t afford to let
these new recruits practice on state-of-the-art aircraft that were needed for the war effort.
When they launched their mission to destroy enemy targets, they would also be using older models,
except those would be loaded up with explosives. Japanese command thought it was a good idea for
the recruits to train and learn the quirks of these older aircraft before heading into
battle. This decision would cost them the lives of several of their young cadets.
The commanding officer returned from the wreckage to inform the other kamikaze
recruits that their comrade had been lost, but since he was serving the emperor, it was still
a glorious death. Without giving the soldiers a second to mourn, the C.O. asked who wanted to
go next. Several hands immediately shot up, but far less volunteered than prior to the crash.
The training continued for weeks; Kiyoshi barely got any sleep. He would think about his mother
back at home and how proud she looked when he went off to the recruitment center with his letter of
acceptance. He thought about his university and how he would never be able to return to it. And
then he thought about death. The recruits were trained to suppress their fears and emotions,
but Kiyoshi couldn’t help but dread what was to come. Almost every one of the other
kamikaze pilots had accepted their fate, but he wasn’t sure that he could. He did not feel
that this ultimate sacrifice would make much of a difference in the war, even if everyone else did.
After a little over a month, the orders came in. The first kamikaze squadron ever to be
deployed was called upon to attack an enemy fleet that was anchored in the Leyte Gulf,
off the coast of the Philippines. Kiyoshi and the other pilots had finished their training,
and it was now their duty to deal a defeating blow to the Allied forces.
Up until this point in the war, there had been no intentional kamikaze attacks. This
one would be calculated and precise. The mission of the men in Kiyoshi’s unit wasn’t
to drop bombs or shoot enemy aircraft out of the sky; it was to fly their airplanes
directly into the targeted ships. They wouldn’t be coming back from this mission,
so their commanding officer had each of them write a letter home to their families.
Most of the men told their parents that they loved them and would miss them, but they had been called
by a higher power to defend the country and serve their emperor. Kiyoshi wrote to his mother. Dear
ma, I am about to be sent on a mission I will not come back from. I know it is my duty to serve the
empire. I will miss you, and the thought of leaving you all alone breaks my heart. I hope
the war end soon so you and everyone else in our nation can find peace. Your son, Kiyoshi.
After he finished the letter to his mother, Kiyoshi quickly wrote a note
to his professor at the university. This letter voiced how he truly felt. Dear Sensae,
the war is about to consume me as it has consumed so many Japanese lives. I can’t help but feel that
fighting with one another is pointless and that if we used our words instead of our weapons,
the world would be a better place. As Natsume Sōseki says in Kokoro: ‘Words are not meant to
stir the air only: they are capable of moving greater things.’ Your loyal student, Kiyoshi.”
Kiyoshi knew that all communications would be read through and that his letter likely would
not make it to his professor due to its anti-war message, but he felt better after writing it. He
sealed both letters into separate envelopes and dropped them into the wooden box on the
way out of the barracks. The kamikaze pilots were loaded onto a carrier plane and flown to
Davao in the Philippines. This would be where their mission would launch from.
On October 25, 1944, Kiyoshi and the other pilots gathered onto the tarmac in Davao to
await their final orders. The kamikaze fleet was mostly made up of Mitsubishi Ki-51s but
had a few larger Yokosuka D4Y planes mixed in. Engineers swarmed the aircraft making
sure that the bombs were secured and the extra explosives would detonate on impact.
Kiyoshi couldn’t help but think they looked like worker bees preparing their hive for an invasion.
He was pulled from his thoughts as an officer shouted the command for all kamikaze pilots to
get to their planes and prepare them for flight. Kiyoshi and the rest of the men ran across the
tarmac to their assigned aircraft. They climbed into their cockpits and began preflight checks.
The fuel tanks were filled to capacity so that when the plane slammed into its target,
the gasoline would add a little extra power to the explosion.
The engineers finished their final preparations and gave the pilots the all-clear. The soldiers,
workers, and generals stationed at the airbase saluted the pilots as they took off. They all
had immense respect for the sacrifice these men were about to make. Kiyoshi looked at the plane
to his left, where Hisao sat in the cockpit. They locked eyes. Hisao gave him a stern look and a bow
of the head. These men felt very differently about the kamikaze program, but where Kiyoshi
was forced into it by social pressures and the threat of dishonor to his family,
Hisao had been looking forward to this day for a long time. Hisao was most definitely the norm,
while Kiyoshi was the odd man out in this circumstance. Almost every
Japanese citizen would be willing to give their life for their emperor and country.
Kiyoshi throttled up the engine. The plane lurched forward and then accelerated to top speed;
he pulled back on the flight stick and took off. The kamikaze squadron raced toward the
Allied warships that had just disengaged the Japanese fleet in the Leyte Gulf. The
enemy fleet came into sight. The Battle of Leyte Gulf would go down in history as one
of the largest naval battles to ever occur, but it would be what happened
in the sky that the world would remember long after the waves of war had settled.
The hum of the engine filled the cockpit. Kiyoshi looked down at the turquoise green
waters of the Philippine Sea. He thought about making up an excuse to turn around and
head back to base. Maybe he could claim his aircraft was experiencing an engine failure
and return to get it fixed. When he landed, he would immediately run away and disappear
into the jungles of the Philippines before anyone found out he was lying. But Kiyoshi knew that if
he was discovered and captured, not only would he be tortured and put to death for desertion,
but the dishonor his mother would face would surely break her heart and kill her.
Kiyoshi bit down on his tongue so hard that it bled. He tried to remain focused on the mission.
He told himself that this was war, and everyone involved knew exactly what they were signing up
for when they joined the military. Suddenly, an explosion brought him out of his thoughts
and back to the task at hand. The first kamikaze squadron had reached its target.
Kiyoshi watched as smoke filled the sky and his comrades’ planes exploded in flames. A
crackling voice came over his radio. The lead plane signaled that it was time to strike. The
front of the kamikaze squadron began to descend towards the Allied warships below. Kiyoshi took
a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he had to bank hard to avoid the
mangled metal hull of one of the other Japanese planes that had been hit by an enemy shell.
He straightened out the flight stick and lined up his target. Kiyoshi’s mission was to slam his
plane into the hull of one of the battleships in the middle of the fleet. He watched as the
first few planes struck the enemy ships and exploded into a fiery inferno. He wondered
if the men on board could understand why so many were willing to sacrifice their
own lives in service to their own country. Did the Americans think the way the Japanese did?
Or could they never understand the blind devotion these men had to their Emperor?
Kiyoshi looked around him and noticed that his was the only plane that had not dove yet. He thrust
the flight stick forward; the plane descended towards the ocean. Kiyoshi continued to dodge
the firestorm coming from the Allied fleet. His target got closer and closer. He could now make
out the men on board the ship running in panic as they realized the true purpose of this attack.
Kiyoshi focused his sights on the hull of the ship. Even though he wanted to pull up
and avoid the impact, it was too late now. He closed his eyes and thought about his mother.
“Forgive me,” Kiyoshi said out loud. Then his plane struck the vessel. It exploded on impact,
instantly killing Kiyoshi and dozens of American sailors.
The first planned kamikaze attack of World War II had just occurred. Allied sailors who survived
couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. They desperately tried to put out the flames and rescue
anyone who survived the onslaught as ships in the fleet sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
Somewhere between 2,800 to 3,800 kamikaze pilots either slammed their planes into Allied targets
or were shot out of the sky during the war in the Pacific. It’s estimated that Japanese
kamikaze planes sunk at least 47 Allied vessels and damaged around 300 others. Over 7,000 Allied
sailors and soldiers were killed as a result of kamikaze attacks. At the time, Japan claimed
these suicide missions were much more successful than they actually were. Many Japanese military
leaders believed that kamikaze missions would turn the tide of the war. They exaggerated the
effectiveness of the tactic, which cost thousands of lives and had little effect on the war.
Most Japanese citizens would have willingly laid down their lives for the Emperor and
their country. The masses truly believed that Emporer Hiriohoto was a god and would
have fought until the last person if given the choice to either surrender or die. However,
like the fictional story of Kiyoshi, there were some kamikaze pilots and Japanese citizens who
questioned what they were doing. Some kamikaze pilots survived their missions
due to malfunctioning equipment and later went on to reflect on the messed-up nature of the
kamikaze program. They realized how they had been manipulated by the Emporer and military
leaders. Others deliberately deserted the kamikaze fleets and hid until World War II was over.
Now watch “What if Kamikaze Pilot Survived?” Or check out “The One
Reason British Royal Navy Ships Were Invincible In World War 2.”