Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [118]
On 20 October, Onishi addressed men of the first designated “special attack” unit: “Japan is in grave danger318. The salvation of our country is now beyond the power of the ministers of state, the general staff and humble commanders like myself. It can come only from spirited young men like you. Thus, on behalf of your hundred million countrymen, I ask this sacrifice of you, and pray for your success.” A few months and several hundred suicide attacks later, genuine kamikaze volunteers became hard to find. But in those first weeks, a substantial number of Japanese aircrew eagerly embraced the concept, offering themselves for “useful death.” When an officer flew to the Philippines base of Cebu and invited applicants for suicide missions, the entire unit came forward except two pilots in the sickbay. One flier, Uemura, had just written off a precious aircraft in an accident. He acknowledged miserably that he was the worst pilot in the squadron. His commander reassured him: “Don’t worry, Uemura, I’ll find a chance for you. Stop worrying and go to bed.” The pilot bowed deeply, saying, “Thank you sir. I shall be waiting.”
When Commander Tamai of the 201st Air Group put the idea to his twenty-three pilots, all professed enthusiasm. Lt. Yukio Seki said: “You’ve absolutely got to let me do it.” Seki was just three months married, after a correspondence romance. He had received a random parcel from a girl, one of many dispatched by civilian well-wishers to Japan’s soldiers, sailors and airmen. This one, unusually, contained the sender’s name and address. The officer began exchanging letters with her. They met on his leave, fell in love, married. Before Seki left on his last mission, instead of asserting that he was sacrificing himself for his country, he told war correspondents: “I’m doing this for my beloved wife.” To a Western mind, self-immolation in such circumstances is incomprehensible. To some Japanese of the time, however, it seemed intensely romantic.
On 21 October 1944, as the first suicide section took off from Luzon, their comrades stood by the flight path singing, “If duty calls me to the mountain, a verdant greensward will be my pall.” The mission ended in anticlimax, for the planes returned without finding a target. But that day a Japanese aircraft from another field crashed into the cruiser HMAS Australia off Leyte, killing thirty men and inflicting major damage. On 25 October, in the aftermath of the Leyte Gulf naval battle, kamikazes led by Seki achieved their first important successes, sinking St. Lo, damaging Santee and Suwanee. The carrier Intrepid was struck off Luzon four days later. Onishi now secured the consent of his superior, Admiral Fukudome, to recruit kamikaze volunteers in large numbers. Fukudome had at first resisted, arguing that suicide missions would not play well with aircrew. Most of 2nd Air Fleet’s 24 and 25 October attacks on the American fleet employed conventional tactics. Only after these resulted in further disastrous losses did suicide assaults become institutionalised.
Captain Inoguchi flew into Manila on 26 October to confer with Onishi about expanding “special attack” squadrons. The staff officer was dismayed by the squalor of the Philippines’ capital: “People in the streets319 appeared haunted and nervous; many were leaving the city, carrying huge bundles on their shoulders. Heavy smoke…hung over the harbour. At AA positions along the waterside, soldiers were busy clearing shell cases and debris from the last raid…I was shocked to see so many sunken vessels, only their mast tips showing above the surface.” The two Japanese officers found themselves meeting in an air-raid shelter. With bleak understatement, Onishi observed: “This is certainly an unorthodox command.” A young suicide volunteer arrived at naval air headquarters to say farewell,