Desperate Sunset: Japan’s kamikazes against Allied ships, 1944–45

By Mike Yeo

In a last desperate bid to stave off defeat, Japan's High Command launched the terrifying kamikaze attacks.

By the middle of 1944, Imperial Japan's armed forces were in an increasingly desperate situation. Its elite air corps had been wiped out over the Solomons in 1942–43, and its navy was a shadow of the force that had attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. But the Japanese had one last, desperate, card to play.

The Japanese High Command decided that the way to inflict maximum damage on the superior enemy forces was to get the poorly trained Japanese pilots to crash their explosive-laden aircraft onto their target, essentially turning themselves into a guided missile.

The kamikazes announced themselves in the immediate aftermath of the Leyte Gulf naval battles, sinking the USS St. Lo and damaging several other ships. The zenith of the kamikaze came in the battle of Okinawa, which included ten kikusui (Floating Chrysanthemum) operations which involved up to several hundred aircraft attacking the US fleet.

Fully illustrated throughout, Desperate Sunset examines the development and evolution of the kamikaze using first-hand accounts, combat reports and archived histories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Dec 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781472829429

Mike Yeo

Mike Yeo is a Singaporean aviation enthusiast and a keen student of aviation history and the Pacific War who is currently based in Melbourne, Australia. He has studied World War 2 military aviation, with a particular focus on the Pacific War campaign. He is a freelance military/defence journalist specialising in the Asia-Pacific region, and has written for Shephard Media, the United States Naval Institute, Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, Aviation International News, Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter and Asian Military Review.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

A Zuikaku D3A1 Val dive-bomber that was hit by antiaircraft fire is seen here moments before it crashed into USS Hornet (CV-8) in a jibaku strike during the battle of Santa Cruz. A Shokaku B5N Kate can also be seen flying over the doomed carrier, having just launched its torpedo at Hornet. Two B5N2s from Shokaku and one from Junyo scored torpedo hits on CV-8, leaving it immobilized and listless in the water. Hornet was subsequently abandoned and sunk by torpedoes launched from two Japanese destroyers on October 27, 1942. This photograph was taken from the heavy cruiser USS Pensacola (CA-24). (Naval History and Heritage Command)

By mid-1944, Imperial Japan’s armed forces found themselves in an increasingly desperate situation. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF) and Imperial Japanese Naval Air Force (IJNAF) had suffered terrible losses in the grinding aerial battles over the Solomons in 1942–43, while the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was a shadow of the force that had so successfully attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The battle of the Philippine Sea on June 19–20, better known to high-scoring US Navy fighter pilots in the immediate aftermath of the campaign as the Marianas Turkey Shoot, effectively sounded the death knell for the IJNAF. An attempt to forestall the US amphibious invasion of the Mariana Islands had seen the IJNAF wiped out as a fighting force, losing between 550 and 650 aircraft (estimates vary), along with most of what remained of its cadre of combat-experienced pilots. Little damage had been inflicted on the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet in return.

Among the hundreds of pilots lost during this one-sided battle was Lt Cdr Takashige Egusa, who had led the D3A Val dive-bombers of the second wave attack on Pearl Harbor and had personally bombed the battleship USS Nevada (BB-36). He subsequently hit the cruiser HMS Dorsetshire and the carrier HMS Hermes as the Japanese swept across the Pacific and Southeast Asia. However, by June 1944 off Guam, in the Northern Mariana Islands, it was a vastly different war, and on the 15th of that month Egusa found himself leading a small force of land-based Yokosuka P1Y Frances twin-engined torpedo-bombers against a powerfully defended carrier task force. His entire formation was unceremoniously shot down before they reached their targets.

Acknowledged throughout the IJNAF as its finest dive-bomber leader, Lt Cdr Takashige Egusa led the D3A Val dive-bombers of the second wave during the attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, and also presided over the sinking of British cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire in the Indian Ocean in April 1942. He fell in battle on June 15, 1944 leading a small force of land-based P1Y1 Frances bombers of the 521st Kokutai against a US Navy carrier task force off the Northern Mariana Islands. (Tony Holmes collection)

When he died in combat, Egusa was among the last aircrew survivors from the men who had attacked Pearl Harbor two-and-a-half years earlier. The ranks of this once elite force had been drastically thinned during the carrier clashes in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway and then utterly decimated in the war of attrition that followed in the Solomons. As an example, the tactical victory won by the IJN at the battle of Santa Cruz on October 26, 1942 – its carrier-based aircraft sank USS Hornet (CV-8) and badly damaged USS Enterprise (CV-6) in exchange for two Japanese carriers being heavily damaged – came at a horrific cost in aircrew. No fewer than 148 pilots and observers/gunners, including two dive-bomber group leaders, three torpedo-bomber squadron leaders, and 18 section or flight leaders were lost, together with 99 of the 203 aircraft committed by the IJNAF to the battle.

Things were little better for land-based units of the IJAAF either, as they too had endured heavy attrition in New Guinea and the Solomons in 1942–43 in a forlorn attempt to wrest aerial supremacy back from increasingly powerful Allied air forces in-theater following initial successes in the early days of the Japanese campaign in Southeast Asia and the western Pacific.

In spite of such reversals in fortune, both the IJNAF and the IJAAF had one last desperate, and deadly, card to play. By October 1944 senior naval officers were openly discussing forming Tokubetsu Kogekitai (shortened to tokko-tai) units to fly serviceable, bomb-laden aircraft and crash them into enemy ships. Faced with a severe lack of skilled, experienced airmen able to accurately bomb or torpedo Allied vessels using conventional methods, Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi (soon to be appointed commander of 1st Air Fleet in the Philippines) requested approval from the Chief of the Naval General Staff to form a Special Attack unit to carry out suicide strikes on the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet.

Although initially opposed to the idea of such attacks when first briefed on them, Onishi had quickly realized that conventional attacks had little chance of success against the overwhelming firepower of the US forces being massed for the imminent invasion of the Philippines. It was duly decided the best way to inflict maximum damage on the enemy forces approaching Japan was to get the poorly trained IJNAF and IJAAF pilots to crash their aircraft into their targets, thus essentially becoming guided bombs.

The use of tai-tari (body-crashing) tactics was not a new phenomenon, with Japanese pilots whose aircraft were badly hit being known to have attempted to crash into Allied ships as early as May 1942. However, these were individual actions taken by pilots who decided that there was no way their badly damaged aircraft could have returned to base. The formation of Tokubetsu Kogekitai and the employment of Special Attack tactics would be a different thing altogether, for it would entail pilots setting out specifically to crash their aircraft onto enemy ships, with no intention of returning home.

That the Japanese should turn to such tactics out of desperation should not have come as a great surprise to the Allies. Indeed, there had been numerous occasions throughout the Pacific War when Japanese pilots facing an imminent crash in a stricken aircraft had opted to adopt jibaku (Japanese term for the act of suicide) tactics and attempted to strike an enemy vessel, with varying degrees of success.

In February 1942, following the fall of Rabaul, on the South Pacific island of New Britain, to Japanese forces, the Allies were concerned that the IJN would turn it into a major base that could pose a threat to the vital California–Australia sea lane supply route. A raid was quickly planned against Rabaul, with the US Navy’s Task Force (TF) 11, centered on the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2), ordered to carry out the attack scheduled for February 21. TF 11 was detected by a patrolling IJNAF flying boat on the morning of the 20th, with Rabaul still out of range, and the decision was made to call off the raid soon after. However, by then, the IJNAF had already sortied 17 G4M1 Betty bombers of the newly arrived 4th Kokutai from Rabaul’s Vunakanau airfield to attack the ships.

This dramatic image was a still frame taken from a cine film shot by a sailor on board USS Lexington (CV-2) during the aborted raid on Rabaul by TF 11 on February 20, 1942. In an early example of jibaku, FCPO Chuzo Watanabe, flying G4M1 Betty F-348 of the 4th Kokutai, decided to crash into Lexington. He missed and flew into the sea just off the carrier’s port bow after the Betty had been repeatedly hit by antiaircraft fire from other US Navy ships escorting CV-2. Minutes earlier, and just prior to bomb release, the G4M1 had had its port engine and nacelle completely shot off by VF-3 fighter pilot Lt Edward H. Butch O’Hare, flying an F4F-3 Wildcat from Lexington. (NARA)

Nine aircraft from the 4th Kokutai’s 1st Chutai and eight from the 2nd made contact with TF 11 in the afternoon. An epic fighter action in defense of the carrier duly ensued, with F4F Wildcats of VF-3 shooting down or damaging three 1st Chutai aircraft before they could reach the ship. Among the successful pilots was Lt Edward Butch O’Hare, who was awarded a Medal of Honor following this engagement. One of the damaged Bettys was the mount of Kokutai commander Lt Cdr Takuzo Ito, the aircraft being flown by FCPO Chuzo Watanabe. It had had its port engine and nacelle completely shot off by O’Hare just prior to bomb release, and Watanabe subsequently decided to crash into Lexington. He missed and flew into the sea off the carrier’s port bow after the Betty had been repeatedly hit by antiaircraft fire from US Navy ships.

The next known jibaku attempt met with more success. Following the crippling of the IJN’s carrier force with the sinking of four of its flattops during the battle of Midway in early June, American forces started their counteroffensive soon after. This included the surprise invasion of Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, on August 7 and the subsequent occupation of a newly built Japanese airfield there. The seizure of the island had a twofold objective. Firstly, the Allies hoped to prevent the IJNAF and IJAAF from using the airfield as a base for aircraft tasked with threatening supply and communication routes between the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. Secondly, the Allies saw Guadalcanal as a key location from which to neutralize the strategically important Japanese stronghold of Rabaul.

The Japanese response to the amphibious assault on Guadalcanal was instantaneous and predictably fierce. Air attacks from Rabaul against the invasion fleet started the very day the US Marine Corps came ashore. One of the ships to survive the attacks on August 7 was USS George F. Elliott (AP-13), a Heywood-class transport acquired from civilian service by the US Navy in 1940. It had arrived off Guadalcanal with the main invasion fleet on D-Day, and among the Marines it disembarked that day was Robert Leckie, author of the book Helmet for my Pillow, which was subsequently used as the basis of the television miniseries The Pacific.

Like many of the transports involved in this operation, George F. Elliott was awaiting the order to resume sending the balance of its cargo ashore due to congestion on the beachhead on the morning of the 8th when more G4M1s were detected on radar. A total of 23 torpedo-armed Bettys were closing on Guadalcanal, 14 from the 4th Kokutai and nine from the Misawa Kokutai. Some 26 bombers had originally taken off from Vunakanau, but three aircraft from the 4th Kokutai had aborted before reaching the target area.

The 16,400-ton transport ship USS George F. Elliott (AP-13) was struck by the Betty flown by Lt(jg) Takafumi Sasaki of the 4th Kokutai’s 2nd Chutai while underway in Ironbottom Sound, off Guadalcanal, on the morning of August 8, 1942. Most of the damage was caused by the G4M1’s twin engines, which penetrated the thin skin of the ex-merchant ship and severed the rear fire mains, starting a massive blaze in the cargo hold in the process. The crew was told to abandon ship shortly thereafter, and the burning hulk was scuttled by the destroyer USS Hull (DD-350).

Upon receiving word of the impending attack, George F. Elliott’s crew weighed anchor and got the vessel underway, heading out into the open waters of nearby Ironbottom Sound as they prepared to meet the oncoming threat. The 16,400-ton ship was spotted by Betty bomber pilot Lt(jg) Takafumi Sasaki of the 4th Kokutai’s 2nd Chutai, who bored in from its starboard side just above the wavetops.

George F. Elliott’s gunners blazed away at the bomber with the ship’s paltry antiaircraft armament, which consisted of a single five-inch gun, four three-inch weapons, and eight 0.50-caliber machine guns. Several hits were scored without apparent effect, although at some point in his torpedo run Sasaki decided that a jibaku attack was the only option left open to him. The bomber struck the ship just aft of the superstructure, showering its topsides with burning fuel and debris. The bulk of the damage inflicted on the transport was caused by the G4M1’s twin engines, which penetrated the thin skin of the ship and severed the rear fire mains, starting a massive blaze in the cargo hold in the process. The resulting conflagration soon raged out of control, with the crew forced to fight the fire with a bucket brigade because of the severed mains.

With neighboring ships unable to provide assistance due to the ongoing air attack, the crew of George F. Elliott realized they were fighting a losing battle when a damaged bulkhead failed, releasing bunker fuel into the rear hold that literally fueled the flames. The order to abandon ship was given soon after 1300hrs, and later that evening the burning hulk was scuttled by the destroyer USS Hull (DD-350).

From the Japanese perspective, the mission on August 8 was an unmitigated disaster. Aside from George F. Elliott, the only other vessel to be hit, by a torpedo, was the destroyer USS Jarvis (DD-393) – it was sunk with all hands the following day during an attack by 31 IJNAF aircraft. This was a poor return for the loss of 18 Bettys and 125 aircrew, many of them veterans of earlier campaigns who took with them their irreplaceable experience.

The heavy cruiser USS San Francisco (CA-38) was another victim of a Betty jibaku off the Solomons in 1942, the vessel being hit on November 12 off Guadalcanal while escorting Allied transports carrying much-needed supplies and fresh troops for the land campaign. One of 19 torpedo-bombers to target TF 67.4, the G4M1 crashed into San Francisco’s aft main battery control station, swung around that structure and plunged over the port side into the sea. Fifteen crew were killed, 29 wounded, and one listed as missing. Maneuvering behind the already burning cruiser is the attack transport USS President Jackson (AP-37), this dramatic photograph being taken from the latter vessel’s sister-ship USS President Adams (AP-38). (NARA)

The invasion of Guadalcanal marked the start of a series of air and naval actions carried out by both sides in support of their respective ground forces in the Solomons. The primary objective of the IJN and Allied navies was to resupply and reinforce their troops’ positions on Guadalcanal itself, while simultaneously trying to deny their adversary a hold on the island.

On November 12 yet another Allied convoy reached Lunga Point, on the northern coast of Guadalcanal, with much-needed supplies and fresh troops for the bitter, grinding land campaign that continued to be fought for control of the island. The transports were escorted by Rear Admiral Daniel Judson Callaghan’s TF 67.4, which comprised the heavy cruisers USS San Francisco (CA-38) and USS Portland (CA-33), the light cruisers USS Helena (CL-50) and USS Juneau (CL-52), and six destroyers. The force had been sighted and shadowed by Japanese reconnaissance floatplanes soon after departing Espiritu Santo, in the New Hebrides, two days before, and just after noon on the 12th Allied beachcombers further up the Solomons chain had sent a warning that a force of IJNAF bombers were on their way. At 1408hrs a force of 19 bombers attacked.

These were once again torpedo-armed Bettys from Rabaul, although mounting losses among the G4M1 units committed to the campaign in the Solomons meant that this force was made up of aircraft from the 703rd, 705th, and 707th Kokutai (the former Chitose, Misawa, and Kisarazu Kokutai, respectively). The bombers made their way down Indispensable Strait before swinging south, using the hills of Florida Island and Tulagi to mask their approach towards the ships off Guadalcanal. Among the sailors to spot the Betty torpedo-bombers minutes before they attacked was Lt(jg) John George Wallace on board San Francisco:

Over these hills came the 30 [actually 19, as mentioned above] Bettys, fanning out to disperse the defensive firepower from our ships. They skimmed down so that they were only a few feet from the water, and when they got within range of the ships they dropped their fish. By then the ships had opened fire, some, including San Francisco, using their big eight-inch main battery guns as well as their antiaircraft guns. Since the big eight-inch guns had contact shells, not shells with fuzes in them that would explode in the air near an aircraft, we aimed the guns at a point in the water ahead of an incoming plane. We were hoping that when the shell struck the water, it would explode and disable the plane – or that the turbulence caused by the water splash would tend to make the planes drop into the water. No planes were shot down in this manner, but the Japanese pilots wiggled their planes to avoid the splashes.

Wallace’s battle station was in the ship’s aft main battery control station for the cruiser’s eight-inch main guns, from where he observed the action:

As the planes approached, I was standing in the door looking out to starboard, with communication headphones strapped over my head. I was ready to take control of the main battery guns should the forward station, containing the Gunnery Officer, become disabled. I saw plane after plane drop torpedoes, and for a while it didn’t look as if we were going to shoot any of them down. Finally, planes got hit and started to drop in the water or skid in and flop over. One came in from our starboard bow and, for the longest time, it didn’t get hit. It dropped its torpedo, and I was sure this would hit San Francisco forward on the starboard side.

This photograph (onto which white circles were drawn to highlight areas damaged by the Betty) was taken upon CA-38’s arrival at Mare Island Navy Yard, north of San Francisco, on December 11, 1942, where it remained for almost three months while being repaired. (NARA)

The torpedo missed, but the crew of the bomber was not done yet. Wallace continued:

About the time I expected that torpedo to hit – it missed – our antiaircraft 20mm guns behind me, right outside my battle station, started to really kick them out. I looked out toward the starboard quarter, and what I saw was a Betty bomber coming right at me with its starboard engine smoking. I just had time to duck inside the outer door when a tremendous explosion knocked me all the way up to the forward side of the secondary conn, after which I lost consciousness.

The stricken bomber crashed into San Francisco’s aft main battery control station, swung around that structure and plunged over the port side into the sea. Fifteen crew were killed, 29 wounded, and one listed as missing. Wallace was among those to be wounded, suffering burns to his face and legs and subsequently earning a Navy Cross for his actions that day. The bomber demolished the cruiser’s aft main battery control station, while its secondary command post, Battle Two, was burned out but was reestablished that same evening. San Francisco’s after antiaircraft director and radar were also put out of commission, while three of the ship’s 20mm antiaircraft mounts were destroyed.

In between these two actions off Guadalcanal, other US Navy vessels had endured impromptu jibaku attacks. Indeed, on October 26, 1942 during the battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, Hornet was struck by two flak-damaged D3A Val dive-bombers during a series of carrier-borne air attacks mounted by both sides on each other’s carriers throughout the engagement. The hulk of the abandoned Hornet was eventually sunk by four Long Lance torpedoes fired by IJN destroyers after the carrier withstood all attempts by the US Navy to scuttle it.

The destroyer USS Smith (DD-378) was also damaged in a jibaku hit on October 26, the ship being hit in the forecastle by a B5N Kate torpedo-bomber. The aircraft’s torpedo reportedly exploded shortly after the Kate had struck the ship, resulting in 57 sailors being killed or listed as missing and 12 wounded. Despite the damage, the destroyer retained its position in the TF 17 cruiser-destroyer screen protecting larger vessels from aerial attack. Its gunners were credited with downing six IJNAF aircraft prior to the vessel being sent to Noumea for temporary repairs and then on to Pearl Harbor for a four-month yard overhaul. Smith was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for its exploits during the battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

GENESIS

Fast-forward to the summer of 1944, and by the time of Lt Cdr Takashige Egusa’s death in June of that year, the discussion about whether to formally use suicide tactics or not was already in progress. Ironically, given the fact that the IJNAF was the first to employ organized tokko tactics in October 1944 off the Philippines, it was the IJAAF that initially mooted the idea of such attacks. The genesis of it was a fact-finding mission to New Guinea in early 1944 by Lt Col Koji Tanaka from the Imperial General Headquarters. Once in-theater, he found that IJAAF units were facing various operational, training, and serviceability problems with their aircraft. More importantly, Tanaka also learnt that there had been occasions where pilots, faced with considerable difficulty in downing USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator heavy bombers with their lightly armed Ki-43 Oscar and Ki-61 Tony fighters, had resorted to using ramming tactics against the heavies.

Tanaka also recommended to the Imperial General Headquarters following his return to Japan that such tokko attacks be formally adopted as official operational tactics. However, the IJAAF leadership felt that Special Attacks should be strictly voluntary, rather than being seen as part of a mandate, which in turn meant that no orders were issued to train pilots in such tactics. Nevertheless, in July 1944, flight school superintendents and IJAAF unit commanders were asked to submit lists of volunteers for tokko missions, and soon after 50 volunteers were selected from the Hitachi, Akeno, Hamamatsu, and Hokota flight training schools, with 60 more following soon after.

Despite being described as volunteers, it appears that the pilots assigned to tokko operations had little choice but to put their hands up when senior officers asked for personnel to carry out Special Attack missions, given the existing culture prevalent in Japan and the military at the time. Several testimonies attest to this, and the phenomenon of pressure being applied on pilots or trainees to volunteer for tokko operations only increased as the campaign ramped up and the ranks of available pilots naturally thinned out.

Rear Admiral Masafumi Arima was the initiator of the IJNAF’s move into dedicated tokko attacks, rather than ad hoc jibaku. An IJN veteran with almost 30 years of service to his country, he had been captain of the carrier Shokaku from late May 1942 through to his promotion to rear admiral one year later – he had seen action with the vessel off Guadalcanal and during the battles of the Eastern Solomons and the Santa Cruz Islands. When leading a strike against TF 38 off Luxon in October 1944, Arima attempted to crash his D4Y into a fast carrier. (Tony Holmes collection)

The initial batch of volunteer trainees was soon being schooled in tokko tactics, and this tuition was still in progress when the invasion of the Philippines commenced on October 20, 1944. Shortly thereafter, the pilots were formed into the Hakko-tai units that they would deploy with to the Philippines, and they were expended in tokko attacks between November 1944 and January 1945 (see Chapter 3).

The impending invasion of the Philippines had also prompted the IJNAF to develop its own tokko program, although it took an altogether shorter and more ad hoc path. It appears that Rear Admiral Masafumi Arima, commander of the Manila-based 26th Koku Sentai (Air Flotilla), was the initiator of the service’s move into tokko attacks. He attempted to crash a D4Y Judy dive-bomber into a fast carrier – possibly USS Franklin (CV-13) – on October 15, 1944, having personally led a strike against TF 38 off Luzon. Aircraft from the US Navy task force were in the process of attacking targets in Formosa and the Philippines prior to the invasion of the latter five days later. A subsequent Japanese account of Arima’s attack noted that This act of self-sacrifice by a high flag officer spurred on the flying units in forward combat areas and provided the spark that touched off the organized use of suicide attacks in the battle for Leyte.

Takijiro Onishi

The individual seen as the father of kamikaze attacks was Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi, commander of the First Air Fleet in the Philippines in October 1944. His resolve to begin suicide attacks culminated a year’s worth of theoretical discussions among the IJN’s leadership on how to overcome Japan’s growing inferiority against the US Navy. (Tony Holmes collection)

Takijiro Onishi is generally credited with being the father of kamikaze operations, being a long-time aviator and advocate of naval aviation. His early war career included a role in planning the Pearl Harbor attack and command of the naval air forces on Taiwan, which supported the invasion of the Philippines in 1941. In 1944, he was the head of the Aviation Department of the Ministry of Munitions. After the battle of the Philippine Sea, Onishi was ordered to take over the First Air Fleet (on October 2) and defeat the expected American invasion of the Philippines.

Before leaving for his new assignment, he had informed the Chief of the Naval General Staff and the Navy Minister of his intention to form Special Attack units to target the American invasion force. Although this was not worded in such a way to explicitly state he was forming suicide units, his intent was clear. Onishi was advised only to make sure all the pilots were volunteers.

Onishi arrived in the Philippines on October 17, just as US forces were making preliminary landings near Leyte. Upon reaching Mabalacat two days later, he found that his air fleet possessed only 100 air craft. The size of this meager force convinced Onishi that suicide tactics were his only chance for success. On October 20 he spoke to the pilots who had volunteered for tokko missions:

Japan is in grave danger. The salvation of our country is now beyond the power of the ministers of the state, the General Staff and lowly commanders like myself. It can come only from spirited young men such as you. Thus, on behalf of your hundred million countrymen, I ask of you this sacrifice and pray for your success.

You are already gods, without earthly desires. But one thing you want to know is that your own crash-dive is not in vain. Regrettably, we will not be able to tell you the results. But I shall watch your efforts to the end and report your deeds to the Throne. You may all rest assured on this point.

I ask you all to do your best.

The die was cast for a campaign of suicide attacks.

Onishi was ordered to leave the Philippines on January 10, 1945 and relocate his headquarters back to Formosa. He continued in command of the First Air Fleet until May, when he was ordered to return to Japan to take up the position of Vice Chief of the Naval General Staff. Even at this late stage of the war Onishi continued to advocate for a bitter fight to the end, despite the seemingly inevitable American invasion that would lay waste to Japan.

Having ordered so many young men to their deaths, Onishi elected to take his own life after the announcement from the Emperor that Japan would surrender. On August 16, 1945 he committed ritual suicide, but botched the attempt. He died a painful death from his wounds over a period of 15 hours since he would not allow others to hasten his ritual death.

Confusingly, IJNAF records state that Arima crashed his A6M Zeke (rather than a D4Y) into Franklin. However, US Navy records do not bear this out, with Franklin itself reporting being attacked by two Oscars and a Judy at 1045hrs. All three aircraft dropped bombs, resulting in the carrier being hit once and suffering two near misses. One of the attacking Oscars was shot down by the carrier, without any indication that its pilot had attempted to crash into the ship.

Two days after Arima’s death, the newly appointed commander of the First Koku Kantai (Air Fleet), Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi, arrived in the Philippines. On October 19, during his visit to Mabalacat West airfield (known today as Clark air base), north of Manila, Onishi suggested to the leadership of the resident 201st Kokutai that tokko attacks were the only way to defeat the enemy. Although he had previously been opposed to such tactics, he told the 201st’s pilot cadre that as they were going to die in combat operations in any case, then their deaths should not be futile. The tactics to be employed were quickly agreed upon, and soon volunteers were selected to form the Dai-ichi Kamikaze Tokubetsu Kogekitai (1st Kamikaze Special Attack Corps) to carry out the IJNAF’s first dedicated tokko attacks. The stage was set.

CHAPTER 2

TACTICS AND AIRCRAFT

On April 11, 1945, the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) was hit amidships on its starboard side by a Zero-sen while sailing off Okinawa. Here, gun crews watch the aircraft approach, which, when it hit, exploded in a large fireball but caused no real damage to the heavily armored battleship. Low-level attacks were initially favored by tokko pilots. (NARA)

TACTICS

Although the tactics behind flying an aircraft into a ship seemed straightforward enough once the pilot involved got past the psychological barrier of being killed in the resulting crash, as it turned out, throughout the tokko campaign both sides constantly reassessed and refined their offensive (IJNAF and IJAAF) and defensive (Allied ships and defending fighters) tactics in an effort to maximize success. For the Japanese, the challenge was to get the pilot and his bomb-laden aircraft past Allied fighter combat air patrols (CAPs) and antiaircraft fire and into a position whereby he could crash into a moving, maneuvering target. For the Allies, they simply had to try and prevent the enemy pilot from doing so.

In practice, it turned out that the challenge for both sides was more difficult that it appeared. The increasingly poorly trained Japanese pilots found it more and more difficult to break through the massed ranks of fighters and intense antiaircraft fire that they encountered as their adversaries woke up to the tokko threat. Ships’ gunners and Allied fighter pilots alike quickly discovered that scoring numerous hits on a tokko aircraft, and even setting it alight, often proved insufficient when it came to stopping a Japanese pilot already committed to his death dive. As a direct result of these factors, the tactics adopted by both sides evolved considerably from when the tokko first appeared off Leyte to the last such operations on August 15, 1945 – the day that hostilities ended in the Pacific.

At the start of the tokko campaign, the Japanese typically used two different flight profiles when approaching the target. The first saw the aircraft attack at low level, closing on their targets at wavetop heights. This had the advantage of making it more difficult for ships’ radar to detect the incoming aircraft, as well as increasing the risk of vessels’ defensive fire hitting friendly ships nearby (something that happened on occasion). This attack profile also made it more difficult for defending fighters to intercept tokko aircraft, even if they had been detected during their approach. Allied pilots attempting intercepts would have to divide their attention between shooting down their target aircraft and avoiding hitting the water while doing so.

These diagrams show the two most commonly employed tokko attack profiles. The high-altitude approach was the preferred profile for inexperienced pilots. More challenging for both the suicide pilot and the defender was a low-altitude approach, which, if flown low enough, could evade radar detection. Usually before executing his final dive, the low-altitude attacker would perform a pop-up maneuver to acquire a target. Occasionally, however, tokko would fly all the way to the target at low altitude.

This method of approach was possible during the first attacks that took place in late October 1944, for the Japanese aviators involved in these one-way missions were still relatively experienced and skilled. Indeed, they had completed the standard pilot training courses, with some of the IJNAF pilots selected for early tokko operations in the Philippines even having combat experience under their belts. This method of attack was also used by the Formosa-based tokko on occasion during the battle of Okinawa, which commenced on April 1, 1945, underlining their reputation among their opponents that they were more skilled in kamikaze attacks than their Japan-based counterparts.

A tokko pilot conducting a low-level attack needed to possess sufficient flying skills to maintain a consistently low altitude (as low as 30–50ft above the waves) on approach, and then be able to pop up to 1,300–1,640ft before diving onto the target at an angle of 45 degrees or steeper. This approach could be combined with the use of nearby landmasses that created