How many kamikaze attacks were there

For three months in , this was an all-too-common occurrence in the seas off Okinawa, where 10 mass kamikaze attacks, each with hundreds of suicide planes, struck the U. Fifth Fleet. The attacks did not alter the course of the Pacific war, but the death toll of more than 4, Navy crewmen increased the misgivings of some members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about invading Japan. As American forces edged closer to mainland Japan in and , Japanese leaders adopted desperate measures to thwart the looming disaster.

One was the mass kamikaze attack. American submarines were shutting down the oil and rubber pipeline from Southeast Asia. Peleliu was about to fall, and the Philippines would be next.

Its ideological underpinnings were gyukosai and Bushido. A vestige of the samurai warrior code, Bushido was characterized by a studied indifference to death. The new strategy was first applied in September during the defense of the Palua Islands stronghold of Peleliu.

They patiently waited for U. The new strategy became the template for the defenses of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in General Torashiro Kawabe claimed that the kamikaze did not regard himself as suicidal. The Japanese simply armed their warplanes with pound bombs and crashed them into American ships.

The suicide attacks began October 25, , during the U. All of you, come back dead. Lo , killing crewmen, and damaged the carrier escort Santee. Though the idea of sending pilots on one-way suicide missions is largely attributed to one, Capt. However, it was Capt. Motoharu Okamura who is largely believed to have been the first high-ranking Japanese officer to propose the idea as a preplanned tactic.

Famously stating:. In our present situation 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. There will be more than enough volunteers for this chance to save our country, and I would like to command such an operation. Provide me with planes and I will turn the tide of war. That said, it was not Okamura, but then Vice-Admiral of the Japanese Navy, Takijiro Onishi who is credited with creating the first squadron of kamikaze pilots.

Onishi reportedly approached his superiors to ask to create a suicide squad and was granted permission on one condition, he was only allowed to recruit volunteers. All 23 pilots asked to join ultimately volunteered. From here, reports of the day are that many more pilots than there were planes eagerly signed up supposedly so many that they outnumbered the available planes 3 to 1.

This generally only happens when they sting humans, as their stingers get stuck in our fleshy skin. This is not the case when they sting many other animals. However, the official story of droves of zealous volunteers clamoring to sign up has been questioned by many historians, particularly with firsthand accounts from actual pilots popping up since, painting a decidedly less patriotic or eager tone.

So many students are gone. Why did headquarters continue such silly attacks for ten months! They lied! It is easy to talk about death in the abstract, as the ancient philosophers discussed. Even for a short life, there are many memories. For someone who had a good life, it is very difficult to part with it. But I reached a point of no return. I must plunge into an enemy vessel.

To be honest, I cannot say that the wish to die for the emperor is genuine, coming from my heart. However, it is decided for me that I die for the emperor. While there certainly were those who were willing to volunteer to die for emperor and country, and many more willing to die in this way simply because they felt, somewhat correctly, that they were the last line of defense to protect their families and friends at home, in truth many seem to have simply been pressured into it.

As Sasaki points out, the pressure on young men to do something for their country during that time was significant, and the threat of retaliation if you said no was very real, as was the fear that there would potentially be retaliation against not only the soldier, but his family back home.

According to the aforementioned Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, in Kamikaze Diaries , other methods of encouraging men to volunteer included putting them in a room filled with their peers.

As you can imagine, volunteering by default in this way was extremely effective. This latter point was frequently written about in the letters and journals from many of the volunteers as to why they ultimately chose to do so.

If a soldier had managed to be courageous enough not to volunteer, he would have been consigned to a living hell. Any soldier who refused would become persona non grata or be sent to the southern battlefield, where death was guaranteed. Some soldiers actually managed to say no, but their refusal was disregarded.

Not all kamikaze pilots died though. Do not waste your life lightly. When I reflect on the hopes you had for my future … I feel so sad that I am going to die without doing anything to bring you joy.