They swooped out of the sky with mythical names like “morning sun” and “mountain cherry blossoms,” hurling themselves at U.S. forces in the name of imperial pride.
Kamikaze suicide bombers, a strategy launched in 1944 toward the end of World War II, involved some 3,000 Japanese fighter pilots who sank scores of U.S. ships and killed nearly 5,000 American sailors. But the origins of the military tactic can be traced all the way back to the 13th century, when, after conquering China, the Mongols set their sights on Japan, and a fleet of 3,500 ships transported more than 100,000 warriors to the civil war-torn island kingdom. A typhoon destroyed the invading fleet, and seven years later, a devastating storm quashed another invasion attempt.
“THEY DIDN’T WANT TO DO IT,” BUT THE PLANES ONLY HAD ENOUGH GAS FOR A ONE-WAY TRIP.
Legend pinned their good fortune on a “kamikaze” or “divine wind,” and nearly 700 years later, it became the name of Japan’s devastating squadrons of suicide planes. It was the brainchild of Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi, the commander of Japan’s naval air force in the Philippines when U.S. troops landed on Leyte. Unable to stave off the allied forces there in October 1944, Ōnishi is said to have told his assembled officers: “We must deploy bomb-laden Zero fighter planes as suicide units to target enemy craft.”
