Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Part 7 (Last Part) of memoirs of Two former officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy, who tell their version of the history of the kamikaze attacks. One of them served as senior staff officer to Vice Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, who initiated Japan's kamikaze attacks against American ships in the Philippines. Second Officer was flight operations officer for the 201st Air Group, which organized the first kamikaze special attack corps. Their memoirs cover the kamikaze operations from October 19, 1944, the date of the formation of the first kamikaze special attack corps, to the end of the war. Here is the link of the playlist ua-cam.com/play/PLGjbe3ikd0XFm1LjNNMlJPKSOtLwLatx3.html Link of Part 1 ua-cam.com/video/HLLlLZ2fSoI/v-deo.html Link of Part 2 ua-cam.com/video/Q5dmCSpJVRA/v-deo.html Link of Part 3 ua-cam.com/video/EKb2u_qdfFA/v-deo.html Link of Part 4 ua-cam.com/video/LKvGUqeXO8Q/v-deo.html Link of Part 5 ua-cam.com/video/q-7_babQE9M/v-deo.html Link of Part 6 ua-cam.com/video/CaWMklgyQ2k/v-deo.html
Having served 13 years on Okinawa, I came away with an abiding admiration of the Japanese save one observation. They have an unhealthy amount of trust and respect for authority.
I don't know why, but the tone and accent of this narrator makes it very easy to imagine that these are the thoughts and actions of Japanese combatants of WW2. Very fine presentations.
As the author of this book is speaking from a rigorously inculcated, sociopolitical doctrine, the robot voice used for this narration does indeed suit the material.
The imperial Japanese military philosophy was that it was of equal value to die gloriously in battle as to actually win the battle. The Japanese had the will to fight, the allies had the will to win.
@Sirharryflash82 Go study History. Patton became such an embarrassment for the US government after the war that he was relieved of all commands (in particular due to his opposition to de-nazification and his antisemitism while he was governor of occupied Germany). Also have a look at the theories (by serious historians) about his death. Once you have studied post-war history of Patton, come back and we can talk.
@@frankguz55 I majored in History, I've read all the books and NOWHERE is there any evidence of him being a psychopath. My guess is that you don't even know the definition and you just thought the word sounded good. Now go write some more meaningless paragraphs that no one will read.
Apparently, the Nazi's were working on their own rocket-powered suicide plane but this was abandoned because Hitler believed that a pilot should at least have a chance of survival. Dude, when *_Hitler_* thinks your methods are a bit extreme, you really need to reevaluate your life choices...
The letters moved me greatly. These young men are articulate, thoughtful and intelligent. They are the type of men who would make outstanding citizens in any nation or time.
And had these young, intelligent and articulate young men stood in unity against the senselessness of suicide attacks, the war would have ended just as it did but with 10,000 fewer dead. It is not an easy proposition to consider that your initial position may have been wrong, that those who have informed you may have been mistaken, or are misleading you and most of all the pressure of what others will think of you, say about you, and do about you. But facing those issues requires a moral exercise that is beyond the ability of some. I have endured such circumstances in standing for what I knew to be right, knowing that it would, and in fact, did cost me friends. I’ve also been facdwith the situation of facing possible death in order to help someone who is defenseless. I did not die though It required judgment and reflexes to avoid it, but I faced the circumstances with equanimity; I have faced death on numerous occasions and met the prospect calmly. Not that my courage exceeds that of others, but that I do not have the typical fear response most people have; I faced the possibility of sudden, violent death or serious body injury more time before the age of sixth and most people do in a lifetime. it gives one a different outlook which to view the prospect objectively rather than emotionally. It is courage, because courage is confronting your fears; if you’re not afraid, you’re not brave, only calculating the risks . In any event, I do not see the men who made this decision as having a higher moral position than others .
I laughed their naivety. they were thoroughly propagandized and too stupid do do anything other than buy in to a bogus, murderous philosophy and completely different from the Allied veterans who made outstanding citizens post-war. FYI, most of those pilots missed, were shot down, or returned to base.
On the one hand, the kamikazes were the only weapon the Japanese had left that could do any real harm against the US Navy. On the other, the Japanese command knew that it was a useless waste of life against an Allied juggernaut that was now free, due to the German surrender, to concentrate its entire strength against a collapsed Japanese military.
I would argue the Jap military's extreme defences saved millions of lives because Japan avoided invasion by forcing the US to hurry the invention of the atom bomb.
It didn't require the defeat of Germany. Guadalcanal sapped the number of trained Japanese pilots. They were doomed at that point, with the airfields generated by the island hopping strategy dooming them.
Japan was doomed the minute they ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor. Thier hope was to completely neutralizes the entire USN Pacific Fleet. Then doing as much damage as possible in the hope that the US would sue for peace. I have no doubt that they looked into American history and learned that attacking a US ship would likely result in a declaration of war. So they needed to take care of the entire fleet. They miscalculated America's resolve, to say the least, and failed to get any of our carriers. Oddly enough they were supplying midway with planes. They were hoping to force American capitulation in 6 months time. Instead the US completely turned the tables on them with those carriers within those 6 months. They were on the backfoot from then on. Don't touch our boats! This is the story of the one time the US was attacked for it's oil...
It was a symptom of failure and a fanatic attempt to deny reality. The junta would never accept their defeat and would use human sacrifice to demonstrate their contempt for everyone except themselves. Like the Germans who didn’t have enough petrol to burn Hitler and Goebbels, these kids were thrown into a meat grinder to gratify a perverse government.
One must remember that this book contains sections by two different authors, Rikihei Inoguchi and Tadashi Nakajima. It gets confusing at times. The name of the book is The Divine Wind.
In the letters from the Kamikaze pilots, they all seem to believe that if they do a good job while sacrificing their lives that Japan would be victorious, when in reality their war had long been lost. When the kamikaze were first conceived and employed, there was a slight chance that more efficient use of the planes and pilots might alter the situation in Japan's favor. When that proved a fantasy, the military and political leaders kept the populace and the soldiers, sailors, and airmen in the dark about the true situation. The leaders had decided on a fight to the death for themselves and wanted every person in Japan to die with them. When Admiral Onishi had fewer than 200 planes and there were 1200 US ships in Leyte Gulf he just needs to do the math.
This is so heart breaking to hear those last letters home ! From what I have heard and read. They , the first 60 pilots selected for these kamikaze missions . Thought they would be able to change the out come of the war . But when it was realized it was not , and it would make no difference to the outcome of the war . Why or why, did they throw away their lives , of their pilots ? They could have helped to reconstruct Japan after the war was over . Or did they think Japan would be no more after they were conquered by the Americans ?
Hirohito was deeply involved in the war and its planning; the idea that he was some innocent victim is a lie propagated by McArthyur. To read a concise account of this, read "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy"-David Bergamini, London 1973.
@@genekelly8467 there were those in high levels of the military of World War II, and probably to this day who consider themselves “men of the world” with whom they would have more in common with the German high command, and people like emperor Hirohito, then then they do with their fellow countryman. MacArthur saw himself as an elite and Hirohito as well; search people consider themselves above the purview of laws that apply to those of lesser position.
@@denvan3143 No, he just saw the emperor as a useful tool in pacifying and governing the newly conquered Japanese, and most importantly keeping the Japan out of communist imperial clutches.
As far as I can tell. Kamikazes sank 34 ships including 1 fleet carrier and 1 escort carrier. Damaged 368 ships including 6 fleet carriers and 14 escort carriers. Which comes to 11-12% loss of total carrier strength. Human cost was almost 10,000 casualties. Equally split. These tactics were not going to stop Japans ultimate defeat. Just a lot of deaths for what was a fool’s errand.
The military lists the Hornet as being sunk by a crash dive jap plane. Why that is counted as a kamikaze strike is confusing to me. The Hornet was sunk in the Guadalcanal campaign. Japanese special tactical groups were started during the Philippine campaign. So??? IDK I don’t think any fleet carriers were sunk after Guadalcanal.
@@Scout686, the USS Hornet, CV-8, was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz in 1942, well before kamikazes. It is true that many Japanese pilots crash dived their planes during the war, but they were not on one way suicide missions. The Hornet was hit by 3 bombs, 2 torpedoes, and 2 D3A "Vals" crash dived on the ship. That being said, the ship was NOT sunk by this attack. It was so badly damaged that the USNavy attempted scuttle her, but she stayed afloat. The Japanese later sent 2 destroyers to sink her with Tyoe 93 torpedoes (erroneously called "Long Lance", somethat that neither side called them during the war). As such, the Hornet was not sunk by a kamikaze nor was it sunk by a crash dive.
Perhaps we should see these books as a teaching tool as A warning against goverment social engineering. Which wr still suffer with now but not so extreme.
................Japan .........you're welcome , from the greatest generation , our fathers , grandfathers , and moms and grandmothers and that crew who helped re direct , the ambitions of Japan, one of our best friends and Allies .
Admiral Yamamoto had spent enough time in America prior to WWII (even attending American naval colleges) to get a complete grasp and understanding of the following facts about America from a military standpoint: *America was HUGE VS Japan over 2x larger than Japan with far far more natural resources than Japan and far more men available to become combat infantryman and airmen and work in factories than Japan *America had many many MANY more times the industrial capacity than Japan and Japan could NEVER come with miles of matching let alone surpassing America's ability to manufacture the weapons of war but most importantly of all the most complex and vital weapons like Aircraft and aircraft carriers and other major naval vessels Yamamoto KNEW America had both the resources AND the industrial might to produce a navy larger and more powerful then anyone could possibly ever imagined *Japan had no effective means whatsoever to stop the flow of natural resources imported to America the American factories would need to manufacture the weapons of war *America was protected by a barrier The Japanese simply could not overcome the pacific ocean which rendered the world's largest manufacturing capacity completely immune from enemy bombers *Yamamoto knew it was painfully obvious Japan was an island nation with limited natural resources and no domestic oil supply available and Japan was vulnerable to a fatal degree of being starved into submission by a strong capable navy especially one like America's that could with ease manufacture great numbers submarines and near limitless other types of warships In short Admiral Yamamoto KNEW long before Pearl Harbor America had every major conceivable advantage in any war with Japan and Japan being an Island nation had every conceivable DISadvatage in a war with America I read he attempted to convince his colleagues in the navy and army of this and because of all the advantages America had in any war with Japan advised against going to war with America but because unlike Yamamoto 90% of his fellow Generals and Admirals had never been to America and unfortunately they unlike Yamamoto considered we Americans to be a nation of ethnic "mutts" vastly inferior to the ethnicly pure Japanese which they soon tragically found out the exact opposite to be the fact of we American "mutts" Unfortunately for millions of Japanese (and 100 of 1ks of Americans) Yamamoto's advice was ignored IIRC Admiral Yamamoto said said something along the lines of after we go to war with America "Japan will race across the pacific like a wildfire for a year possibly 18 months but if by then we have not defeated the Americans Japan will loose the war" He was absolutely correct. Smart man that Admiral Yamamoto
I’ve written a story I have not yet published about a stellar war, in another part of our galaxy, that somewhat parallels the Japanese/American conflict. The general in charge of strategy and operations is taking the reports from his subordinates on their early success in the attack on, a neighboring empire that is Mercantile rather than militaristic; they speak enthusiastically about the high kill ratios. They are inflicting on the enemy. The general, who is model loosely on Yamamoto, tries to tell them about his visit to the enemies, home world, of an entire continent, given to manufacturing and of his tour of one of those factories, whose surface area is the size of a small country. He tells them about a factory floor that stretches endlessly like an ocean, of clusters of machinery, the size of cities, and the immense products being manufactured: giant, cargo transport. He had casually asked the tour guide, what it would take to convert from commercial to military production. The other shrugs and says a day or two to bring up the programming, several more days and re-tooling, after which the feed material would be brought in. Entire fleets could be produced in only months. The general tries to communicate this to a subordinates, but they look at him, uncomprehendingly. They cannot reconcile the economic and manufacturing might he’s describin to them. They are too absorbed the victories they have achieved. They see the alien civilization as a bunch of lanky, ineffectual non-entities who lack the attributes of Warriors. But they and their manufacturing capabilities undergo a sudden and horrifying transformation after they are attacked. It does not go well for the aggressors.
Exactly. They talk of pride in their nation, but how about rationality? Sacrifice, when absolutely necessary, is a noble concept. This was not a winnable war, nor a righteous cause. Imma go out on a limb and say that choosing self-preservation, surrender, and reconciliation over insanity is your best bet.
@@rickrudd quantum physics is not constrained by reality, and therefore quantum equations are framed not by reality, but by arbitrary constraints and conditions; therefore, the product Is the result of an arbitrary starting point. The German and Japanese ideologies were not irrational; it’s simply that the constraints on their rationalization were not based on reality but on the notion that they were races superior to all others. Once one has swallowed that camel, the reasoning is simple: the superior race will conquer the inferior races, might makes right, survival of the fittest. It denies the value of the individual in anything other than in terms of how the individual serves the whole. The writers of the declaration of independence stated “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” They stated that kings and queens are no more divinely entitled than the rest of us nor are their subjects, and recognizes the value the Creator has placed on mankind. It is supremely rational; racial superiority is rationality that leads to destruction .
I would have been in awe of these men if they had united, and refused to fly kamikaze missions, which they knew, would not alter the course of the war other than to prolong it, cause the deaths of 10,000 American sailors, and the continuing death toll of Japanese civilians. Never forget: the Japanese imperial Army murdered between 13 million and 19 million innocent civilians in the surrounding Asian countries. Ask the people of China, Vietnam, Korea, and the Philippines, if they are in awe of what Japan did in World War 2.
Opposing the kamikaze was reasonable. It did not alter the outcome of the war. All attacks by the Japanese after Guadalcanal were futile, only increasing the body count on both sides. The bushido notion of death before surrender did not serve the cause of the rational end of the war.
I just wandered that why the two authors, Rikihei Inoguchi and Tadashi Nakajima, did not commit suicide mission themselves if the operation was such a glorifying deed as they described? The only thing I could guess was that both of them were cowards.
@@PxThucydidesclear examples of other higher ranking members in his own story taking someone else's spot and going at the end. He is just a coward justifying sending hundreds to their death as if it was honorable.
Even the medieval samurai were not this blindly dedicated to Bushido. Im detecting several attempts at excuses. Japan had already lost the war but absolutely refused to surrender. Due to the high commands "honor ".
Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. It is better to be humble in spirit with the lowly Than to divide the spoil with the proud (haughty, arrogant). Proverbs 16:18 & 19 The imperial Japanese military pursued the ideology of their racial and spiritual superiority to all others, and were enraged at resistance to that ideology. The outward display of humility by the kamikaze pilots was in service to the ideology of racial superiority, and in punishing all who were arrogant enough to resist it. The lives of these men were lost for no good reason; Japan is the lesser because of that.
Japanese civilians were victims of the Army and Navy’s ideology. The military caused the war and continued it, their conduct insured horrendous retaliation. So if they were angry at the military it was quite understandable. The fact that many pilots may have justified their deaths does not make it a good tactic. The Japanese military was deluded in to thinking that defeat was unimaginable. They also believed their inflated “war results”to the very end thus expending lives unnecessarily. Kamikaze tactics didn’t even extend the war much less bring victory for Japan, more people died was the result.
Suicide in any manner is sad. When a human being dies by their own choice because of a belief that death is preferable to life, it is a mental disorder. Combat has enough danger, entering combat knowing you will die is not honorable. Saving your troops while defeating the enemy should be the goal of every person in the chain of command. Japan lost due to poor leadership. The warriors were outstanding, their leaders were substandard. I’m just happy that our two nations are allies and depend upon each other. That was the good out of the war.
Perhaps this is understandable and even valuable, but there seems to be a lot of effort at self-justification in this telling of the kamikaze story. I understand the harsh objective justification for suicide attacks as being the best means of maximizing damage inflicted by what was left of Japan's aircraft strength, and I see the parallels with other Japanese tactics (e.g. fighting to the death no matter how hopeless) that were also virtually suicidal. Nonetheless, it is hard to justify the decisions made by Japan's leaders to callously waste so many Japanese (and American) lives by continuing a war that was irretrievably lost more than a year before it was finally ended.
This memoir was written 13 years after the end of WW2. That gave the authors time to gain some perspective, but that is not reflected in this work. Instead we have two apologists trying to present the kamikaze program as something admirable regardless of what actually happened, much of which seems to have been omitted or glossed over.
I find it ironic, that the Kamikaze pilots gave their lives to prevent the "death" of Japan but, when it came, the surrender of Japan wasn't the end, but a rebirth into a far better Japan built with the help from their former enemy, than the one that was run by ultra nationalists and militarists. they really did die for nothing, very sad.
They should have used kamakazi early when we had 3 or less carriers. Then as each new carrier came online they could have had defeat in detail. When they realized they HAD to use them is when they should have surrendered.
Not really practical. The USA was outbuilding Japan by 10 to one in warships and 50 to one in aircraft. There was no way Japan was going to win a war of attrition with the US.
Yes they're fanatics, but Japanese are, on balance, probably the smartest, most disciplined group on Earth. They're not complete imbeciles. It's impossible to maintain the facade that your war is winnable when your go-to strategy is suicide.
The kamikaze phenomena is a pure expression of the self-serving disregard the rulers of Japan had for the ones they ruled. It had been the case for centuries and would still be if we had not impose democracy on the imperial system. Nothing noble about kamikaze, only mythical BS.
Absolute insanity to continue fighting no matter how they try to spin it as being noble death, reality wasting entire generation of young men for nothing, Japanese may have well been fighting the Borg at this time
Even worse, the desperate efforts to inflict casualties on Americans caused the American military in turn to use ever more extreme measures to defeat Japan. the United States was hugely sensitive to attacks by submarines on merchant shipping in WWI. After Pearl Harbor those concerns were immediately deep sixed in favor of unrestricted submarine warfare. The concern for civilian casualties in Europe led to the concept of "daylight precision bombing" to spare civilians. In Japan, that became indiscriminate firebombing of cities. The aim of American submarines became the starvation of Japan. Very high casualties on Okinawa led to a decision to atomic bomb Japanese cities. The Japanese were greatly building up military defenses on Kyushu, anticipating American invasion. That suggests to me that this might have induced the use of the large amounts of poison gas on Japanese military target prior to invasion, in order to reduce American military casualties. That's just speculation on my part ----- by why NOT?
Not to them. They didn't want to win at this point... they wanted to inflict horrific casualties and send the message that Japan would fight to the last man, woman and child. They wanted to make the prospect of invasion completely unpalatable to a war weary American civilian population. This was, by and large, successful. However, it didn't have the expected outcome; the Americans decided that the potential losses from a homeland invasion were just too high and the decision to drop atomic bombs to force the imperial high command to surrender unconditionally was made. Be careful what you wish for.
@@lexwaldez Even without the atomic bombs, they had the home islands under siege by water and air. 1945 was a bad rice harvest for them. They were running out of resources and could not win. I don't think the invasion would have taken place but the siege would have killed many Japanese.
The Japanese made a hard observation: Their pilots (who were put on the front line until they died anyway) lacked the skills to aim their ordnance and were shot down by the US anyway. So the idea was born for the Japanese pilots to steer their plane and its ordnance into the enemy ships so that their death would not have been in vain. And lets be honest, one man's live for the lives of a 1000 enemy sailors is better that one man's live for no effect on the enemy at all.
@@AdiscretefirmThe Japanese MO from the first Sino-Japanese War on had always been: 1) Start a war. 2) Win. 3) Profit. 4) If winning turns out to be difficult, cause enemy so many casualties, the enemy will sue for peace. Surrender is not an option.
If you take a subway in Tokyo now... you will notice that not one person will speak. They will read the papers and look at phones. And if you speak to someone you get some hard looks. Don't forget to check in to the local police department if you move. It's a strange society even now. Nothing is like it. China is nothing like it. No Asian country is. It's Japan. It certainly is an interesting country with an interesting history. Yesterday's enemy is today's friend.
That old chestnut?! Only is a place where the gov't owns the presses, broadcasters, and news media; is the sole publisher; hires the academics, and determines what and how all these people will write and say about history.
@@gagamba9198 that is the goal of an ideological group in the United States at the present time. That group, like the Japanese government, feel it what they were doing is “for the greater good” while suppressing all dissenting voices.
The fact that the Japanese can go to such lengths to justify something as abhorrent as kamikaze goes hand in hand with their total denial of the totally inhumane actions of their soldiers and sailors towards the civilians that they captured. To this day no Japanese official has ever admitted to, let alone apologized for, their war crimes during World War Two. Their history books do not mention things like the rape of Nanking, the Battan death March, the Korean comfort girls, or Unit 731. They do not admit to the 4 million Indonesians who were forced into slave labor camps where almost one million died or the wholesale murder of prisoners during the building of the Burma railroad. The Japanese code of Bushido is nothing more than screen to hide the hideous inhumanity of these people.
22:57 "At the time, everyone concerned was guided more by instinct rather than by reason..." An easy 'out' to such an assessment of one's actions. After all, isn't reason the characteristic separating humans from all other animals? The ability to evaluate the propriety of a course of action among several? I don't buy it. Clearly they chose the method. Also curious how those not 'in the club' of professional IJN officers were among the first to be selected and the 'pros' were left to supervise.
Another V for Vengence Wonder Weapon. The Germans kept wasting money and effort on projects to drop a few tons of explosive on New York or London while Zhukov was sending millions of men and thousands of tanks into the Reich. All of the jets and rockets were countered within weeks or months by Allied weaponry. The Axis had no monopoly on technology.
The worship of Onishi in these videos is totally disgusting. It was clear that the kamikaze attacks were going to fail. Onishi deliberately sent thousands of pilots to an unnecessary death. The narrator whined quite a lot about the civilian population decrying the kamikaze after the war was over. Was the kamikaze hurtful to the US navy? Yes it was. Did it come close to stopping the US navy? No it didn't. Onishi personified evil. "These tactics were a product of defeat." Onishi's ego ruled.
I began to feel there is at the bottom of the Japanese psyche, a forlorn state of existence, and a sense of horror. It appears the Japanese military tried to transfer that forlorn feeling, that horror to its enemy by a policy of brutality to both the military and civilians. The unfounded Hope of the kamikaze attacks Was two instilled that horror, and so delay, or deflect their own defeat. It didn’t work out that way. They caused more pain, destruction, and death by the kamikaze attacks then they would otherwise, but it did not, and the war in their favor or in terms they preferred. It ended up just being for the sake of killing.
@@bloodybones63speech-to-text rendered the word “forelorn” as “for Lauren”. Thank you for reading my comment, but you have nothing further to observe concerning this issue? I observe among collectivist like the Japanese as well as collective us in the United States a sense of self loathing behind a mask of professed superiority but is valued only in terms of the individual being subservient to the whole. I don’t see this in the ideology of individualism, where each person assesses his or her own value, and determines their contribution to others. The former leads to extremism, the latter, to moderation and care for others.
@@bloodybones63 the fact that I use speech-to-text might have provided you the clue that typing is difficult for me, thus, proofreading is equally difficult. The fact that you find the subject irrelevant makes your comments irrelevant.
@@bloodybones63 The software I’m using does indeed, have spellcheck; that is not the problem. Spellcheck will often auto correct words that are spelled correctly into something other, for instance, just now, I typed “Ohka” In the search field in UA-cam, and it auto corrected it to “hola”. While I explained the misspelling that confused you, you have as yet anything cogent to offer concerning the topic at hand. You strike me as in curious, unimaginative individual, unable to see beyond your own circumstances. Perhaps you were the type who kicks the crutches from under people or shoves a smoke into the wheels of someone in a wheelchair; as long as it’s not a problem for you it’s not a problem. Have a good day, or as much of a good day as someone with your evident disposition is capable of. As you are a narcissist, you are doubtless aware of the two-step process, people engage, and when dealing with you: (1) identifying you as such (2) ignoring you.
@@bloodybones63 24 hours later my reply to you was deleted. Were you so cowardly as to demand that? You abuse a person with a disability, and when they complain, you get their comment deleted; quite a little trick. And a dirty one.
How about living to fight another day? Even if it meant a surrender to end the war. What of the contribution these men could have made to post-war efforts. While historians portray America as rude and overtly racist, many Americans had a great deal respect for Japanese culture. Japanese leadership would have had to recognize the kindness and decency of many Americans. MacArthur was one in particular, focused on helping the Japanese rebuild. Corrupt and selfish are the only terms to accurately describe the organizers of the kamikaze attacks.
So many of these letters sound like something Joseph Goebbels would have had ghost written for the sake of public moral. I am also struck how in the recent movie Godzilla Minus One the hero, OK the hero who isn't Godzilla, was a Kamikaze pilot who did not want to die so "found" engine trouble. Have the feeling that attitude was more common than the authors of the read text would allow in their mind.
It’s difficult to see these narratives in a good light when the courage, intelligence and ingenuity displayed, are used to cause destruction and death fo citizens of our country; we didn’t start this war.
This author doesn't seem to admit the war was not against Japan, it was against the memes (that had the minds of the Japanese in their grasp) he so ardently defends. He didn't realize the necessity of vomiting up and denying those conceptual poisons.
Japanese should have studied the other warmongers, Nazi, as well their own history. As Gandhi showed, EVIL , AGGRESSION; never triumphs in the end. Good always wins, eventually!!
I said, in a comment that killing oneself to make a statement is an ineffectual effort; my combat was deleted. That is someone’s prerogative, but is the objection to my opinion because it is contrary, or because that opinion represents the truth?
love most of these. but thus far. this one has been a 27 min justification for kamikaze. I dont care what he says what his general says. what they were brain washed to believe. Killing you self to kill more enemy before you lose is stupid. war is stupid. killing is awful.
All human beings are similarly brilliant, in that they absorb their cultural influences, and live or die accordingly. Peoples less assiduous, take notice. 😎
I absorb the values of my culture as I choose and not according to the dictate of others. It is moral laziness to do otherwise. To hazard one’s own life in aid of the helpless is an act of faith that it is a life worth saving. To expend one’s life to make a point is to make one’s life nothing more than the punctuation at the end of a sentence. I feel it is an act of arrogance toward the Creator who gave life to that individual. Am I a god, that I should withhold help from someone in peril? Am I a god, to end my own life as some sort of statement? My answer to both is No.
@@gagamba9198 I think the term mediocre is self aggrandizement by those who consider themselves to be brilliant. The word normal is more accurate than to say mediocre, as those were brilliant are by not normal, and their excellent qualities are often in contrast to their devastating flaws. Normalcy can be an obstacle to those who are brilliant, but they also induce the degree of balance. The brilliant may otherwise lack. It took me half a lifetime to understand what people mean when they say artists have “vision”. It means artists, in their imagination, see things others don’t. I can see a figure within a block of wood from every angle and carve down to that figure. I can see 1000 components and see how I can assemble those into as a single entity. it never occurred to me. They were people who couldn’t do this. It is the purpose of brilliant people to bring into the realm of the visible things that others can’t see, for their appreciation, enjoyment and use. Understanding that is recognition of one’s place in the world, not of superiority, but it ring wonder and beauty into the lives of others. Normal people are not mediocre if we do our jobs, right. Our lives are not chaotic if they do their jobs right.
A very long justification of the Kamikaze. I understand the reasoning of other tactics being almost hopeless and useless. However, the author spends so much time justifying it that I wonder if he is trying to justify it to himself.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Part 7 (Last Part) of memoirs of Two former officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy, who tell their version of the history of the kamikaze attacks. One of them served as senior staff officer to Vice Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, who initiated Japan's kamikaze attacks against American ships in the Philippines. Second Officer was flight operations officer for the 201st Air Group, which organized the first kamikaze special attack corps. Their memoirs cover the kamikaze operations from October 19, 1944, the date of the formation of the first kamikaze special attack corps, to the end of the war.
Here is the link of the playlist
ua-cam.com/play/PLGjbe3ikd0XFm1LjNNMlJPKSOtLwLatx3.html
Link of Part 1 ua-cam.com/video/HLLlLZ2fSoI/v-deo.html
Link of Part 2 ua-cam.com/video/Q5dmCSpJVRA/v-deo.html
Link of Part 3 ua-cam.com/video/EKb2u_qdfFA/v-deo.html
Link of Part 4 ua-cam.com/video/LKvGUqeXO8Q/v-deo.html
Link of Part 5 ua-cam.com/video/q-7_babQE9M/v-deo.html
Link of Part 6 ua-cam.com/video/CaWMklgyQ2k/v-deo.html
Having served 13 years on Okinawa, I came away with an abiding admiration of the Japanese save one observation. They have an unhealthy amount of trust and respect for authority.
These uploads have been a great insight to the mentality of the Japanese sailor and soldier and esp. the kamikaze ........
very true !
I don't know why, but the tone and accent of this narrator makes it very easy to imagine that these are the thoughts and actions of Japanese combatants of WW2. Very fine presentations.
It's an AI voice, not real human...
As the author of this book is speaking from a rigorously inculcated, sociopolitical doctrine, the robot voice used for this narration does indeed suit the material.
"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." Gen. George S. Patton.
The imperial Japanese military philosophy was that it was of equal value to die gloriously in battle as to actually win the battle. The Japanese had the will to fight, the allies had the will to win.
patton was a psychopath
@@frankguz55 No he wasn't in the least. Your passing judgement is a knee jerk reaction out of ignorance.
@Sirharryflash82 Go study History.
Patton became such an embarrassment for the US government after the war that he was relieved of all commands (in particular due to his opposition to de-nazification and his antisemitism while he was governor of occupied Germany).
Also have a look at the theories (by serious historians) about his death.
Once you have studied post-war history of Patton, come back and we can talk.
@@frankguz55 I majored in History, I've read all the books and NOWHERE is there any evidence of him being a psychopath. My guess is that you don't even know the definition and you just thought the word sounded good. Now go write some more meaningless paragraphs that no one will read.
Apparently, the Nazi's were working on their own rocket-powered suicide plane but this was abandoned because Hitler believed that a pilot should at least have a chance of survival. Dude, when *_Hitler_* thinks your methods are a bit extreme, you really need to reevaluate your life choices...
So , so true!!!😁
Hitler two Goebbels: These Japanese are crazy! Where is my methamphetamine/vegan cocktail?
And yet he (Hitler), ordered so many not to retreat and to fight to the last man and bullet.
The letters moved me greatly. These young men are articulate, thoughtful and intelligent. They are the type of men who would make outstanding citizens in any nation or time.
And had these young, intelligent and articulate young men stood in unity against the senselessness of suicide attacks, the war would have ended just as it did but with 10,000 fewer dead.
It is not an easy proposition to consider that your initial position may have been wrong, that those who have informed you may have been mistaken, or are misleading you and most of all the pressure of what others will think of you, say about you, and do about you. But facing those issues requires a moral exercise that is beyond the ability of some.
I have endured such circumstances in standing for what I knew to be right, knowing that it would, and in fact, did cost me friends. I’ve also been facdwith the situation of facing possible death in order to help someone who is defenseless. I did not die though It required judgment and reflexes to avoid it, but I faced the circumstances with equanimity; I have faced death on numerous occasions and met the prospect calmly. Not that my courage exceeds that of others, but that I do not have the typical fear response most people have; I faced the possibility of sudden, violent death or serious body injury more time before the age of sixth and most people do in a lifetime. it gives one a different outlook which to view the prospect objectively rather than emotionally. It is courage, because courage is confronting your fears; if you’re not afraid, you’re not brave, only calculating the risks .
In any event, I do not see the men who made this decision as having a higher moral position than others .
I laughed their naivety. they were thoroughly propagandized and too stupid do do anything other than buy in to a bogus, murderous philosophy and completely different from the Allied veterans who made outstanding citizens post-war. FYI, most of those pilots missed, were shot down, or returned to base.
On the one hand, the kamikazes were the only weapon the Japanese had left that could do any real harm against the US Navy. On the other, the Japanese command knew that it was a useless waste of life against an Allied juggernaut that was now free, due to the German surrender, to concentrate its entire strength against a collapsed Japanese military.
And its entire strength hadn't been concentrated but was in process.
I would argue the Jap military's extreme defences saved millions of lives because Japan avoided invasion by forcing the US to hurry the invention of the atom bomb.
It didn't require the defeat of Germany. Guadalcanal sapped the number of trained Japanese pilots. They were doomed at that point, with the airfields generated by the island hopping strategy dooming them.
Japan was doomed the minute they ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor. Thier hope was to completely neutralizes the entire USN Pacific Fleet. Then doing as much damage as possible in the hope that the US would sue for peace. I have no doubt that they looked into American history and learned that attacking a US ship would likely result in a declaration of war. So they needed to take care of the entire fleet. They miscalculated America's resolve, to say the least, and failed to get any of our carriers. Oddly enough they were supplying midway with planes. They were hoping to force American capitulation in 6 months time. Instead the US completely turned the tables on them with those carriers within those 6 months. They were on the backfoot from then on. Don't touch our boats! This is the story of the one time the US was attacked for it's oil...
It was a symptom of failure and a fanatic attempt to deny reality. The junta would never accept their defeat and would use human sacrifice to demonstrate their contempt for everyone except themselves. Like the Germans who didn’t have enough petrol to burn Hitler and Goebbels, these kids were thrown into a meat grinder to gratify a perverse government.
One must remember that this book contains sections by two different authors, Rikihei Inoguchi and Tadashi Nakajima. It gets confusing at times. The name of the book is The Divine Wind.
I hope the authors are being rewarded for the use of their words.
They're dead and their works are not protected by copyright anymore.
also read a book called the Sun Goes Down
In the letters from the Kamikaze pilots, they all seem to believe that if they do a good job while sacrificing their lives that Japan would be victorious, when in reality their war had long been lost. When the kamikaze were first conceived and employed, there was a slight chance that more efficient use of the planes and pilots might alter the situation in Japan's favor. When that proved a fantasy, the military and political leaders kept the populace and the soldiers, sailors, and airmen in the dark about the true situation. The leaders had decided on a fight to the death for themselves and wanted every person in Japan to die with them. When Admiral Onishi had fewer than 200 planes and there were 1200 US ships in Leyte Gulf he just needs to do the math.
This memoir has been excellent
This is so heart breaking to hear those last letters home ! From what I have heard and read. They , the first 60 pilots selected for these kamikaze missions . Thought they would be able to change the out come of the war . But when it was realized it was not , and it would make no difference to the outcome of the war . Why or why, did they throw away their lives , of their pilots ? They could have helped to reconstruct Japan after the war was over . Or did they think Japan would be no more after they were conquered by the Americans ?
Thank you for these.
All of this death and mayhem, then the emperor becomes a marine biologist overnight. 😂
G VF7..............that Emperor thing didn't work out ............Mac Arthur helped him with that career option .
Hirohito was deeply involved in the war and its planning; the idea that he was some innocent victim is a lie propagated by McArthyur. To read a concise account of this, read "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy"-David Bergamini, London 1973.
Idiot , this is what he wanted to do all his life. But had to do his duty for his country !
@@genekelly8467 there were those in high levels of the military of World War II, and probably to this day who consider themselves “men of the world” with whom they would have more in common with the German high command, and people like emperor Hirohito, then then they do with their fellow countryman.
MacArthur saw himself as an elite and Hirohito as well; search people consider themselves above the purview of laws that apply to those of lesser position.
@@denvan3143 No, he just saw the emperor as a useful tool in pacifying and governing the newly conquered Japanese, and most importantly keeping the Japan out of communist imperial clutches.
As far as I can tell.
Kamikazes sank 34 ships including 1 fleet carrier and 1 escort carrier. Damaged 368 ships including 6 fleet carriers and 14 escort carriers. Which comes to 11-12% loss of total carrier strength. Human cost was almost 10,000 casualties. Equally split. These tactics were not going to stop Japans ultimate defeat.
Just a lot of deaths for what was a fool’s errand.
No fleet carriers were ever sunk by kamikazes.
The military lists the Hornet as being sunk by a crash dive jap plane. Why that is counted as a kamikaze strike is confusing to me. The Hornet was sunk in the Guadalcanal campaign. Japanese special tactical groups were started during the Philippine campaign.
So??? IDK
I don’t think any fleet carriers were sunk after Guadalcanal.
@@Scout686, the USS Hornet, CV-8, was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz in 1942, well before kamikazes. It is true that many Japanese pilots crash dived their planes during the war, but they were not on one way suicide missions. The Hornet was hit by 3 bombs, 2 torpedoes, and 2 D3A "Vals" crash dived on the ship. That being said, the ship was NOT sunk by this attack. It was so badly damaged that the USNavy attempted scuttle her, but she stayed afloat. The Japanese later sent 2 destroyers to sink her with Tyoe 93 torpedoes (erroneously called "Long Lance", somethat that neither side called them during the war). As such, the Hornet was not sunk by a kamikaze nor was it sunk by a crash dive.
Perhaps we should see these books as a teaching tool as
A warning against goverment social engineering. Which wr still suffer with now but not so extreme.
................Japan .........you're welcome , from the greatest generation , our fathers , grandfathers , and moms and grandmothers and that crew who helped re direct , the ambitions of Japan, one of our best friends and Allies .
Giving them hope that they could win the war with their deaths was the crime.
Kamikaze service was not entirely voluntary. Many were coerced. At 22:10- "forced to volunteer".
Social pressure and idncotrtination are easy ways to force the stupid
Admiral Yamamoto had spent enough time in America prior to WWII (even attending American naval colleges) to get a complete grasp and understanding of the following facts about America from a military standpoint:
*America was HUGE VS Japan over 2x larger than Japan with far far more natural resources than Japan and far more men available to become combat infantryman and airmen and work in factories than Japan
*America had many many MANY more times the industrial capacity than Japan and Japan could NEVER come with miles of matching let alone surpassing America's ability to manufacture the weapons of war but most importantly of all the most complex and vital weapons like Aircraft and aircraft carriers and other major naval vessels
Yamamoto KNEW America had both the resources AND the industrial might to produce a navy larger and more powerful then anyone could possibly ever imagined
*Japan had no effective means whatsoever to stop the flow of natural resources imported to America the American factories would need to manufacture the weapons of war
*America was protected by a barrier The Japanese simply could not overcome the pacific ocean which rendered the world's largest manufacturing capacity completely immune from enemy bombers
*Yamamoto knew it was painfully obvious Japan was an island nation with limited natural resources and no domestic oil supply available and Japan was vulnerable to a fatal degree of being starved into submission by a strong capable navy especially one like America's that could with ease manufacture great numbers submarines and near limitless other types of warships
In short Admiral Yamamoto KNEW long before Pearl Harbor America had every major conceivable advantage in any war with Japan and Japan being an Island nation had every conceivable DISadvatage in a war with America
I read he attempted to convince his colleagues in the navy and army of this and because of all the advantages America had in any war with Japan advised against going to war with America but because unlike Yamamoto 90% of his fellow Generals and Admirals had never been to America and unfortunately they unlike Yamamoto considered we Americans to be a nation of ethnic "mutts" vastly inferior to the ethnicly pure Japanese which they soon tragically found out the exact opposite to be the fact of we American "mutts"
Unfortunately for millions of Japanese (and 100 of 1ks of Americans) Yamamoto's advice was ignored
IIRC Admiral Yamamoto said said something along the lines of after we go to war with America "Japan will race across the pacific like a wildfire for a year possibly 18 months but if by then we have not defeated the Americans Japan will loose the war"
He was absolutely correct.
Smart man that Admiral Yamamoto
I’ve written a story I have not yet published about a stellar war, in another part of our galaxy, that somewhat parallels the Japanese/American conflict. The general in charge of strategy and operations is taking the reports from his subordinates on their early success in the attack on, a neighboring empire that is Mercantile rather than militaristic; they speak enthusiastically about the high kill ratios. They are inflicting on the enemy.
The general, who is model loosely on Yamamoto, tries to tell them about his visit to the enemies, home world, of an entire continent, given to manufacturing and of his tour of one of those factories, whose surface area is the size of a small country.
He tells them about a factory floor that stretches endlessly like an ocean, of clusters of machinery, the size of cities, and the immense products being manufactured: giant, cargo transport.
He had casually asked the tour guide, what it would take to convert from commercial to military production. The other shrugs and says a day or two to bring up the programming, several more days and re-tooling, after which the feed material would be brought in. Entire fleets could be produced in only months.
The general tries to communicate this to a subordinates, but they look at him, uncomprehendingly. They cannot reconcile the economic and manufacturing might he’s describin to them. They are too absorbed the victories they have achieved. They see the alien civilization as a bunch of lanky, ineffectual non-entities who lack the attributes of Warriors. But they and their manufacturing capabilities undergo a sudden and horrifying transformation after they are attacked.
It does not go well for the aggressors.
part of being an enlightened good human being is thinking for yourself and not blindly following orders
Exactly.
They talk of pride in their nation, but how about rationality? Sacrifice, when absolutely necessary, is a noble concept. This was not a winnable war, nor a righteous cause.
Imma go out on a limb and say that choosing self-preservation, surrender, and reconciliation over insanity is your best bet.
@@rickrudd quantum physics is not constrained by reality, and therefore quantum equations are framed not by reality, but by arbitrary constraints and conditions; therefore, the product Is the result of an arbitrary starting point.
The German and Japanese ideologies were not irrational; it’s simply that the constraints on their rationalization were not based on reality but on the notion that they were races superior to all others.
Once one has swallowed that camel, the reasoning is simple: the superior race will conquer the inferior races, might makes right, survival of the fittest. It denies the value of the individual in anything other than in terms of how the individual serves the whole.
The writers of the declaration of independence stated “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” They stated that kings and queens are no more divinely entitled than the rest of us nor are their subjects, and recognizes the value the Creator has placed on mankind.
It is supremely rational; racial superiority is rationality that leads to destruction .
The letters were heart wrenching. I am in awe of the men.
I would have been in awe of these men if they had united, and refused to fly kamikaze missions, which they knew, would not alter the course of the war other than to prolong it, cause the deaths of 10,000 American sailors, and the continuing death toll of Japanese civilians.
Never forget: the Japanese imperial Army murdered between 13 million and 19 million innocent civilians in the surrounding Asian countries. Ask the people of China, Vietnam, Korea, and the Philippines, if they are in awe of what Japan did in World War 2.
Opposing the kamikaze was reasonable. It did not alter the outcome of the war. All attacks by the Japanese after Guadalcanal were futile, only increasing the body count on both sides. The bushido notion of death before surrender did not serve the cause of the rational end of the war.
I just wandered that why the two authors, Rikihei Inoguchi and Tadashi Nakajima, did not commit suicide mission themselves if the operation was such a glorifying deed as they described? The only thing I could guess was that both of them were cowards.
They had the task of founding and running the kamikaze pilots' old comrades assocation.
@feliksj.kwiatkowski2935 Reminds me of Monty Python:
"I took a vow of celibacy, like my father, and his father before him."
@@PxThucydidesclear examples of other higher ranking members in his own story taking someone else's spot and going at the end. He is just a coward justifying sending hundreds to their death as if it was honorable.
Your life is your own to live or die. Now being told to forfeit your life is another matter.
Even the medieval samurai were not this blindly dedicated to Bushido. Im detecting several attempts at excuses. Japan had already lost the war but absolutely refused to surrender. Due to the high commands "honor ".
Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
It is better to be humble in spirit with the lowly Than to divide the spoil with the proud (haughty, arrogant).
Proverbs 16:18 & 19
The imperial Japanese military pursued the ideology of their racial and spiritual superiority to all others, and were enraged at resistance to that ideology. The outward display of humility by the kamikaze pilots was in service to the ideology of racial superiority, and in punishing all who were arrogant enough to resist it.
The lives of these men were lost for no good reason; Japan is the lesser because of that.
Japanese civilians were victims of the Army and Navy’s ideology. The military caused the war and continued it, their conduct insured horrendous retaliation. So if they were angry at the military it was quite understandable. The fact that many pilots may have justified their deaths does not make it a good tactic. The Japanese military was deluded in to thinking that defeat was unimaginable. They also believed their inflated “war results”to the very end thus expending lives unnecessarily. Kamikaze tactics didn’t even extend the war much less bring victory for Japan, more people died was the result.
Suicide in any manner is sad. When a human being dies by their own choice because of a belief that death is preferable to life, it is a mental disorder. Combat has enough danger, entering combat knowing you will die is not honorable. Saving your troops while defeating the enemy should be the goal of every person in the chain of command. Japan lost due to poor leadership. The warriors were outstanding, their leaders were substandard. I’m just happy that our two nations are allies and depend upon each other. That was the good out of the war.
It's not easy to get into the minds of these Kamikaze pilots. When young men were literally begging to be
allowed to fly these one way missions.
Perhaps this is understandable and even valuable, but there seems to be a lot of effort at self-justification in this telling of the kamikaze story. I understand the harsh objective justification for suicide attacks as being the best means of maximizing damage inflicted by what was left of Japan's aircraft strength, and I see the parallels with other Japanese tactics (e.g. fighting to the death no matter how hopeless) that were also virtually suicidal. Nonetheless, it is hard to justify the decisions made by Japan's leaders to callously waste so many Japanese (and American) lives by continuing a war that was irretrievably lost more than a year before it was finally ended.
This memoir was written 13 years after the end of WW2. That gave the authors time to gain some perspective, but that is not reflected in this work. Instead we have two apologists trying to present the kamikaze program as something admirable regardless of what actually happened, much of which seems to have been omitted or glossed over.
I find it ironic, that the Kamikaze pilots gave their lives to prevent the "death" of Japan but, when it came, the surrender of Japan wasn't the end, but a rebirth into a far better Japan built with the help from their former enemy, than the one that was run by ultra nationalists and militarists. they really did die for nothing, very sad.
They should have used kamakazi early when we had 3 or less carriers. Then as each new carrier came online they could have had defeat in detail. When they realized they HAD to use them is when they should have surrendered.
Not really practical. The USA was outbuilding Japan by 10 to one in warships and 50 to one in aircraft. There was no way Japan was going to win a war of attrition with the US.
Yes they're fanatics, but Japanese are, on balance, probably the smartest, most disciplined group on Earth. They're not complete imbeciles.
It's impossible to maintain the facade that your war is winnable when your go-to strategy is suicide.
The kamikaze phenomena is a pure expression of the self-serving disregard the rulers of Japan had for the ones they ruled. It had been the case for centuries and would still be if we had not impose democracy on the imperial system. Nothing noble about kamikaze, only mythical BS.
Absolute insanity to continue fighting no matter how they try to spin it as being noble death, reality wasting entire generation of young men for nothing, Japanese may have well been fighting the Borg at this time
Even worse, the desperate efforts to inflict casualties on Americans caused the American military in turn to use ever more extreme measures to defeat Japan.
the United States was hugely sensitive to attacks by submarines on merchant shipping in WWI. After Pearl Harbor those concerns were immediately deep sixed in favor of unrestricted submarine warfare.
The concern for civilian casualties in Europe led to the concept of "daylight precision bombing" to spare civilians.
In Japan, that became indiscriminate firebombing of cities.
The aim of American submarines became the starvation of Japan.
Very high casualties on Okinawa led to a decision to atomic bomb Japanese cities.
The Japanese were greatly building up military defenses on Kyushu, anticipating American invasion. That suggests to me that this might have induced the use of the large amounts of poison gas on Japanese military target prior to invasion, in order to reduce American military casualties.
That's just speculation on my part ----- by why NOT?
Not to them. They didn't want to win at this point... they wanted to inflict horrific casualties and send the message that Japan would fight to the last man, woman and child. They wanted to make the prospect of invasion completely unpalatable to a war weary American civilian population. This was, by and large, successful. However, it didn't have the expected outcome; the Americans decided that the potential losses from a homeland invasion were just too high and the decision to drop atomic bombs to force the imperial high command to surrender unconditionally was made. Be careful what you wish for.
@@lexwaldez Even without the atomic bombs, they had the home islands under siege by water and air. 1945 was a bad rice harvest for them. They were running out of resources and could not win. I don't think the invasion would have taken place but the siege would have killed many Japanese.
The Japanese made a hard observation: Their pilots (who were put on the front line until they died anyway) lacked the skills to aim their ordnance and were shot down by the US anyway. So the idea was born for the Japanese pilots to steer their plane and its ordnance into the enemy ships so that their death would not have been in vain. And lets be honest, one man's live for the lives of a 1000 enemy sailors is better that one man's live for no effect on the enemy at all.
"we can't win" so surrender?
@@AdiscretefirmThe Japanese MO from the first Sino-Japanese War on had always been:
1) Start a war.
2) Win.
3) Profit.
4) If winning turns out to be difficult, cause enemy so many casualties, the enemy will sue for peace. Surrender is not an option.
If you take a subway in Tokyo now... you will notice that not one person will speak. They will read the papers and look at phones. And if you speak to someone you get some hard looks. Don't forget to check in to the local police department if you move. It's a strange society even now. Nothing is like it. China is nothing like it. No Asian country is. It's Japan. It certainly is an interesting country with an interesting history. Yesterday's enemy is today's friend.
History is Written by the Victors
And...the guy who these memoirs belonged to wasn't one of them.
Ignorant comments on you tube are written by fools!
That old chestnut?! Only is a place where the gov't owns the presses, broadcasters, and news media; is the sole publisher; hires the academics, and determines what and how all these people will write and say about history.
History is written by the victors, the loser scrawl in the margins.
@@gagamba9198 that is the goal of an ideological group in the United States at the present time. That group, like the Japanese government, feel it what they were doing is “for the greater good” while suppressing all dissenting voices.
The fact that the Japanese can go to such lengths to justify something as abhorrent as kamikaze goes hand in hand with their total denial of the totally inhumane actions of their soldiers and sailors towards the civilians that they captured. To this day no Japanese official has ever admitted to, let alone apologized for, their war crimes during World War Two. Their history books do not mention things like the rape of Nanking, the Battan death March, the Korean comfort girls, or Unit 731. They do not admit to the 4 million Indonesians who were forced into slave labor camps where almost one million died or the wholesale murder of prisoners during the building of the Burma railroad. The Japanese code of Bushido is nothing more than screen to hide the hideous inhumanity of these people.
22:57 "At the time, everyone concerned was guided more by instinct rather than by reason..." An easy 'out' to such an assessment of one's actions. After all, isn't reason the characteristic separating humans from all other animals? The ability to evaluate the propriety of a course of action among several? I don't buy it. Clearly they chose the method. Also curious how those not 'in the club' of professional IJN officers were among the first to be selected and the 'pros' were left to supervise.
The Japanese war in the Pacific is exemplary of the sunk cost fallacy.
Adm. Onishi was nothing if not egotistically obstinate. Intelligent people tend to be open to reason, which he generally was not.
The Ohka was kind of trash, 850+ built, only 3 ships sunk and 4 damaged
Another V for Vengence Wonder Weapon. The Germans kept wasting money and effort on projects to drop a few tons of explosive on New York or London while Zhukov was sending millions of men and thousands of tanks into the Reich. All of the jets and rockets were countered within weeks or months by Allied weaponry. The Axis had no monopoly on technology.
The worship of Onishi in these videos is totally disgusting. It was clear that the kamikaze attacks were going to fail. Onishi deliberately sent thousands of pilots to an unnecessary death. The narrator whined quite a lot about the civilian population decrying the kamikaze after the war was over. Was the kamikaze hurtful to the US navy? Yes it was. Did it come close to stopping the US navy? No it didn't. Onishi personified evil. "These tactics were a product of defeat." Onishi's ego ruled.
I share your thoughts.
Thanks.
I began to feel there is at the bottom of the Japanese psyche, a forlorn state of existence, and a sense of horror. It appears the Japanese military tried to transfer that forlorn feeling, that horror to its enemy by a policy of brutality to both the military and civilians. The unfounded Hope of the kamikaze attacks Was two instilled that horror, and so delay, or deflect their own defeat.
It didn’t work out that way. They caused more pain, destruction, and death by the kamikaze attacks then they would otherwise, but it did not, and the war in their favor or in terms they preferred. It ended up just being for the sake of killing.
@@bloodybones63speech-to-text rendered the word “forelorn” as “for Lauren”. Thank you for reading my comment, but you have nothing further to observe concerning this issue?
I observe among collectivist like the Japanese as well as collective us in the United States a sense of self loathing behind a mask of professed superiority but is valued only in terms of the individual being subservient to the whole. I don’t see this in the ideology of individualism, where each person assesses his or her own value, and determines their contribution to others.
The former leads to extremism, the latter, to moderation and care for others.
@@bloodybones63 the fact that I use speech-to-text might have provided you the clue that typing is difficult for me, thus, proofreading is equally difficult. The fact that you find the subject irrelevant makes your comments irrelevant.
@@bloodybones63 The software I’m using does indeed, have spellcheck; that is not the problem. Spellcheck will often auto correct words that are spelled correctly into something other, for instance, just now, I typed “Ohka” In the search field in UA-cam, and it auto corrected it to “hola”.
While I explained the misspelling that confused you, you have as yet anything cogent to offer concerning the topic at hand.
You strike me as in curious, unimaginative individual, unable to see beyond your own circumstances.
Perhaps you were the type who kicks the crutches from under people or shoves a smoke into the wheels of someone in a wheelchair; as long as it’s not a problem for you it’s not a problem.
Have a good day, or as much of a good day as someone with your evident disposition is capable of.
As you are a narcissist, you are doubtless aware of the two-step process, people engage, and when dealing with you: (1) identifying you as such (2) ignoring you.
@@bloodybones63 24 hours later my reply to you was deleted. Were you so cowardly as to demand that?
You abuse a person with a disability, and when they complain, you get their comment deleted; quite a little trick. And a dirty one.
How about living to fight another day? Even if it meant a surrender to end the war. What of the contribution these men could have made to post-war efforts. While historians portray America as rude and overtly racist, many Americans had a great deal respect for Japanese culture. Japanese leadership would have had to recognize the kindness and decency of many Americans. MacArthur was one in particular, focused on helping the Japanese rebuild. Corrupt and selfish are the only terms to accurately describe the organizers of the kamikaze attacks.
So many of these letters sound like something Joseph Goebbels would have had ghost written for the sake of public moral. I am also struck how in the recent movie Godzilla Minus One the hero, OK the hero who isn't Godzilla, was a Kamikaze pilot who did not want to die so "found" engine trouble. Have the feeling that attitude was more common than the authors of the read text would allow in their mind.
Yes, mine is a Western view, but I found most of this to be quite distasteful.
Agreed.
It’s difficult to see these narratives in a good light when the courage, intelligence and ingenuity displayed, are used to cause destruction and death fo citizens of our country; we didn’t start this war.
There is nothing honorable about discarding ones life in furtherance of the dishonor and torment that Japan perpetrated on the world during that war.
This author doesn't seem to admit the war was not against Japan, it was against the memes (that had the minds of the Japanese in their grasp) he so ardently defends. He didn't realize the necessity of vomiting up and denying those conceptual poisons.
The emperor still sits on the throne in Japan. The Japanese people are still largely in denial of their atrocities committed during the war.
Japanese should have studied the other warmongers, Nazi, as well their own history. As Gandhi showed, EVIL , AGGRESSION; never triumphs in the end. Good always wins, eventually!!
I said, in a comment that killing oneself to make a statement is an ineffectual effort; my combat was deleted. That is someone’s prerogative, but is the objection to my opinion because it is contrary, or because that opinion represents the truth?
love most of these. but thus far. this one has been a 27 min justification for kamikaze. I dont care what he says what his general says. what they were brain washed to believe. Killing you self to kill more enemy before you lose is stupid. war is stupid. killing is awful.
All human beings are similarly brilliant, in that they absorb their cultural influences, and live or die accordingly. Peoples less assiduous, take notice. 😎
I absorb the values of my culture as I choose and not according to the dictate of others. It is moral laziness to do otherwise. To hazard one’s own life in aid of the helpless is an act of faith that it is a life worth saving. To expend one’s life to make a point is to make one’s life nothing more than the punctuation at the end of a sentence. I feel it is an act of arrogance toward the Creator who gave life to that individual.
Am I a god, that I should withhold help from someone in peril? Am I a god, to end my own life as some sort of statement? My answer to both is No.
Most people are mediocre. Few people are brilliant.
@@gagamba9198 I think the term mediocre is self aggrandizement by those who consider themselves to be brilliant. The word normal is more accurate than to say mediocre, as those were brilliant are by not normal, and their excellent qualities are often in contrast to their devastating flaws.
Normalcy can be an obstacle to those who are brilliant, but they also induce the degree of balance. The brilliant may otherwise lack.
It took me half a lifetime to understand what people mean when they say artists have “vision”. It means artists, in their imagination, see things others don’t. I can see a figure within a block of wood from every angle and carve down to that figure. I can see 1000 components and see how I can assemble those into as a single entity. it never occurred to me. They were people who couldn’t do this. It is the purpose of brilliant people to bring into the realm of the visible things that others can’t see, for their appreciation, enjoyment and use.
Understanding that is recognition of one’s place in the world, not of superiority, but it ring wonder and beauty into the lives of others. Normal people are not mediocre if we do our jobs, right. Our lives are not chaotic if they do their jobs right.
A very long justification of the Kamikaze. I understand the reasoning of other tactics being almost hopeless and useless. However, the author spends so much time justifying it that I wonder if he is trying to justify it to himself.
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The German videos are also blah blah blah. Sad to say these hour plus videos could certainly use editing.