Memoirs of a Kamikaze

[ClayO]

Here is an article about a new book, Memoirs of a Kamikaze, by Kazuo Odachi, a 93 year-old former kamikaze pilot. The article gives a small slice of the life of Mr. Odachi, who volunteered for the IJN at 17 out of patriotism and a desire to fly; how he resisted becoming a Kamikaze pilot, but finally gave in - only to go on eight missions over the last ten months the of the war, never finding a suitable target. He was leaving on his ninth mission when word arrived that the war had ended. It's a fascinating look into a time and a sub-culture that has thankfully disappeared.

 

[MiTasol]

I have a Japanese brother-in-law. My father commented not long before meeting him that he still hated the Japanese as a nation even though they spared his life at Honiara because he, and everyone else in his unit, was so thoroughly brainwashed before they were sent to do battle and the brainwashing had been impossible to override for over 40 years. Despite this he did have several Japanese friends.

He always taught us that every man is a gentleman and every women a lady until proven otherwise.

 

[ClayO]

My local library just got a copy of the book. It's well worth reading. The most interesting part to me was the description of how kamikaze pilots were recruited. Some were drafted into the kamikaze program right out of high school, but many, like the author, were fighter pilots who had been coerced into volunteering. Their superior officers would gather a group of pilots into a room and call for volunteers to the kamikaze division. When nobody volunteered, they would shame them into it. First one would raise a hand, then another, and so on until all of them had volunteered. The kind of thing that works well on teenage boys and young men, barely out of their teens.

The first half of the book is about the war years. You can scan through the middle part, which is about the author's post-war life as a policeman, detective and insurance fraud investigator; there's a pretty interesting section on the marital art of Kendo, and it really picks up again at the end when he reviews the history of the kamikazes. All in all, I learned a lot.

Here's a link to the book on Amazon.