Suicide bombers or kamikazes, despite the fact that they turned out to be ineffective in the war that Japan lost, nevertheless, became one of the greatest striking symbols of the Second World War. What they felt, how they were going to their death, is the most incomprehensible thing for us today. Soviet propaganda also could not explain the massive Japanese Matrosovs.
On December 7, 1941, Japan suddenly, without declaring war, dealt a crushing blow to the US Navy base in the Hawaiian Islands - Pearl Harbor. The aircraft carrier formation of the ships of the imperial fleet, having complete radio silence, approached the island of Oahu from the north and attacked the base and airfields of the island with two waves of aircraft.
The daring and unexpected attack on Pearl Harbor set the task of destroying the enemy's naval forces in the shortest possible time and ensuring freedom of action in the zone of the southern seas. In addition, with a sudden throw, the Japanese hoped to break the will of the Americans to fight. The operation was conceived, proposed, in general terms developed and approved by the commander-in-chief of the Japanese fleet. Yamamoto Isoroku.
The plans of the Japanese military built grandiose. At the heart of the war was the principle of lightning speed. The war, as the Japanese leadership believed, could only be won as a result of fleeting hostilities. Any delay is fraught with disaster. America's economic power would take its toll, and the Japanese knew it. The main goal of the first stage of the war - the destruction of the US Pacific Fleet - was accomplished.
In addition to aircraft, tiny submarines participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although it was theoretically planned to return these boats to the base, it was clear that the crews were going to certain death. Indeed, eight of the nine officers died during the attack and added to the picture of the gods in the Yasukuni Shrine. The ninth got a bummer. Lieutenant Sakamaki's boat got stuck on the coastal rocks, and he became the first captured officer in this war. Sakamaki couldn't make himself hara-kiri, because. was badly wounded. But that was no excuse for him. A stain of shame lay on the fleet. I, the poor lieutenant, not only flew by with enrollment in the god-kami of Yasukuni Shrine, but was also called a person with a "small heart" and "small belly." Japanese propaganda went so far as to call him "a man without a stomach at all."
The suicide bombers of the Japanese fleet were divided into several categories. These included the so-called "suijo tokkotai" (kamikaze surface forces) and "suite tokkotai" (kamikaze submarine forces). The surface forces were equipped with high-speed boats filled with explosives. The symbolic designation of one of the types of such boats is "Xingye" (ocean shaking). Hence the name of the groups of katerniks - suicides - "xingye tokkotai". "Xingye" were made of wood, equipped with a six-cylinder engine of 67 hp, which allowed speeds up to 18 knots. The range of such boats was about 250 km. They were equipped with either a 120 kg bomb, or a 300 kg depth charge, or a rocket. Kamikaze boat attacks were in most cases effective and the Americans were very afraid of them.
Underwater means of combating ships are the infamous "human torpedoes" - ("mingen-gerai"), baby submarines, and human mines ("fukuryu") and suicide paratrooper teams ("giretsu kutebutai"). The fleet had its own paratrooper units. Even the parachutes for them were developed separately and were very different from the army ones, although they were intended for the same purpose - landing on land.
Torpedoes driven by suicide bombers were called "Kaiten". Their other name is "Kongotai" (Kongo groups, in honor of Mount Kongo, where the hero of the Japanese Middle Ages Masashi Kusonoke lived). Human torpedoes, in addition, were also called "kukusuytai", from "kukusui" - a chrysanthemum on the water. "Two main modifications of human-controlled torpedoes were developed. One soldier was placed in the torpedo. A large amount of explosive was concentrated in the bow. Movement "Kaiten" at a speed of 28.5 miles per hour and aiming them at the target by a person extremely complicated the fight against these weapons.Massive attacks "Kaiten", as well as other suicide bombers, caused a strong nervous tension of the American personnel.
The Japanese called the tiny submarines "Kuryu" - a dragon and "Kairyu" - a sea dragon. Small magnetic submarines were designated by the term "Shinkai". The range of their action did not usually exceed 1000 miles. They had a speed of 16 knots and were usually controlled by two suicide bombers. Midget submarines were intended for torpedo attacks inside the harbor of the enemy or for ramming.
A great danger to the American fleet was also represented by the "fukuryu" units - the dragons of the underwater grotto (another translation of the hieroglyph - dragons of happiness) "human mines" that is, divers with mines. Secretly, under water, they made their way to the bottoms of enemy ships and blew them up with a portable mine.
Their activities are known mainly from the book by V. Bru "Underwater saboteurs" (foreign literature publishing house, Moscow, 1957). Along with valuable data on the actions of Japanese saboteurs, this book also contains quite significant "blunders". For example, he describes an oxygen apparatus designed for Fukuryu teams that allowed an underwater saboteur to dive to a depth of 60 meters and move there at a speed of 2 km / h. No matter how well a diver is trained, if his apparatus runs on oxygen, then at a depth of more than 10 meters, oxygen poisoning awaits him. Apparatuses with a closed breathing circuit, operating on mixtures of oxygen and nitrogen, allowing diving to such a depth, appeared much later.
It was widely believed in the American Navy that Japanese listening posts were located at the entrances to the harbor at a depth of 60 meters, making sure that enemy submarines and guided torpedoes could not enter the harbor. Firstly, technically, this was not feasible at that time, because it was necessary to keep the crews in them in a saturated dive mode, supplying air to them from the shore, and ensure regeneration as in a submarine. What for? From the point of view of military affairs, shelters at such a depth are meaningless. The submarine also has sonars and microphones. Than to fence this whole garden with underwater shelters, it is easier to keep a submarine on duty there. But shelters in merchant ships flooded at a shallow depth, or even sticking up with a keel, are a very real thing. For the concentration of fukuryu fighters, this is quite acceptable, given that they do not care to die. From their mine, from a Japanese shell that fell into the water next to the ship they were attacking, or from an American grenade thrown into the water by a vigilant soldier who noticed something suspicious in the water.
The Japanese Navy has long had well-trained and equipped divers. Their equipment was advanced for those times, even before the war they used flippers. Suffice it to recall the Japanese raid mask, which was used back in the twenties to search for the "Black Prince". It seemed to our divers the height of technical perfection. True, for sabotage cases, it is completely unsuitable. Mention of it as a technical novelty, indicative of the development of diving in Japan, which went its own way, different from Europe. In February 1942, light divers of the Japanese fleet cleared minefields near Hong Kong and Singapore, opening the way for their amphibious assault forces. But they were few. And Japan could not equip the huge masses of newly recruited divers with good equipment and weapons. The bet was again made on mass heroism. Here is how one of the participants in the Japanese war of 1945 describes a suicide attack on our destroyer:
“Our destroyer was standing on the roadstead of one of the Korean ports, covering the landing of the marines. The Japanese were almost driven out of the city, we saw through binoculars how the Korean population met our flowers. But in some places there were still battles. The observer on duty noticed that some strange object was moving from the shore towards us.Soon, through binoculars, one could see that it was the head of a swimmer, next to which a bubble, inflated with air, dangled, now appearing on the surface, now hiding in the waves.One of the sailors pointed a rifle at him and looked at the commander, waiting for further orders. Do not shoot! - the political officer intervened, - maybe this is a Korean with some kind of report or just to establish contact. The sailor lowered his rifle. Nobody wanted to kill a brother in the class who was sailing to extend a hand of friendship. Soon the swimmer was already almost next to the board, we saw that he was young, almost a boy, completely naked, despite the cold water, on his head was a white bandage with some kind of hieroglyphs. Through the clear water one could see that a small box and a long bamboo pole were tied to the inflated bladder.
The swimmer looked at us, we looked at him. And suddenly he stuck a knife out of nowhere in the bubble and, shouting "Banzai!", disappeared under the water. If not for this stupid cry, it is not known how it would all have ended. Sergeant Major Voronov, who was standing next to me, pulled out a pin from a lemon, which he had prepared in advance and threw a grenade into the water. There was an explosion and the saboteur floated to the surface like a stunned fish. Since then, we have increased our vigilance. Later, talking to tankers who were also attacked by suicide bombers, I learned that the Japanese jumped out of the trenches with mines on bamboo poles and fell under machine-gun bursts, having managed to shout "Banzai!" If they tried to put their mine unnoticed, the losses from them could be much greater. But the impression was that it was more important for them to die beautifully than to destroy the tank.
There was no shortage of volunteers for the suicide squads. In letters to relatives and friends, young people who were facing imminent death enthusiastically announced their intention to give their lives for Japan, for the Emperor.
So the twenty-year-old midshipman Teruo Yamaguchi wrote to his parents: "Do not cry for me. Although my body will turn to dust, my spirit will return to my native land, and I will always stay with you, my friends and neighbors. I pray for your happiness." Another driver of the Kaiten, twenty-two-year-old midshipman Ichiro Hayashi, consoled his mother in a letter: “Dear mother, please do not miss me. What a blessing to die in battle! I was lucky to get the opportunity to die for Japan ... Goodbye dear. Ask Heaven to take me in. I will be very sad if Heaven turns away from me. Pray for me, mother!"
The atomic bomb is, of course, a crime. But when landing on the islands of the mother country, the Japanese command was preparing to meet the American landings with an army of suicide bombers. More than 250 ultra-small submarines, more than 500 Kaiten torpedoes, 1,000 Sinye exploding boats, 6,000 Fukuryu divers and 10,000 kamikaze pilots. The American command decided to kill several tens or hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians rather than lose the lives of their soldiers. And, in the end, the Japanese were the first to start. Who is right and who is wrong is for God to decide. But it is already possible to pay tribute to the courage of people who, by the will of fate, were our opponents in this war.
Part 2
The greatest interest for historians of military affairs is now caused not by the great battles of large armies, but by single actions, where a person discovers his superiority over the machine and destroys it with his fearlessness, self-control, and strength of mind.
The fulfillment of special missions for mining ships and committing other sabotage is obviously associated with a mortal risk. A combat swimmer who has undergone thorough training and training, inspired by a sense of patriotism, possessing unbending willpower and fearlessness, consciously takes risks to complete the task. This is typical for the special forces of any army in the world. But even against the background of these iron people, the Japanese stand out especially. After all, a saboteur of any army takes a mortal risk, and a Japanese goes to his death.
This phenomenon is rooted in the ancient history of Japan and underlies the religion of Shinto, which in the "Land of the Rising Sun" strangely coexists with Buddhism.
The first mention of the use of suicide bombers dates back to the 13th century. In 1260, the grandson of Genghis Khan Kublai Khan ascended the Mongolian throne. After the victory over China, a new Mongol dynasty of emperors of China, the Yuan, was founded. The Mongols landed troops on Sumatra and Java, attacked Vietnam and Burma. By that time, the whole of Central Asia, the Far East, part of Western Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, including Rus', were already under the heel of the Mongols. However, there was a country that refused to submit to the mighty Empire, which enslaved dozens of states. It was Japan. In 1266, an ambassador was sent to Japan with a demand to submit to the Great Khan.
The Shikken (ruler) of Japan, Hojo Tokemuni, unconditionally rejected the demands of the Mongols. War became inevitable. The terrible danger of the Mongol invasion loomed over Japan, which received the name "Genko" in Japanese history. In November 1274, an armada of the Mongol fleet, consisting of 900 ships, with 40 thousand Mongol, Korean and Chinese soldiers, left the Korean port of HAPPO towards the Japanese islands. This army quickly killed the small squads of samurai on the islands of Tsushima and Iki. The Mongols fought, using masses of cavalry and tactics that allowed them to conquer the vast expanses of Europe and Asia.
The Japanese did not use large formations in battles. A samurai is primarily a loner warrior. The Japanese attached great importance to external forms of warfare. The main thing is that everything should be beautiful and according to the rules. First, they fired a whistling arrow "Kaburai" towards the enemy, challenging them to a duel. The best warriors stepped forward and demanded single combat. Then a hundred knights rode out and fought with the same number of the enemy. And only after that the army went into battle. In this case, this tactic failed. Military honor for the Mongols and their satellites did not exist. In a group, they surrounded singles and killed in the back, used poisoned arrows, which was not acceptable for samurai (for samurai, not ninja). The Japanese were losing the war without even causing much damage to the enemy. Next up is Kyushu. The Japanese clearly did not have enough strength to repel aggression. At the town of Hakata, the Mongols entered into a fierce battle with a small, but brave and well-trained detachment of samurai. Stubborn resistance, sun setting; the decision of the commander forced the Mongols to retreat to the ships to regroup forces.
In the evening, a storm began, turning into a typhoon. The Mongolian fleet was swept across the water surface, destroying more than 200 ships. The remnants of the armada, in complete disarray, were forced to return to Korea. Thus ended the first invasion.
The Japanese were already distinguished by their ability to learn and not to make old mistakes. Realizing that Khubilai would not calm down, they prepared more carefully for the next invasion. Defensive structures were built on Kyushu and Honshu, and samurai squads were concentrated in the places of the proposed landing. The tactics of the Mongols were studied and adopted, their own miscalculations and shortcomings were taken into account and analyzed.
In the spring of 1281, 4,500 ships with 150,000 soldiers on board under the command of the Mongol commander Alakhan left the Korean port of Happo. Never before and subsequently in the history of all peoples has there been a larger fleet than the Mongol one of 1281, either in the number of ships or in the number of troops. Huge ships armed with catapults carried a huge number of people and horses in their holds.
The Japanese built a huge number of small rowing boats with good speed and maneuverability. These ships were waiting in the wings in Hakata Bay. The morale of the Japanese was very high. Even the Japanese pirates left their craft and joined the imperial fleet.
The aggressor fleet was approaching Hakata Bay, destroying everything in its path. Finally, the Mongol armada entered Hakata Bay. And the battle broke out on land and at sea, where the Mongols were attacked by rowboats. The advantage here was on the side of the Japanese. The boats, despite the hail of cannonballs and arrows, approached the clumsy masses of the Chinese ships, the samurai climbed on board the ships with lightning speed and destroyed the crews. The Japanese fought, despising death, and this helped in the struggle. The Mongols turned out to be morally unprepared for the self-sacrifice that the Japanese soldiers made. Samurai won in battle in a limited space, their individual swordsmanship was better placed than that of the Mongols, who were accustomed to fighting in masses, if possible at a distance, shooting the enemy with poisoned arrows.
History has brought us many episodes of this battle. Kusano Jiro stands out among the heroes of the sea battle. A hail of arrows and cannonballs hit the boat he commanded, one of which tore off his arm. Having stopped the blood with a tourniquet, he continued to direct the battle. According to sources, the wounded samurai, overcoming pain, led the boarding team, personally killed 21 people in battle and set the enemy ship on fire.
Another Japanese commander, Miti Iri, wrote a prayer before the battle asking the kami gods to punish the enemy. Then he burned the paper with the text, and swallowed the ashes. Miti Ari equipped two row boats with the best warriors who swore to die in this battle. Hiding their swords under the folds of their clothes, the Japanese approached the flagship of the Mongols. They thought that the unarmed Japanese were approaching in order to negotiate or surrender. This allowed me to get closer. The samurai flew up to his deck. In a bloody battle, most died, but the rest managed to kill the commander of the Mongol fleet and set fire to the hulk of the ship.
Faced with such resistance on land and at sea (much is known about the land battle, but it is beyond the scope of the article), the Mongol fleet left Hakata Bay to regroup and meet with the second part of the armada approaching Japan. It was decided to go around the island of Kyushu and land on the other side.
After the meeting of the fleets, a huge force of the Mongols and their allies attacked the island of Takashima, preparing a new invasion of Kyushu. A deadly threat loomed over Japan again.
In all Shinto shrines, prayers were conducted without ceasing.
On August 6, 1281, a dark streak appeared in a clear, cloudless sky, which eclipsed the sun in a matter of minutes. And a deadly typhoon broke out. When the wind died down three days later, hardly a quarter of the original composition remained of the Mongol fleet - about 4 thousand warships and more than 100 thousand people died in the abyss.
The demoralized remnants of the crippled ships returned to Kolre. So ingloriously ended for the soldiers of Khubilai's campaign against Japan. Since that time, the idea has taken root in the minds of the Japanese that their country is under the special protection of national gods and no one can defeat it.
The idea of the divine origin of the country, belief in a miracle, the help of the Shinto gods, primarily Amaterasu and Hachiman, significantly influenced the formation of the national ideology. The heroes of the battles with the Mongols, who became gods in the minds of the Japanese, became examples for young people. And a beautiful death in battle has been sung for thousands of years in this country. Michi Ahri and his samurai became the gods of the Japanese suicide bombers and torpedo drivers.
Lightning speed is the basis of Japanese military doctrine. The Pacific War knows many examples when the Japanese first acted and then thought. Or they did not think at all, but only acted. The main thing is to be lightning fast and beautiful.
The desire for self-sacrifice, which made the Japanese fierce and fanatical warriors, at the same time led to irreparable losses in trained and well-trained pilots, submariners, which the Empire so needed. Enough has been said about Japanese views on the conduct of war. These views may have been good for the samurai of the Middle Ages and the legendary 47 ronin, who, according to ancient legend, made themselves hara-kiri after the death of their master, but they are completely unsuitable for 1941. American Admiral S.E. Morison, in his book The Rising Sun in the Pacific, assesses the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor as strategically stupid. He gives a very revealing example of the interrogation of a captured Japanese admiral, one of those who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Former Japanese admiral: "Why do you think our attack on Pearl Harbor was strategic stupidity?"
Investigator: "Were it not for this attack, the United States might not have declared war on Japan, and even if war had been declared, efforts to contain the Japanese offensive to the south due to our employment in Europe in the war with Hitler would not have been so decisive. A sure way to call America to war was an attack on American soil.
Former Japanese admiral: "However, we considered it necessary to put your fleet out of action so that, in order to exclude the possibility of offensive actions by the Americans, we could launch an offensive to the south.
Investigator: For how long, according to your calculations, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the American fleet would not be able to take offensive actions?
Former Japanese admiral: According to our assumptions within 18 months.
Investigator: In fact, when did the first operations of the American fleet begin?
Former Japanese admiral: Fast carriers began air strikes against the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands in late January and early February 1942, less than 60 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Investigator: Tell me, did you know the location of the fuel tanks in Pearl Harbor?
Former Japanese admiral: Of course. The location of the tanks was well known to us.
Investigator: And how many bombs were dropped on these tanks?
Former Japanese admiral: None, the main targets of attack were your capital warships.
Investigator: Did your operations officers who planned the attack ever think that destroying the fuel depots on Oahu would mean putting out of action the entire fleet that was in the Hawaiian Islands area until the fuel was delivered from the continent ? Then your boats would be able to prevent the delivery of fuel, thereby preventing the possibility of an American offensive for many months?
The Japanese admiral was shocked. The idea of destroying fuel supplies was new to him. The most expedient ways and means of neutralizing the American fleet did not occur to the Japanese even in hindsight. So they fought, making up for the lack of strategic thinking with the heroism of the personnel. Japanese boats were huge and difficult to manage. They had poor noise masking and an unreliable control system. Lack of living quarters, unsanitary conditions, strong vibration of the hull. It's amazing how Japanese submarines could swim at all. And not only to swim, but also to sink large warships.
Almost all the successes of the Japanese were associated with the cult of self-sacrifice in the war, brought to the point of absurdity. According to the Bushido samurai code, dying in battle is the highest happiness. But the decision to die or not is made by the warrior himself. In the early 1930s, during the war in China, the first suicide bombers appeared, in the 20th century who knowingly went to their deaths.
During the Shanghai operation, three soldiers - sappers, having tied a hatimaki bandage around their heads, drinking a cup of sake and swearing to die (like the ancient samurai during the Mongol invasion) blew up the Chinese fortification with one large mine. The dead soldiers were proclaimed divine and declared a model of "yamatodamasiya" "Japanese spirit". In Japan, they became known as "Bakudansanyushi" (three brave warriors with a bomb). It is much easier to send soldiers to certain death than to call in artillery. In addition, you can raise a fuss about this issue and intimidate America and the Soviet Union, which support China. In 1934, an announcement was published in Japanese newspapers about the recruitment of volunteer suicide bombers, drivers of guided torpedoes.
Actions like these were needed to keep the US from sending a fleet to help Beijing. More than 5,000 applications were received for 400 places. But then it didn’t come to use, and there were no torpedoes. The Japanese returned to the idea of suicide - torpedo drivers in 1942, losing the battle of Midway, although the idea of attacking a torpedo fired by a submarine, but controlled by a person (a volunteer) in it, took shape by the time of the first attack on Pearl Harbor. Mochitsura Hashimoto, the commander of the submarine (I 58) - the carrier of guided torpedoes, describes in detail the history of the creation of the Kaiten torpedoes in his memoirs.
“Several such torpedoes were made for the first series of tests,” Hashimoto writes, “they were tested near the Kure naval base on the island, which was known under the code name“ Base - 2 ”. stage when it seemed that they could be put into production and then used in a combat situation.However, the design of torpedoes excluded the possibility of saving the person who controlled it, that is, he was doomed to certain death, which was objected to by the naval command. a device that allows, by simply pressing a button, to throw the driver into the sea at a distance of about 45 meters from the target.
Around February 1944, a prototype human torpedo was delivered to the headquarters of the Navy, and soon the torpedoes were put into production. With a passionate hope for success, they began to manufacture them in the experimental torpedo shop of the shipyard in Kura. There were high hopes for this weapon. Now, it seemed, it was possible to take revenge on the enemy for the heavy losses suffered by Japan. By this time the island of Saipan had passed into the hands of the Americans, and we had suffered heavy losses.
The new weapon was named "Nytens", which meant "The Way to Paradise". In the book of Taras, the name of this torpedo is translated as "Shaking Heaven", in other sources there are translations "Turn to the sky" and "Restoration of forces after their decline." Apparently this hieroglyph has many interpretations.
While the manufacture of torpedoes was underway, a base was organized in Tokuyama Bay, where personnel were trained.
Alas! On the very first day of testing in Tokuyama Bay, one of the volunteers and champions of this weapon drowned. The torpedo he was in was buried in the mud and could not be raised. This boded ill for the future."
The omen did not deceive. Only in the process of training, as a result of the imperfection of technology, 15 people died. From the idea of a catapult, which gave a chance for salvation, had to be abandoned. The Japanese command was not up to saving the lives of torpedo drivers. Japan lost one battle after another. It was urgent to launch a miracle weapon. The first Kaiten samples were launched on the surface. The boat surfaced, launched torpedoes and went deep. Drivers landed in the area of operations of the American fleet, they themselves were looking for a target. Since it was dangerous to risk a boat in an area where aircraft and ships could detect it, drivers were dropped off at night near the harbors where the Americans were based and often torpedoes simply disappeared without finding a target, went to the bottom due to technical problems, stuck in anti-submarine networks. The driver's exit to cut the network was not provided.
Later they began to convert boats to launch torpedoes from a submerged position. The drivers got into the torpedoes in advance and waited for the boat to find the target. Air was supplied through a hose, communication was carried out by telephone. Finally, at the very end of the war, boats appeared from which it was possible to go into the torpedo directly from the compartment through the lower torpedo hatch. The effectiveness of the torpedo immediately increased. Hashimoto describes a case where his boat lay on the ground, and an American destroyer bombarded her with depth charges. He decided to attack the destroyer with human torpedoes. The suicide bomber said goodbye to everyone and got into the Kaiten. The sailor battened down the rear hatch behind him, after a few minutes the sound of a torpedo engine was heard, the exclamation "Banzai!" Then the connection was cut off. Then there was an explosion. When the boat surfaced, only debris floated on the surface.
The descriptions of the behavior of torpedo drivers before going on a mission are interesting. “During the long periods of being under water, there was nothing to do in the boat. Both officers from the torpedo drivers, apart from preparing their torpedoes and training observation in the periscope, had no other duties, so they played chess. One of them was present during the attack of human torpedoes in near the Ulithi Islands, but he himself failed to attack due to a malfunction of the torpedo.He was a very good chess player...
The enemy seemed to have surrounded us. I ordered the drivers of torpedoes No. 2 and No. 3 to immediately take their places. It was cloudy, but there were some bright stars in the sky. In the dark, we did not see the faces of the drivers when they both came to the bridge to report. They were silent for a while, then one of them asked: Commander, where is the constellation "Southern Cross?" His question took me by surprise. I scanned the sky, but did not notice this constellation. A nearby navigator noticed that the constellations were not yet visible, but that it would soon appear in the southeast. The drivers, saying simply that they were going to take their places, resolutely shook hands with us and left the bridge.
I still remember the self-control of these two young people. The sailor, whose job was to close the bottom cover of the torpedo, did his job and raised his hands, showing that everything was ready. At 2 hours 30 minutes, the order followed: "prepare for the release of human torpedoes!" The rudders of the torpedoes were set in accordance with the position of the rudders of the submarine. Prior to the release of human torpedoes, communication with them was maintained by telephone, at the time of separation of the torpedoes from the submarine, the telephone wires leading to them could be tied up.
Ten minutes later, everything was ready for the launch of torpedoes, scheduled for 0300 on the basis that at 0430 it would begin to get light.
The driver of torpedo No. 1 reported: "Ready!" The last clamp was released, the torpedo engine started up and the driver rushed to his goal. The last connection with him was cut off at the moment when the torpedo separated from the boat and rushed towards the enemy ships that were in the harbor of the island of Guam! At the very last moment before the release, the driver exclaimed: "Long live the Emperor!"
The release of torpedo No. 2 was carried out in exactly the same way. Despite his youth, her driver remained calm to the end and left the boat without saying a word.
Too much water got into the engine of torpedo No. 3, and its release was postponed to the last stage. During the release of torpedo number 4, it also sounded: "Long live the Emperor!" Finally, torpedo number 3 was fired. Due to a phone malfunction, we weren't able to hear her driver's last words.
At that moment, there was a huge explosion. We surfaced and, fearing persecution, began to retreat to the open sea ...
... We tried to see what was happening in Apra Bay, but at that moment a plane appeared and we had to leave."
Meanwhile, the war was getting more and more fierce. In addition to human torpedoes, baby boats and manmines from fukuryu teams, the Japanese naval command began to use units of "giretsu kutebutai" - teams of suicide paratroopers. In February 1945, the Japanese dropped a paratrooper, consisting of the military personnel of this team, on one of the army airfields. The paratroopers, tied with packages of explosives, destroyed seven "flying fortresses" along with themselves and burned 60 thousand gallons (1 gallon - 4.5 liters) of gasoline. 112 suicide soldiers died in this battle. Information about the effectiveness of suicide attacks is very contradictory. Japanese propaganda agreed to the fact that each kamikaze, as a rule, destroyed a large warship. When suicide bombers ceased to be a military secret, they began to write a lot about them, extolling the results of their actions to the skies, calling new crowds of young people into the ranks of suicides. The Americans, on the contrary, did not acknowledge their losses and reported understated figures, misleading the Japanese command about the degree of effectiveness of their sabotage forces and means. According to Japanese propaganda, kamikaze, fikuryu, kaiten and other suicide squads destroyed many times more ships than the Americans had in the Pacific Fleet. According to American data, the Japanese lost a whole lot of carrier boats and achieved practically no results. By the way, I read a book by an Englishman about Japanese aces pilots (not kamikaze). He treats with irony their reports of victories over Soviet and American aircraft. For example, in the battles at Halkin Gol, one Japanese ace, according to his reports, destroyed such a number of aircraft that the Russians did not have in that area at all. A Japanese newspaper wrote that he killed one Soviet pilot with a samurai sword, sitting next to a wrecked Soviet plane. Samurai is taken at his word (as a gentleman). So, if no one reproaches the Japanese for lack of courage, then they have a hard time with truthfulness. Therefore, the degree of effectiveness of the use of suicide bombers is still not known (and probably will not be known) (I do not touch on aviation).
By the end of the war, the rights and benefits of suicide bombers and their families were regulated. Goodbye to the gods, the future god of soldiers will get the opportunity to live to their heart's content. Every restaurant owner considered it an honor to host a suicide bomber without taking any money from him. Universal honor and admiration, love of the people, family benefits. All close relatives of the future kami (god) were surrounded by honor.
The exit to the mission was furnished according to the rules invented for kamikaze. The headband "hachimaki" with sayings, inscriptions or the image of the sun - the coat of arms of the Empire, like the medieval samurai, symbolized a state in which a person was ready to move from everyday life to sacredness and tying it was, as it were, a prerequisite for inspiring a warrior and gaining courage. Before boarding a plane or a torpedo, the suicide bombers said to each other a ritual farewell phrase: "See you at the Yasukuni Temple."
It was necessary to go to the target with open eyes, not closing them until the very last moment. Death was supposed to be perceived without any emotions, calmly and quietly, with a smile, according to the medieval traditions of the feudal host. Such an attitude towards one's own death was considered the ideal of a warrior.
The use of suicide bombers, according to Japanese propaganda, was supposed to show the superiority of the spirit of the Japanese over the Americans. General Kawabe Torashiro noted that the Japanese until the end of the war believed in the possibility of fighting the Americans on an equal footing - "Spirit against machines."
What is the difference between the European and Japanese understanding of death. As one Japanese officer, an unconscious prisoner, explained to the Americans: while Europeans and Americans think that life is beautiful, the Japanese think how good it is to die. Americans, British or Germans, having been captured, will not regard this as a catastrophe, they will try to escape from it in order to continue the fight. The Japanese will consider captivity a cowardly act, because. for a warrior - a samurai, true courage - to know the time of his death. Death is victory.
As a rule, everyone going on a mission left dying poems praising death for the Emperor and the Motherland. Some former suicide bombers who did not have time to die in battle still regret it.
It was not possible to replace the typhoon that saved Japan in the 13th century with people. Hundreds of midget submarines and thousands of guided torpedoes remained in the hangars without waiting for the crews. And thank God (both ours and Japan's). Japan lost the war. Someone will call suicide bombers fanatics and scumbags. Someone will admire the courage of people going to their deaths for their homeland in a desperate attempt to save the situation, fighting with the spirit against the machines. Let everyone make a conclusion for himself.
(c) V. Afonchenko
I will add on my own that there are a huge variety of opinions on the fact described above, both in Japan itself and around the world. I will not undertake to judge the correctness or agree on the correctness of any of them. I just think that people died, it's scary. Although someone will say this, what do you care about those people who died in some kind of war, in any war, not only in this one? After all, every day so many of them die and die from causes completely unrelated to the war.
But in my opinion, it is worth thinking about the fact that forgetting about something that happened, we deliberately provoke a repetition of this in the future.
Your son went nowhere infinitely proud
A toy with a windmill for two hours.
Osoyu dug into enemy aorta
His wooden flaming Kokusai.
These aircraft were designed for only one flight. A one-way ticket. They were made of birch plywood, equipped with obsolete decommissioned engines and devoid of weapons. Their pilots had the lowest level of training, they were just boys after a couple of weeks of training. Such a technique could only be born in Japan, where a beautiful death atoned for an arbitrarily meaningless and empty life. Technique for real heroes.
This is how the girls saw them off:
Aircraft kamikaze
By 1944, Japanese military equipment and aviation in particular were hopelessly behind their Western counterparts. There was also a shortage of trained pilots, and even less fuel and spare parts. In this regard, Japan was forced to seriously limit aviation operations, which weakened its already not very strong position. In October 1944, American troops attacked the island of Suluan: this was the beginning of the famous battle in Leyte Gulf near the Philippines. The first air fleet of the Japanese army consisted of only 40 aircraft, unable to provide the navy with any significant support. It was then that Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi, commander of the First Air Force, made a largely historic decision.
On October 19, he stated that he saw no other way to inflict any noticeable damage on the Allied forces, other than the use of pilots who were ready to give their lives for their country and bring down their aircraft, armed with a bomb, on an enemy ship. The preparation of the first kamikaze took about a day: already on October 20, 26 Mitsubishi A6M Zero light carrier-based fighters were converted. On October 21, a test flight was made: the flagship of the Australian fleet, the heavy cruiser Australia, was attacked. The kamikaze pilot did not inflict too much damage on the ship, but, nevertheless, part of the crew (including the captain) died, and the cruiser could not take part in the battles for some time - it was for repairs until January 1945. On October 25, the first ever successful kamikaze attack (against the American fleet) was made. After losing 17 aircraft, the Japanese sank one ship and seriously damaged 6 more.
In fact, the cult of a beautiful and honorable death has been known in Japan for centuries. Valiant pilots were ready to give their lives for their Motherland. In the overwhelming majority of cases, conventional aircraft converted to transport a single heavy bomb were used for kamikaze attacks (most often these were massive Mitsubishi A6M Zeros of various modifications). But for the kamikaze, "specialized equipment" was also designed, which was distinguished by its simplicity and low cost of construction, the absence of most devices and the fragility of materials. She will be discussed.
Mitsubishi A6M Reisen, better known as Zero(or "Rei shiki Kanjo sentoki" in Japanese), was by far the most produced Japanese fighter-bomber of World War II. It began to be produced in 1939. In its designation, "A" denotes the type of aircraft (fighter), "6" - model (he just replaced the model "5", produced from 1936 to 1940 and was in service until 1942), and "M" - "Mitsubishi ". The aircraft received the nickname "Zero" for the model 00 nomenclature, derived from the last digits of the year the mass production began (2600 according to the Japanese calendar, aka 1940). To work on the Zero, a group of Mitsubishi's best engineers, led by designer Jiro Horikoshi, was assigned.
"Zero" became one of the best carrier-based fighters of World War II. It was distinguished by a very high flight range (about 2600 kilometers) and excellent maneuverability. In the first battles of 1941-42. he had no equal, but by the fall of 1942, the latest Air Cobras and other, more advanced enemy aircraft began to appear over the battlefield in increasing numbers. Reisen became morally obsolete in just six months, and there was no worthy replacement for it. Nevertheless, it was produced until the very end of the war and therefore became the most massive Japanese aircraft. It had more than 15 different modifications and was made in the amount of more than 11,000 copies.
"Zero" was very light, but at the same time quite fragile, since its skin was made of duralumin, and the cockpit did not have armor. The low wing loading made it possible to provide a high stall speed (110 km / h), that is, the ability to make sharp turns and increased maneuverability. In addition, the aircraft was equipped with retractable landing gear, which improved the aerodynamic parameters of the machine. Finally, the visibility of the cockpit was also on top. The aircraft had to be equipped with the latest technology: a complete set of radio equipment, including a radio compass, although in reality, of course, the equipment of the aircraft did not always correspond to the planned one (for example, in addition to command vehicles, radio stations were not installed on Zero). The first modifications were equipped with two 20-mm cannons and two 7.7-mm machine guns, plus fasteners for two bombs weighing 30 or 60 kilograms were provided.
The very first sorties of "Zero" turned into a brilliant success for the Japanese air fleet. In 1940, they defeated the Chinese air fleet in a demonstration battle on September 13 (according to unverified data, 99 Chinese fighters were shot down against 2 by the Japanese, although according to historian Jiro Horikoshi, no more than 27 "Chinese" died). In 1941 "Zero" maintained their reputation, scoring a series of victories in vast expanses from Hawaii to Ceylon.
However, the Japanese mentality worked against Japan. Although incredibly agile and fast, the Zeros were stripped of all armor, and the proud Japanese pilots refused to put on parachutes. This led to a constant loss of qualified personnel. In the pre-war years, the Japanese Navy did not acquire a mass pilot training system - this career was considered deliberately elitist. According to the memoirs of the pilot Sakai Saburo, the flight school in Tsuchiura, where he studied - the only one where naval aviation fighters were trained - in 1937 received one and a half thousand applications from potential cadets, selected 70 people for training and ten months later released 25 pilots. In subsequent years, the numbers were slightly higher, but the annual "production" of fighter pilots was about a hundred people. In addition, with the advent of light American "Grumman F6F Hellcat" and "Chance Vought F4U Corsair" "Zero" began to rapidly become obsolete. Maneuverability no longer saved. Grumman F6F Hellcat:
"Mitsubishi" began to rapidly make changes to the design and "produce" aircraft modifications: "A6M3" types 32 and 22, "A6M4", "A6M5" type 52. The latter (in the "Hei" modification) received an armored back and an armored headrest for the pilot. Most of the modifications were calculated on a further increase in maneuverability, as the brand name "Zero", as well as an increase in firepower, including the rate of fire. The speed of the Model 52 was increased to 560 km/h.
We are most interested in the modification Mitsubishi A6M7, designed specifically for kamikaze attacks and the Mitsubishi A6M5 modification, which, due to its mass character, was most often converted for the same purposes. In the first battles in October and November 1944, the following actions were carried out with the A6M5: machine guns and cannons were dismantled, and a 250-kilogram bomb was installed under the fuselage.
"A6M7", although it was a "suicide plane", carried on board not only a bomb, but also two 13.2-mm wing machine guns, which made it possible to use it as a dive fighter before the last attack. The only thing that really distinguished it from the A6M6 model was a cheaper, simplified version of the Nakajima Sakae 31b engine without a water-methanol mixture injection system. In addition, two additional 350-liter fuel tanks were installed on the aircraft to increase the flight range. This made it possible to strike from a greater distance. Taking into account the fact that the fuel was refueled on the basis of a one-way flight, the distance covered by the suicide aircraft almost doubled, which contributed to the "surprise" of the Japanese attacks on the Allied fleet.
In total, 530 A6M aircraft carried out lethal attacks, although more than 1,100 representatives of this model were converted to the needs of kamikaze. It should be noted that the predecessors of the "Zero" model "A5M", completely obsolete by the end of the war, were also actively used for deadly attacks. Actually, almost all the last surviving "fifth" models, worn out to the bone, ended their lives in this way.
Despite the fact that the A6M was not specifically designed for kamikaze, it was he who became the most common manned projectile of the Second World War and was used as such in almost every air battle involving the Japanese fleet.
Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi became the first and, in fact, the only aircraft designed specifically for kamikaze attacks. Its development began in January 1945, when "stocks" of old worn-out aircraft suitable for conversion into flying coffins began to run low. The task before the designers was simple: lightness, speed, maneuverability. No weapons (except for bomb racks) and armor. The maximum cheapness of materials and ease of manufacture. Aori Kunihara, the designer of Nakajima, was appointed chief engineer.
The design of the Ki-115 has been simplified to the point of absurdity. Such an aircraft could be assembled "on the knee" in almost any conditions and equipped with absolutely any engine with a power from 800 to 1300 hp. The frame was welded from steel pipes, the hood was made of sheet metal, the fuselage was made of duralumin, and the tail section had a linen sheathing at all. One 800-kilogram bomb was attached to the recess under the fuselage. The cockpit was open, and a sight was drawn on the windshield, which made it easier to hit the target.
Actually, the aircraft was designed to be produced by unskilled workers from improvised materials and to be controlled by unskilled pilots. True, the plane was quite difficult to control on the ground. The landing gear was intended only for takeoff and was discarded as soon as the plane took off. There was no turning back for the kamikaze. Here is the control panel of this aircraft:
They tried to improve the aircraft, for example, to equip it with rocket boosters, but, in fact, there was no time left for such work. They also made several prototypes of the Otsu modification with larger wooden wings. In total, 105 copies of the Ki-115 aircraft were manufactured, but the Allies learned about their existence after the war. Not a single "Sword" (as "Tsurugi" is translated) was ever used during the fighting.
However, there was another model designed from scratch specifically for suicidal attacks. It was an airplane Kokusai Ta-Go. It was developed by a group of officers led by aviation technician Yoshiuki Mizuama in early 1945.
The aircraft was entirely made of wood (wooden and plywood slats on a metal frame) and canvas, only the landing gear and motor mount were metal. An in-line Hitachi Ha-47 engine with a power of 510 hp was used as a power unit, and one bomb weighing 500 kilograms was installed on the aircraft. Even the engine cowl was made of plywood, rather than tinplate as on other "one-off" designs.
Tellingly, the plane did not have rounded surfaces at all, being assembled, in fact, from wooden sheets. This made it possible to manufacture a car even in a carpentry workshop. The landing gear was not removed at all, the shock absorbers were made of ordinary rubber, and the tail spike instead of the third wheel was made of welded pipes. Of the instruments in the cockpit were a compass, speedometer and altimeter. The plane was light and rather slow, the only armament it could carry was a 100 kg bomb.
In June 1945, the only experienced Kokusai took to the air. Until the end of the war, the Japanese did not have time to put the Bamboo Spears (Ta-Go) into mass production.
In 1945, another specialized kamikaze aircraft was developed - Mitsubishi Ki-167. Unlike its "brothers", the Ki-167 model was a bomber, and quite heavy. Information about this aircraft is contradictory, but most sources agree that on April 17, 1945, three Ki-167 aircraft made a sortie in the Okinawa area. Having not found a target, two cars returned to base (the landing gear was not discarded for these aircraft), and the third detonated its bomb for technical reasons. The only photo of this aircraft:
The basic model for the Ki-167 was the medium torpedo bomber Ki-67 "Hiryu", which was put into service at the end of 1943. Model 167 was equipped with a huge bomb "Sakuradan" weighing 2900 kilograms. To transport such a weight, the aerodynamics of the aircraft were seriously upgraded. The documentation for the Ki-167 was destroyed after the war, so there is practically no concrete information about it.
But, probably, the most famous kamikaze aircraft, "lit up" in many films and described in books, was the legendary projectile Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka. His project was developed by a group of researchers at the University of Tokyo, led by former combat pilot Mitsuo Ota, in the fall of 1944. Unlike an ordinary aircraft, the Ohka projectile did not have a landing gear at all and was intended exclusively for launching from a carrier. The aircraft was made entirely of wood and could be made using unskilled labor. Three rocket boosters were installed on it.
A special modification of the Mitsubishi G4M2 Tei heavy bomber was used as a carrier. In addition to fasteners for the projectile under the fuselage, this modification was supplied with additional armor, since it was the carrier that was the increased risk factor in Ohka missile attacks. The slow and clumsy bomber was easy enough to shoot down, unlike a fast missile with rocket boosters.
The first modification of the "MXY7 Ohka" bore the index "11" and carried a charge weighing 1200 kilograms in the bow. The penetrating ability of the projectiles turned out to be monstrous: there is a known case when a missile completely pierced the American destroyer Stanley through and through, which saved it from flooding. But if the rocket hit the target, then the destruction was very great. True, the flight range of an aircraft projectile was most often less than the radius of destruction of air defense; in this regard, rockets were not always successfully launched.
Ohka was used for the first time in March 1945, and on April 12, with the help of these aircraft, the first ship, the destroyer Mannert P. Abel, was sunk. Pay attention to the dimensions of the bomb:
Naturally, progress did not stand still, and designers were required to improve the design. Further development of the design of the projectile aircraft led to the appearance of the modification "model 22". The new development was aimed primarily at launching from a more advanced and protected carrier aircraft, the Kugisho P1Y3 Ginga. It was smaller and carried a much smaller charge (only 600 kilograms). In addition, the more powerful Tsu-11 jet engine made it possible to launch a projectile at a greater distance from the target. In total, 50 copies of the 22 modification were made, and the first test flight took place in July 1945.
Subsequently, several more modifications of the Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka were developed (but never left the project stage): model 33 (for launching from the Renzan G8N1 aircraft), model 43a (for launching from submarine catapults - with folding wings; in the "b" wingtip modifications were discarded altogether), the Model 21 (essentially a hybrid of the Models 11 and 22) and the Turbojet Model 53. Two training copies of the Wakasakura Model 43 with a landing ski and a second cabin were even made, but things did not go beyond this.
It was precisely because of the slowness of the carriers that the effectiveness of the use of projectile aircraft was not too high. Many pilots died senselessly, the losses of the enemy were not so great. In this regard, the Americans, even in official documents, called the Japanese shells the word "Baka" ("fool").
By the way, in view of the fact that engines, especially rocket ones, were not cheap, projects of kamikaze gliders were also developed that were not burdened with power units, for example, Yokosuka Shinryu. Development began in May 1945 under the direction of engineer Sakakibara Shigeki. One prototype of the airframe was manufactured and tested: it could carry a charge of 100 kg and accelerate to 300 km / h. The launch of the glider was carried out from the ground using stationary rocket boosters "Toku-Ro 1 Type 1". They started for only 10 seconds, but that was enough to start.
The tests were unsuccessful: the pilot concluded that the glider is very difficult to control, and low-skilled kamikaze pilots simply will not be able to fly it. In addition, rocket engines were too expensive not imperfect. The project of the improved Shinryu II glider remained only on paper, and soon the work on the first model was completely curtailed.
By the way, in 1944, the development of another type of "suicidal technique" began. These were the legendary Kaiten torpedoes launched from submarines or ships and controlled by suicide bombers. The pilot sat in the wheelhouse of a guided missile, the hatch was tightly battened down.
The first "Kaiten" provided for a pilot ejection mechanism, but torpedo drivers simply refused to use them. Unlike kamikaze aircraft, the Kaiten had little success. Too expensive to manufacture and leading to loss of personnel, they rarely sailed to the target, being intercepted by enemy response torpedoes or anti-torpedo defense systems. In total, 10 groups of Kaiten drivers were trained during the war, after which their production was curtailed.
I must say that many Japanese aircraft were used for kamikaze attacks. Basically, these were obsolete, retired models that were hastily converted to transport a single bomb. For example, for such purposes, a modification of the Kawasaki Ki-48 medium bomber (Kawasaki Ki-48-II Otsu Kai) under construction in 1939-1944 was created, but it was never used in battles. The Mitsubishi Ki-67 medium bomber also had a kamikaze modification: Mitsubishi Ki-67-I-Kai "To-Go".
In 1945, a project was also developed to develop the Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi model under the name Ki-119, but this machine remained on paper. The documents also mention the "Rikugun To-Go" plane, but there is no specific information about this suicide plane.
In 1944-45, the Japanese army and air fleet prepared about 4,000 kamikazes, which sank and damaged more than 300 Allied ships. However, there were almost three times more volunteers: there was not enough equipment. However, many "volunteers" simply received an order. And they couldn't break it. Before departures, twenty-year-old suicide boys drank a ritual cup of sake and tied a white strip of cloth with a red circle (“hachimaki”) around their heads.
And then they lifted their planes into the air without landing gear and died for the country that they loved more than their own lives.
However, often experienced pilots also acted as kamikazes. The most famous suicide pilot was Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki. On August 15, 1945, among other pilots, he took off on a Yokosuka D4Y Suisei dive bomber and died heroically near the island of Okinawa. Actually, such a death was something like an analogue of the seppuku ritual suicide, honorable for a samurai. By the way, the "father of the kamikaze" Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi also committed ritual suicide shortly before the surrender of Japan, on August 16, 1945, when it became clear that the war was lost.
Some samples of kamikaze aircraft can still be seen in Japanese museums. The thought that a person boarding such a plane knew that he would never return home makes him turn away and move on to other exhibits.
P.S. In fact, "kamikaze" is just one of the varieties of the so-called "teixintai", volunteer suicide bombers, ready to give their lives for their homeland. Teixintai worked not only in aviation, but also in other military units. For example, there were entire groups of suicide paratroopers who were armed with bombs and dropped on enemy equipment. Ground teixintai worked in the same way, which at the cost of their lives destroyed enemy officers, radar points and other objects. Sometimes the Teixintai used small boats and guided missiles to carry out their attacks on the water.
P.P.S. By the end of World War II, aircraft for suicide pilots were also being developed in Germany. The flying bomb Fi-103R "Reichenberg" (modification "Fi-103R-IV") was converted into a manned aircraft. A suicide squad of volunteers was recruited and even specialized courses in piloting flying bombs were organized. But psychology made itself known. Germany was already, in fact, losing ground, and the pilots had no desire to give their lives "for a dummy." Despite the fact that the German kamikaze project was personally supervised by Himmler, it was curtailed, so, in fact, it did not start.
The end of World War II was approaching, the American navy was approaching the Japanese coast, and Japan simply needed to take some drastic measures to prevent an undesirable outcome. So it was decided to create a unique detachment called "Special Strike Force". But this unit was better known as the kamikaze squad, which translates as "divine wind." The division consisted of volunteers who were supposed to deliberately crash their planes into American ships.
10. Battle of the Philippine Sea
One of the key naval battles during World War II was the battle in the Philippine Sea, which took place on June 19 and 20, 1944. The American army emerged victorious, seriously damaging the Japanese fleet with minimal personal losses.
The reason for this vulnerability of Japan turned out to be that its army flew Mitsubishi A6M Zero aircraft (Zeke for short), which were completely ineffective in the fight against powerful US military equipment. By and large, Japanese aircraft exploded on approach from simple machine-gun bursts, not having time to harm the enemy. During this battle, the Japanese lost 480 combat vehicles, which accounted for 75% of their air fleet.
As American forces approached the coast of the Philippines, then occupied by Japan, the Japanese military commanders increasingly thought that they needed to take drastic measures. At a meeting of the highest ranks, naval captain Motoharu Okamura said that only the Suicide Squad would save the situation. Okamura was sure that enough volunteers would be called to save his homeland from disgrace, and about 300 aircraft would need to be allocated for them. The captain was sure that this would change the course of the war and turn the situation in favor of Japan.
Everyone present at the meeting agreed with Okamura, and the necessary resources were allocated to him. For this mission, the planes were specially lightened, machine guns were dismantled, armor was removed and even the radio was removed. But the fuel tank was enlarged, and 250 kg of explosives were loaded on board the aircraft. Now all Okamura needed was to find pilots for this desperate mission.
9Japanese pilots agreed to commit suicide for fear of embarrassment
But how did you manage to recruit pilots for such a terrible task? In fact, the authorities simply asked people to volunteer.
And as for how anyone can agree to such a death, it’s already worth turning to the culture of Japan. Shame is a very hot topic in this country. If the authorities asked the pilot to sacrifice himself, and he would have answered: “No, I do not want to die for my country”, this would not only dishonor him, but also dishonor his entire family. In addition, dead suicide pilots were promoted by two ranks.
So in fact, the volunteer detachment was not so free to choose. They could stay alive, embarrass themselves throughout the country, and tarnish the reputation of their family in a society extremely strongly oriented towards honor and pride. Or volunteers could die and be extolled as heroes who died for their homeland.
8. The best pilots of aviation died in the first raid
When the Japanese authorities decided to form a kamikaze squadron, the first pilot they chose to be their fighter pilot was their best lieutenant, a young boy of 23, Yukio Seki. It could be assumed that when the guy was told that he was needed for such a responsible task, he replied that he would gladly serve the country. But there are rumors that Seki shared his doubts with the journalist that this would be the best use of his talents.
In October 1944, Seki and 23 other airmen began training for the mission. On October 20, Admiral Takihiro Onishi said: “In mortal danger. The salvation of our country is now not at all in the hands of chiefs and ministers like me. It can only come from brave young people like you. Therefore, on behalf of our entire country, I ask you for this sacrifice and pray for your success.
You are already gods, liberated from earthly desires. But the only thing that still makes sense to you is the knowledge that your sacrifice will not be in vain. Unfortunately, we can no longer tell you this. But I will keep an eye on your efforts and report your deeds to the emperor himself. You can be sure of this.
And I ask you to do the best you can."
After this speech, 24 pilots got behind the wheel of their planes and took off to certain death. However, during the first five days of flights, they did not manage to make a single collision with American ships until they met with a rival in the Philippines.
The Americans were surprised by the Japanese suicide attack. The kamikaze pilot managed to sink one of the most important ships of the US Navy, an entire aircraft carrier. The collision of the Japanese plane with the ship caused multiple explosions inside the ship, and she sank. There were 889 people on board at the time, and 143 of them were killed or are considered missing.
In addition to sinking the aircraft carrier, the kamikaze group managed to damage three other ships. The Japanese took this as a good sign and expanded the composition of the suicide squad.
7. The Japanese designed the plane specifically for the kamikaze mission.
As mentioned above, the Japanese Ziki were quite ineffective against American aircraft. With flying bombs, things were no better. Another problem was that the pilots had to be trained urgently in a very difficult task. And in order to even get close to US warships, you had to be a very good pilot. Instead of simply canceling the operation, the Japanese decided to simplify the aircraft itself, making it more suitable for the purposes and specifics of the kamikaze mission. The new machine was named the Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka, or simply Cherry Blossom.
The aircraft actually became a guided missile 6 m long with short wings. A significant drawback of the projectile was that it could only fly 32 km. So the Japanese had to use another plane that would deliver the Cherry Blossom to the target. They became the Mitsubishi G4M bomber. As soon as the kamikaze pilot got close to his target, he launched rocket boosters, which allowed him to bypass the enemy's defensive fire and hit the armor of the enemy ship.
In addition to being lighter, these new aircraft were also easier to fly than the Zikis. The pilots did not have to learn how to take off and land, they just had to keep the right direction and start the boosters so that they did not have to maneuver and dodge the American defensive fire.
The cockpit of the Cherries was also special. Behind the head of the pilot's seat was a special compartment for a samurai sword in case the suicide bomber survived the collision.
6. It was supposed to be psychological warfare
Of course, the main task of the kamikaze was to sink as many ships as possible. However, the Japanese believed that on the battlefield, new tactics would certainly help them gain a psychological advantage over the enemy. The Japanese wanted to be seen as fierce warriors without a sense of proportion, who would rather die than lose and surrender.
Unfortunately, this did not have the expected effect. Not only did the Americans easily repel the attacks of the Japanese, they also nicknamed the kamikaze planes "Baka", which in Japanese means "fool" or "idiot".
5. Kamikaze pilots who controlled torpedoes
In addition to lightweight aircraft, the Japanese created guided torpedoes for kamikaze, which they later called kaitens.
The procedure was as follows: first, the pilot had to look out for a ship through the periscope, then, using a stopwatch and a compass, he had to almost blindly ram the enemy ship. As you might have guessed, it wasn't easy, and it took months to train the pilots.
Another difficulty was the size of the torpedoes. They were large, and this did not allow them to be sent over too long distances. Torpedoes had to be delivered first on large submarines. The "mother" ship transported from 6 to 8 kaitens to its destination.
On November 20, 1944, 5 kaitens were fired into the American tanker USS Mississinewa. One of them hit the target, and the explosion was huge, as you can see in the video above. The Japanese thought that they sank as many as 5 ships due to the fact that the explosion was incredibly strong. As a result, management found the torpedo idea so successful that kaiten production was increased.
4 Nazi Suicide Squad
The Japanese were not the only ones in the coalition of aggressors who, at the end of the war, were so desperate that they launched bombers under the control of suicide pilots. Germany also formed its own special forces detachment, nicknamed the "Leonidas Squadron". The creation of the detachment was proposed by Hannah Reitsch, a German test pilot. Reitsch was twice awarded the Iron Cross and became the German woman who got closer than any other of the fair sex to direct hostilities.
In 1944, when Reitsch received her second Cross, she spoke about her idea to Adolf Hitler himself, who participated in the presentation of the award. She suggested putting the pilots in modified V-1 rockets loaded with explosives and using them as weapons. At first, Hitler did not like this idea, but later he changed his mind. The chancellor liked Hannah's commitment to this venture, and he agreed to the creation of aircraft for suicide missions. The aircraft assigned to this project was a Fieseler Fi 103R, codenamed Reichenberg. Suicide rockets were equipped with bombs weighing 900 kg.
Reitsch was the first to be transferred to the Leonidas Squadron and was the first to take an oath in which she confirmed that she was voluntarily taking part in the mission and understood that death awaited her.
In total, there were 70 volunteers in the new detachment, but the program was curtailed even before anyone had time to use the Reichenbergs.
Reitsch survived the war and subsequently published her autobiography. In addition, Hanna even became the manager of the national gliding school in Ghana in the post-war years. The pilot died at the age of 65 from a heart attack. It happened in 1979.
3 The Pilots May Have Taken Meth
In fact, methamphetamine was invented in Japan as early as 1893. But it didn't become widespread until the drug was brought to the attention of World War II. The German army used a type of methamphetamine called Pervitin, while the Japanese used the drug Philopon.
During the war, the Japanese gave drugs to their soldiers when they were too hungry or tired. Philopon also proved to be useful for kamikaze pilots. In the face of certain death, they had to be resolute and collected. Therefore, before landing in their flying bombs and several hour-long flights to their deaths, the pilots were given high doses of methamphetamine. This helped the suicides stay focused until the very end. Another benefit for the soldiers was that the meth increased the level of aggression.
And although such a side effect for drug addicts is a rather unpleasant manifestation in ordinary life, for the Japanese kamikaze, he served faithful service, helping suicides stick to the plan while flying through machine gun fire.
2. The last kamikaze pilot
In 1945, Admiral Matome Ugaki was appointed commander of the kamikaze units. A month later, on August 15, when the emperor of Japan announced his surrender over the radio, Ugaki decided that the most worthy end for him would be the same death that his subordinates faced daily. Before his last flight, he even took a picture (photo above). True, Ugaki did not have piloting skills, and for this purpose, another voluntary suicide bomber had to be put on the plane.
On the way to his death, Ugaki radioed the following message:
“We have only me to blame for our failure. The valiant efforts of all the officers and soldiers under my command over the past 6 months have been greatly appreciated.
I'm going to strike at Okinawa, where my people died like cherry blossoms. There I will fall upon the conceited enemy in the true spirit of Bushido (samurai code) with firm conviction and faith in the immortality of the Japanese empire.
I am sure that all units under my command will understand my motives, overcome all difficulties in the future and make every effort to revive our great Motherland.
Long live His Imperial Majesty!”
Unfortunately for Ugaki, the mission failed and his plane was likely intercepted before he could reach his destination.
1. The operation was a failure
The Japanese were naive in their hopes for the success of the kamikaze pilots. Suicide attacks proved to be rather ineffective against the strongest navy of World War II.
As a result, the suicide pilots managed to sink only 51 ships, and only one of them was a large ironclad (USS St. Lo). About 3,000 American and British soldiers died due to the fault of the kamikaze.
But if you compare these figures with the losses on the part of the Japanese, it is hard to believe that they were trying to wage offensive battles. Some 1,321 Japanese aircraft and submarines crashed into American ships, and about 5,000 pilots died in these attempts to cripple the army of the combined forces.
By and large, the American navy defeated the Japanese army due to the fact that he had more people and military equipment. To date, the kamikaze project is considered one of the greatest blunders in the history of World War II.
Suicide bombers or kamikazes, despite the fact that they turned out to be ineffective in the war that Japan lost, nevertheless, became one of the greatest striking symbols of the Second World War. What they felt, how they were going to their death, is the most incomprehensible for us today. Soviet propaganda also could not explain the massive Japanese Matrosovs.
On December 7, 1941, Japan suddenly, without declaring war, dealt a crushing blow to the US Navy base in the Hawaiian Islands - Pearl Harbor. The aircraft carrier formation of the ships of the imperial fleet, having complete radio silence, approached the island of Oahu from the north and attacked the base and airfields of the island with two waves of aircraft.
The daring and unexpected attack on Pearl Harbor set the task of destroying the enemy's naval forces in the shortest possible time and ensuring freedom of action in the zone of the southern seas. In addition, with a sudden throw, the Japanese hoped to break the will of the Americans to fight. The operation was conceived, proposed, in general terms developed and approved by the commander-in-chief of the Japanese fleet. Yamamoto Isoroku.
The plans of the Japanese military built grandiose. At the heart of the war was the principle of lightning speed. The war, as the Japanese leadership believed, could only be won as a result of fleeting hostilities. Any delay is fraught with disaster. America's economic power would take its toll, and the Japanese knew it. The main goal of the first stage of the war - the destruction of the US Pacific Fleet - was accomplished.
In addition to aircraft, tiny submarines participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although it was theoretically planned to return these boats to the base, it was clear that the crews were going to certain death. Indeed, eight of the nine officers died during the attack and added to the picture of the gods in the Yasukuni Shrine. The ninth got a bummer. Lieutenant Sakamaki's boat got stuck on the coastal rocks, and he became the first captured officer in this war. Sakamaki couldn't make himself hara-kiri, because. was badly wounded. But that was no excuse for him. A stain of shame lay on the fleet. I, the poor lieutenant, not only flew by with enrollment in the god-kami of Yasukuni Shrine, but was also called a person with a "small heart" and "small belly." Japanese propaganda went so far as to call him "a man without a stomach at all."
The suicide bombers of the Japanese fleet were divided into several categories. These included the so-called "suijo tokkotai" (kamikaze surface forces) and "suite tokkotai" (kamikaze submarine forces). The surface forces were equipped with high-speed boats filled with explosives. The symbolic designation of one of the types of such boats is "Xingye" (ocean shaking). Hence the name of the groups of katerniks - suicides - "xingye tokkotai". "Xingye" were made of wood, equipped with a six-cylinder engine of 67 hp, which allowed speeds up to 18 knots. The range of such boats was about 250 km. They were equipped with either a 120 kg bomb, or a 300 kg depth charge, or a rocket. Kamikaze boat attacks were in most cases effective and the Americans were very afraid of them.
Underwater means of combating ships are the infamous "human torpedoes" - ("mingen-gerai"), baby submarines, and human mines ("fukuryu") and suicide paratrooper teams ("giretsu kutebutai"). The fleet had its own paratrooper units. Even the parachutes for them were developed separately and were very different from the army ones, although they were intended for the same purpose - landing on land.
Torpedoes driven by suicide bombers were called "Kaiten". Their other name is "Kongotai" (Kongo groups, in honor of Mount Kongo, where the hero of the Japanese Middle Ages Masashi Kusonoke lived). Human torpedoes, in addition, were also called "kukusuytai", from "kukusui" - a chrysanthemum on the water. "Two main modifications of human-controlled torpedoes were developed. One soldier was placed in the torpedo. A large amount of explosive was concentrated in the bow. Movement "Kaiten" at a speed of 28.5 miles per hour and aiming them at the target by a person extremely complicated the fight against these weapons.Massive attacks "Kaiten", as well as other suicide bombers, caused a strong nervous tension of the American personnel.
The Japanese called the tiny submarines "Kuryu" - a dragon and "Kairyu" - a sea dragon. Small magnetic submarines were designated by the term "Shinkai". The range of their action did not usually exceed 1000 miles. They had a speed of 16 knots and were usually controlled by two suicide bombers. Midget submarines were intended for torpedo attacks inside the harbor of the enemy or for ramming.
A great danger to the American fleet was also represented by the "fukuryu" units - the dragons of the underwater grotto (another translation of the hieroglyph - dragons of happiness) "human mines" that is, divers with mines. Secretly, under water, they made their way to the bottoms of enemy ships and blew them up with a portable mine.
Their activities are known mainly from the book by V. Bru "Underwater saboteurs" (foreign literature publishing house, Moscow, 1957). Along with valuable data on the actions of Japanese saboteurs, this book also contains quite significant "blunders". For example, he describes an oxygen apparatus designed for Fukuryu teams that allowed an underwater saboteur to dive to a depth of 60 meters and move there at a speed of 2 km / h. No matter how well a diver is trained, if his apparatus runs on oxygen, then at a depth of more than 10 meters, oxygen poisoning awaits him. Apparatuses with a closed breathing circuit, operating on mixtures of oxygen and nitrogen, allowing diving to such a depth, appeared much later.
It was widely believed in the American Navy that Japanese listening posts were located at the entrances to the harbor at a depth of 60 meters, making sure that enemy submarines and guided torpedoes could not enter the harbor. Firstly, technically, this was not feasible at that time, because it was necessary to keep the crews in them in a saturated dive mode, supplying air to them from the shore, and ensure regeneration as in a submarine. What for? From the point of view of military affairs, shelters at such a depth are meaningless. The submarine also has sonars and microphones. Than to fence this whole garden with underwater shelters, it is easier to keep a submarine on duty there. But shelters in merchant ships flooded at a shallow depth, or even sticking up with a keel, are a very real thing. For the concentration of fukuryu fighters, this is quite acceptable, given that they do not care to die. From their mine, from a Japanese shell that fell into the water next to the ship they were attacking, or from an American grenade thrown into the water by a vigilant soldier who noticed something suspicious in the water.
The Japanese Navy has long had well-trained and equipped divers. Their equipment was advanced for those times, even before the war they used flippers. Suffice it to recall the Japanese raid mask, which was used back in the twenties to search for the "Black Prince". It seemed to our divers the height of technical perfection. True, for sabotage cases, it is completely unsuitable. Mention of it as a technical novelty, indicative of the development of diving in Japan, which went its own way, different from Europe. In February 1942, light divers of the Japanese fleet cleared minefields near Hong Kong and Singapore, opening the way for their amphibious assault forces. But they were few. And Japan could not equip the huge masses of newly recruited divers with good equipment and weapons. The bet was again made on mass heroism. Here is how one of the participants in the Japanese war of 1945 describes a suicide attack on our destroyer:
“Our destroyer was standing on the roadstead of one of the Korean ports, covering the landing of the marines. The Japanese were almost driven out of the city, we saw through binoculars how the Korean population met our flowers. But in some places there were still battles. The observer on duty noticed that some strange object was moving from the shore towards us.Soon, through binoculars, one could see that it was the head of a swimmer, next to which a bubble, inflated with air, dangled, now appearing on the surface, now hiding in the waves.One of the sailors pointed a rifle at him and looked at the commander, waiting for further orders. Do not shoot! - the political officer intervened, - maybe this is a Korean with some kind of report or just to establish contact. The sailor lowered his rifle. Nobody wanted to kill a brother in the class who was sailing to extend a hand of friendship. Soon the swimmer was already almost next to the board, we saw that he was young, almost a boy, completely naked, despite the cold water, on his head was a white bandage with some kind of hieroglyphs. Through the clear water one could see that a small box and a long bamboo pole were tied to the inflated bladder.
The swimmer looked at us, we looked at him. And suddenly he stuck a knife out of nowhere in the bubble and, shouting "Banzai!", disappeared under the water. If not for this stupid cry, it is not known how it would all have ended. Sergeant Major Voronov, who was standing next to me, pulled out a pin from a lemon, which he had prepared in advance and threw a grenade into the water. There was an explosion and the saboteur floated to the surface like a stunned fish. Since then, we have increased our vigilance. Later, talking to tankers who were also attacked by suicide bombers, I learned that the Japanese jumped out of the trenches with mines on bamboo poles and fell under machine-gun bursts, having managed to shout "Banzai!" If they tried to put their mine unnoticed, the losses from them could be much greater. But the impression was that it was more important for them to die beautifully than to destroy the tank.
There was no shortage of volunteers for the suicide squads. In letters to relatives and friends, young people who were facing imminent death enthusiastically announced their intention to give their lives for Japan, for the Emperor.
So the twenty-year-old midshipman Teruo Yamaguchi wrote to his parents: "Do not cry for me. Although my body will turn to dust, my spirit will return to my native land, and I will always stay with you, my friends and neighbors. I pray for your happiness." Another driver of the Kaiten, twenty-two-year-old midshipman Ichiro Hayashi, consoled his mother in a letter: “Dear mother, please do not miss me. What a blessing to die in battle! I was lucky to get the opportunity to die for Japan ... Goodbye dear. Ask Heaven to take me in. I will be very sad if Heaven turns away from me. Pray for me, mother!"
The atomic bomb is, of course, a crime. But when landing on the islands of the mother country, the Japanese command was preparing to meet the American landings with an army of suicide bombers. More than 250 ultra-small submarines, more than 500 Kaiten torpedoes, 1,000 Sinye exploding boats, 6,000 Fukuryu divers and 10,000 kamikaze pilots. The American command decided to kill several tens or hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians rather than lose the lives of their soldiers. And, in the end, the Japanese were the first to start. Who is right and who is wrong is for God to decide. But it is already possible to pay tribute to the courage of people who, by the will of fate, were our opponents in this war.
The greatest interest for historians of military affairs is now caused not by the great battles of large armies, but by single actions, where a person discovers his superiority over the machine and destroys it with his fearlessness, self-control, and strength of mind.
The fulfillment of special missions for mining ships and committing other sabotage is obviously associated with a mortal risk. A combat swimmer who has undergone thorough training and training, inspired by a sense of patriotism, possessing unbending willpower and fearlessness, consciously takes risks to complete the task. This is typical for the special forces of any army in the world. But even against the background of these iron people, the Japanese stand out especially. After all, a saboteur of any army takes a mortal risk, and a Japanese goes to his death.
This phenomenon is rooted in the ancient history of Japan and underlies the religion of Shinto, which in the "Land of the Rising Sun" strangely coexists with Buddhism.
The first mention of the use of suicide bombers dates back to the 13th century. In 1260, the grandson of Genghis Khan Kublai Khan ascended the Mongolian throne. After the victory over China, a new Mongol dynasty of emperors of China, the Yuan, was founded. The Mongols landed troops on Sumatra and Java, attacked Vietnam and Burma. By that time, the whole of Central Asia, the Far East, part of Western Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, including Rus', were already under the heel of the Mongols. However, there was a country that refused to submit to the mighty Empire, which enslaved dozens of states. It was Japan. In 1266, an ambassador was sent to Japan with a demand to submit to the Great Khan.
The Shikken (ruler) of Japan, Hojo Tokemuni, unconditionally rejected the demands of the Mongols. War became inevitable. The terrible danger of the Mongol invasion loomed over Japan, which received the name "Genko" in Japanese history. In November 1274, an armada of the Mongol fleet, consisting of 900 ships, with 40 thousand Mongol, Korean and Chinese soldiers, left the Korean port of HAPPO towards the Japanese islands. This army quickly killed the small squads of samurai on the islands of Tsushima and Iki. The Mongols fought, using masses of cavalry and tactics that allowed them to conquer the vast expanses of Europe and Asia.
The Japanese did not use large formations in battles. A samurai is primarily a loner warrior. The Japanese attached great importance to external forms of warfare. The main thing is that everything should be beautiful and according to the rules. First, they fired a whistling arrow "Kaburai" towards the enemy, challenging them to a duel. The best warriors stepped forward and demanded single combat. Then a hundred knights rode out and fought with the same number of the enemy. And only after that the army went into battle. In this case, this tactic failed. Military honor for the Mongols and their satellites did not exist. In a group, they surrounded singles and killed in the back, used poisoned arrows, which was not acceptable for samurai (for samurai, not ninja). The Japanese were losing the war without even causing much damage to the enemy. Next up is Kyushu. The Japanese clearly did not have enough strength to repel aggression. At the town of Hakata, the Mongols entered into a fierce battle with a small, but brave and well-trained detachment of samurai. Stubborn resistance, sun setting; the decision of the commander forced the Mongols to retreat to the ships to regroup forces.
In the evening, a storm began, turning into a typhoon. The Mongolian fleet was swept across the water surface, destroying more than 200 ships. The remnants of the armada, in complete disarray, were forced to return to Korea. Thus ended the first invasion.
The Japanese were already distinguished by their ability to learn and not to make old mistakes. Realizing that Khubilai would not calm down, they prepared more carefully for the next invasion. Defensive structures were built on Kyushu and Honshu, and samurai squads were concentrated in the places of the proposed landing. The tactics of the Mongols were studied and adopted, their own miscalculations and shortcomings were taken into account and analyzed.
In the spring of 1281, 4,500 ships with 150,000 soldiers on board under the command of the Mongol commander Alakhan left the Korean port of Happo. Never before and subsequently in the history of all peoples has there been a larger fleet than the Mongol one of 1281, either in the number of ships or in the number of troops. Huge ships armed with catapults carried a huge number of people and horses in their holds.
The Japanese built a huge number of small rowing boats with good speed and maneuverability. These ships were waiting in the wings in Hakata Bay. The morale of the Japanese was very high. Even the Japanese pirates left their craft and joined the imperial fleet.
The aggressor fleet was approaching Hakata Bay, destroying everything in its path. Finally, the Mongol armada entered Hakata Bay. And the battle broke out on land and at sea, where the Mongols were attacked by rowboats. The advantage here was on the side of the Japanese. The boats, despite the hail of cannonballs and arrows, approached the clumsy masses of the Chinese ships, the samurai climbed on board the ships with lightning speed and destroyed the crews. The Japanese fought, despising death, and this helped in the struggle. The Mongols turned out to be morally unprepared for the self-sacrifice that the Japanese soldiers made. Samurai won in battle in a limited space, their individual swordsmanship was better placed than that of the Mongols, who were accustomed to fighting in masses, if possible at a distance, shooting the enemy with poisoned arrows.
History has brought us many episodes of this battle. Kusano Jiro stands out among the heroes of the sea battle. A hail of arrows and cannonballs hit the boat he commanded, one of which tore off his arm. Having stopped the blood with a tourniquet, he continued to direct the battle. According to sources, the wounded samurai, overcoming pain, led the boarding team, personally killed 21 people in battle and set the enemy ship on fire.
Another Japanese commander, Miti Iri, wrote a prayer before the battle asking the kami gods to punish the enemy. Then he burned the paper with the text, and swallowed the ashes. Miti Ari equipped two row boats with the best warriors who swore to die in this battle. Hiding their swords under the folds of their clothes, the Japanese approached the flagship of the Mongols. They thought that the unarmed Japanese were approaching in order to negotiate or surrender. This allowed me to get closer. The samurai flew up to his deck. In a bloody battle, most died, but the rest managed to kill the commander of the Mongol fleet and set fire to the hulk of the ship.
Faced with such resistance on land and at sea (much is known about the land battle, but it is beyond the scope of the article), the Mongol fleet left Hakata Bay to regroup and meet with the second part of the armada approaching Japan. It was decided to go around the island of Kyushu and land on the other side.
After the meeting of the fleets, a huge force of the Mongols and their allies attacked the island of Takashima, preparing a new invasion of Kyushu. A deadly threat loomed over Japan again.
In all Shinto shrines, prayers were conducted without ceasing.
On August 6, 1281, a dark streak appeared in a clear, cloudless sky, which eclipsed the sun in a matter of minutes. And a deadly typhoon broke out. When the wind died down three days later, hardly a quarter of the original composition remained of the Mongol fleet - about 4 thousand warships and more than 100 thousand people died in the abyss.
The demoralized remnants of the crippled ships returned to Kolre. So ingloriously ended for the soldiers of Khubilai's campaign against Japan. Since that time, the idea has taken root in the minds of the Japanese that their country is under the special protection of national gods and no one can defeat it.
The idea of the divine origin of the country, belief in a miracle, the help of the Shinto gods, primarily Amaterasu and Hachiman, significantly influenced the formation of the national ideology. The heroes of the battles with the Mongols, who became gods in the minds of the Japanese, became examples for young people. And a beautiful death in battle has been sung for thousands of years in this country. Michi Ahri and his samurai became the gods of the Japanese suicide bombers and torpedo drivers.
Lightning speed is the basis of Japanese military doctrine. The Pacific War knows many examples when the Japanese first acted and then thought. Or they did not think at all, but only acted. The main thing is to be lightning fast and beautiful.
The desire for self-sacrifice, which made the Japanese fierce and fanatical warriors, at the same time led to irreparable losses in trained and well-trained pilots, submariners, which the Empire so needed. Enough has been said about Japanese views on the conduct of war. These views may have been good for the samurai of the Middle Ages and the legendary 47 ronin, who, according to ancient legend, made themselves hara-kiri after the death of their master, but they are completely unsuitable for 1941. American Admiral S.E. Morison, in his book The Rising Sun in the Pacific, assesses the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor as strategically stupid. He gives a very revealing example of the interrogation of a captured Japanese admiral, one of those who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Former Japanese admiral: "Why do you think our attack on Pearl Harbor was strategic stupidity?"
Investigator: "Were it not for this attack, the United States might not have declared war on Japan, and even if war had been declared, efforts to contain the Japanese offensive to the south due to our employment in Europe in the war with Hitler would not have been so decisive. A sure way to call America to war was an attack on American soil.
Former Japanese admiral: "However, we considered it necessary to put your fleet out of action so that, in order to exclude the possibility of offensive actions by the Americans, we could launch an offensive to the south.
Investigator: For how long, according to your calculations, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the American fleet would not be able to take offensive actions?
Former Japanese admiral: According to our assumptions within 18 months.
Investigator: In fact, when did the first operations of the American fleet begin?
Former Japanese admiral: Fast carriers began air strikes against the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands in late January and early February 1942, less than 60 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Investigator: Tell me, did you know the location of the fuel tanks in Pearl Harbor?
Former Japanese admiral: Of course. The location of the tanks was well known to us.
Investigator: And how many bombs were dropped on these tanks?
Former Japanese admiral: None, the main targets of attack were your capital warships.
Investigator: Did your operations officers who planned the attack ever think that destroying the fuel depots on Oahu would mean putting out of action the entire fleet that was in the Hawaiian Islands area until the fuel was delivered from the continent ? Then your boats would be able to prevent the delivery of fuel, thereby preventing the possibility of an American offensive for many months?
The Japanese admiral was shocked. The idea of destroying fuel supplies was new to him. The most expedient ways and means of neutralizing the American fleet did not occur to the Japanese even in hindsight. So they fought, making up for the lack of strategic thinking with the heroism of the personnel. Japanese boats were huge and difficult to manage. They had poor noise masking and an unreliable control system. Lack of living quarters, unsanitary conditions, strong vibration of the hull. It's amazing how Japanese submarines could swim at all. And not only to swim, but also to sink large warships.
Almost all the successes of the Japanese were associated with the cult of self-sacrifice in the war, brought to the point of absurdity. According to the Bushido samurai code, dying in battle is the highest happiness. But the decision to die or not is made by the warrior himself. In the early 1930s, during the war in China, the first suicide bombers appeared, in the 20th century who knowingly went to their deaths.
During the Shanghai operation, three soldiers - sappers, having tied a hatimaki bandage around their heads, drinking a cup of sake and swearing to die (like the ancient samurai during the Mongol invasion) blew up the Chinese fortification with one large mine. The dead soldiers were proclaimed divine and declared a model of "yamatodamasiya" "Japanese spirit". In Japan, they became known as "Bakudansanyushi" (three brave warriors with a bomb). It is much easier to send soldiers to certain death than to call in artillery. In addition, you can raise a fuss about this issue and intimidate America and the Soviet Union, which support China. In 1934, an announcement was published in Japanese newspapers about the recruitment of volunteer suicide bombers, drivers of guided torpedoes.
Actions like these were needed to keep the US from sending a fleet to help Beijing. More than 5,000 applications were received for 400 places. But then it didn’t come to use, and there were no torpedoes. The Japanese returned to the idea of suicide - torpedo drivers in 1942, losing the battle of Midway, although the idea of attacking a torpedo fired by a submarine, but controlled by a person (a volunteer) in it, took shape by the time of the first attack on Pearl Harbor. Mochitsura Hashimoto, the commander of the submarine (I 58) - the carrier of guided torpedoes, describes in detail the history of the creation of the Kaiten torpedoes in his memoirs.
“Several such torpedoes were made for the first series of tests,” Hashimoto writes, “they were tested near the Kure naval base on the island, which was known under the code name“ Base - 2 ”. stage when it seemed that they could be put into production and then used in a combat situation.However, the design of torpedoes excluded the possibility of saving the person who controlled it, that is, he was doomed to certain death, which was objected to by the naval command. a device that allows, by simply pressing a button, to throw the driver into the sea at a distance of about 45 meters from the target.
Around February 1944, a prototype human torpedo was delivered to the headquarters of the Navy, and soon the torpedoes were put into production. With a passionate hope for success, they began to manufacture them in the experimental torpedo shop of the shipyard in Kura. There were high hopes for this weapon. Now, it seemed, it was possible to take revenge on the enemy for the heavy losses suffered by Japan. By this time the island of Saipan had passed into the hands of the Americans, and we had suffered heavy losses.
The new weapon was named "Nytens", which meant "The Way to Paradise". In the book of Taras, the name of this torpedo is translated as "Shaking Heaven", in other sources there are translations "Turn to the sky" and "Restoration of forces after their decline." Apparently this hieroglyph has many interpretations.
While the manufacture of torpedoes was underway, a base was organized in Tokuyama Bay, where personnel were trained.
Alas! On the very first day of testing in Tokuyama Bay, one of the volunteers and champions of this weapon drowned. The torpedo he was in was buried in the mud and could not be raised. This boded ill for the future."
The omen did not deceive. Only in the process of training, as a result of the imperfection of technology, 15 people died. From the idea of a catapult, which gave a chance for salvation, had to be abandoned. The Japanese command was not up to saving the lives of torpedo drivers. Japan lost one battle after another. It was urgent to launch a miracle weapon. The first Kaiten samples were launched on the surface. The boat surfaced, launched torpedoes and went deep. Drivers landed in the area of operations of the American fleet, they themselves were looking for a target. Since it was dangerous to risk a boat in an area where aircraft and ships could detect it, drivers were dropped off at night near the harbors where the Americans were based and often torpedoes simply disappeared without finding a target, went to the bottom due to technical problems, stuck in anti-submarine networks. The driver's exit to cut the network was not provided.
Later they began to convert boats to launch torpedoes from a submerged position. The drivers got into the torpedoes in advance and waited for the boat to find the target. Air was supplied through a hose, communication was carried out by telephone. Finally, at the very end of the war, boats appeared from which it was possible to go into the torpedo directly from the compartment through the lower torpedo hatch. The effectiveness of the torpedo immediately increased. Hashimoto describes a case where his boat lay on the ground, and an American destroyer bombarded her with depth charges. He decided to attack the destroyer with human torpedoes. The suicide bomber said goodbye to everyone and got into the Kaiten. The sailor battened down the rear hatch behind him, after a few minutes the sound of a torpedo engine was heard, the exclamation "Banzai!" Then the connection was cut off. Then there was an explosion. When the boat surfaced, only debris floated on the surface.
The descriptions of the behavior of torpedo drivers before going on a mission are interesting. “During the long periods of being under water, there was nothing to do in the boat. Both officers from the torpedo drivers, apart from preparing their torpedoes and training observation in the periscope, had no other duties, so they played chess. One of them was present during the attack of human torpedoes in near the Ulithi Islands, but he himself failed to attack due to a malfunction of the torpedo.He was a very good chess player...
The enemy seemed to have surrounded us. I ordered the drivers of torpedoes No. 2 and No. 3 to immediately take their places. It was cloudy, but there were some bright stars in the sky. In the dark, we did not see the faces of the drivers when they both came to the bridge to report. They were silent for a while, then one of them asked: Commander, where is the constellation "Southern Cross?" His question took me by surprise. I scanned the sky, but did not notice this constellation. A nearby navigator noticed that the constellations were not yet visible, but that it would soon appear in the southeast. The drivers, saying simply that they were going to take their places, resolutely shook hands with us and left the bridge.
I still remember the self-control of these two young people. The sailor, whose job was to close the bottom cover of the torpedo, did his job and raised his hands, showing that everything was ready. At 2 hours 30 minutes, the order followed: "prepare for the release of human torpedoes!" The rudders of the torpedoes were set in accordance with the position of the rudders of the submarine. Prior to the release of human torpedoes, communication with them was maintained by telephone, at the time of separation of the torpedoes from the submarine, the telephone wires leading to them could be tied up.
Ten minutes later, everything was ready for the launch of torpedoes, scheduled for 0300 on the basis that at 0430 it would begin to get light.
The driver of torpedo No. 1 reported: "Ready!" The last clamp was released, the torpedo engine started up and the driver rushed to his goal. The last connection with him was cut off at the moment when the torpedo separated from the boat and rushed towards the enemy ships that were in the harbor of the island of Guam! At the very last moment before the release, the driver exclaimed: "Long live the Emperor!"
The release of torpedo No. 2 was carried out in exactly the same way. Despite his youth, her driver remained calm to the end and left the boat without saying a word.
Too much water got into the engine of torpedo No. 3, and its release was postponed to the last stage. During the release of torpedo number 4, it also sounded: "Long live the Emperor!" Finally, torpedo number 3 was fired. Due to a phone malfunction, we weren't able to hear her driver's last words.
At that moment, there was a huge explosion. We surfaced and, fearing persecution, began to retreat to the open sea ...
... We tried to see what was happening in Apra Bay, but at that moment a plane appeared and we had to leave."
Meanwhile, the war was getting more and more fierce. In addition to human torpedoes, baby boats and manmines from fukuryu teams, the Japanese naval command began to use units of "giretsu kutebutai" - teams of suicide paratroopers. In February 1945, the Japanese dropped a paratrooper, consisting of the military personnel of this team, on one of the army airfields. The paratroopers, tied with packages of explosives, destroyed seven "flying fortresses" along with themselves and burned 60 thousand gallons (1 gallon - 4.5 liters) of gasoline. 112 suicide soldiers died in this battle. Information about the effectiveness of suicide attacks is very contradictory. Japanese propaganda agreed to the fact that each kamikaze, as a rule, destroyed a large warship. When suicide bombers ceased to be a military secret, they began to write a lot about them, extolling the results of their actions to the skies, calling new crowds of young people into the ranks of suicides. The Americans, on the contrary, did not acknowledge their losses and reported understated figures, misleading the Japanese command about the degree of effectiveness of their sabotage forces and means. According to Japanese propaganda, kamikaze, fikuryu, kaiten and other suicide squads destroyed many times more ships than the Americans had in the Pacific Fleet. According to American data, the Japanese lost a whole lot of carrier boats and achieved practically no results. By the way, I read a book by an Englishman about Japanese aces pilots (not kamikaze). He treats with irony their reports of victories over Soviet and American aircraft. For example, in the battles at Halkin Gol, one Japanese ace, according to his reports, destroyed such a number of aircraft that the Russians did not have in that area at all. A Japanese newspaper wrote that he killed one Soviet pilot with a samurai sword, sitting next to a wrecked Soviet plane. Samurai is taken at his word (as a gentleman). So, if no one reproaches the Japanese for lack of courage, then they have a hard time with truthfulness. Therefore, the degree of effectiveness of the use of suicide bombers is still not known (and probably will not be known) (I do not touch on aviation).
By the end of the war, the rights and benefits of suicide bombers and their families were regulated. Goodbye to the gods, the future god of soldiers will get the opportunity to live to their heart's content. Every restaurant owner considered it an honor to host a suicide bomber without taking any money from him. Universal honor and admiration, love of the people, family benefits. All close relatives of the future kami (god) were surrounded by honor.
The exit to the mission was furnished according to the rules invented for kamikaze. The headband "hachimaki" with sayings, inscriptions or the image of the sun - the coat of arms of the Empire, like the medieval samurai, symbolized a state in which a person was ready to move from everyday life to sacredness and tying it was, as it were, a prerequisite for inspiring a warrior and gaining courage. Before boarding a plane or a torpedo, the suicide bombers said to each other a ritual farewell phrase: "See you at the Yasukuni Temple."
It was necessary to go to the target with open eyes, not closing them until the very last moment. Death was supposed to be perceived without any emotions, calmly and quietly, with a smile, according to the medieval traditions of the feudal host. Such an attitude towards one's own death was considered the ideal of a warrior.
The use of suicide bombers, according to Japanese propaganda, was supposed to show the superiority of the spirit of the Japanese over the Americans. General Kawabe Torashiro noted that the Japanese until the end of the war believed in the possibility of fighting the Americans on an equal footing - "Spirit against machines."
What is the difference between the European and Japanese understanding of death. As one Japanese officer, an unconscious prisoner, explained to the Americans: while Europeans and Americans think that life is beautiful, the Japanese think how good it is to die. Americans, British or Germans, having been captured, will not regard this as a catastrophe, they will try to escape from it in order to continue the fight. The Japanese will consider captivity a cowardly act, because. for a warrior - a samurai, true courage - to know the time of his death. Death is victory.
As a rule, everyone going on a mission left dying poems praising death for the Emperor and the Motherland. Some former suicide bombers who did not have time to die in battle still regret it.
It was not possible to replace the typhoon that saved Japan in the 13th century with people. Hundreds of midget submarines and thousands of guided torpedoes remained in the hangars without waiting for the crews. And thank God (both ours and Japan's). Japan lost the war. Someone will call suicide bombers fanatics and scumbags. Someone will admire the courage of people going to their deaths for their homeland in a desperate attempt to save the situation, fighting with the spirit against the machines. Let everyone make a conclusion for himself.
According to http://www.vrazvedka.ru/main/history/afonchenko-03.shtml
The popularized and highly distorted image of the Japanese kamikaze, formed in the minds of Europeans, has little to do with who they really were. We imagine the kamikaze as a fanatical and desperate warrior, with a red bandage around his head, a man with an angry look at the controls of an old aircraft, rushing towards the target, shouting “banzai!”. But kamikaze were not only air suicide bombers, they also acted under water. Preserved in a steel capsule - a guided torpedo-kaiten, kamikaze destroyed the enemies of the emperor, sacrificing themselves for Japan and at sea. They will be discussed in today's material.
Before proceeding directly to the story of “live torpedoes”, it is worth briefly diving into the history of the formation of schools and the ideology of kamikaze.
The education system in Japan in the middle of the 20th century was not much different from the dictatorial schemes for the formation of a new ideology. From an early age, children were taught that when they died for the emperor, they were doing the right thing and their death would be blessed. As a result of this academic practice, young Japanese grew up with the motto "jusshi reisho" ("sacrifice your life").
Plus, the state machine in every possible way concealed any information about the defeats (even the most insignificant ones) of the Japanese army. The propaganda created a false impression of Japan's capabilities and effectively convinced poorly educated children that their deaths were a step towards total Japanese victory in the war.
It is appropriate to recall the Bushido Code, which played an important role in shaping the ideals of kamikaze. Japanese warriors from the time of the samurai considered death literally as part of life. They got used to the fact of death and were not afraid of its approach.
Educated and experienced pilots flatly refused to go to the kamikaze squads, referring to the fact that they simply had to stay alive in order to train new fighters who were destined to become suicide bombers.
Thus, the more young people who sacrificed themselves, the younger were the recruits who took their places. Many were practically teenagers, not even 17 years old, who had a chance to prove their loyalty to the empire and prove themselves as “real men”.
Kamikaze recruited from poorly educated young guys, the second or third boys in families. This selection was due to the fact that the first (i.e. eldest) boy in the family usually became the heir to the fortune and therefore did not fall into the military sample.
Kamikaze pilots received a form to fill out and took five oath points:
The soldier is obliged to fulfill his obligations.
A soldier is obliged to observe the rules of decency in his life.
The soldier is obliged to highly revere the heroism of the military forces.
A soldier must be a highly moral person.
A soldier must live a simple life.
So simply and simply, all the "heroism" of the kamikaze was reduced to five rules.
Despite the pressure of ideology and the imperial cult, not every young Japanese was eager to accept with a pure heart the fate of a suicide bomber, ready to die for his country. The kamikaze schools did have queues of young kids, but that's only part of the story.
It's hard to believe, but even today there are still "live kamikazes". One of them, Kenichiro Onuki, in his notes said that young people could not help but enroll in kamikaze squads, because this could bring trouble to their families. He recalled that when he was "offered" to become a kamikaze, he laughed at the idea, but changed his mind overnight. If he dared to disobey the order, then the most harmless thing that could happen to him is the stigma of "a coward and a traitor", and in the worst case, death. Although for the Japanese, everything can be just the opposite. By chance, his plane did not start during a sortie, and he survived.
The story of the submarine kamikaze is not as fun as the story of Kenichiro. There were no survivors left in it.
The idea of creating suicide torpedoes was born in the minds of the Japanese military command after a brutal defeat in the battle of Midway Atoll.
While the drama known to the world was unfolding in Europe, a completely different war was going on in the Pacific. In 1942, the Japanese Imperial Navy decided to attack Hawaii from the tiny Midway Atoll, the extreme western group of the Hawaiian archipelago. The atoll was home to a US airbase, which the Japanese army decided to launch its large-scale offensive from, destroying it.
But the Japanese miscalculated. The Battle of Midway was one of the major failures and the most dramatic episode in that part of the globe. During the attack, the imperial fleet lost four large aircraft carriers and many other ships, but accurate data on Japanese casualties have not been preserved. However, the Japanese never really considered their soldiers, but even without that, the loss greatly demoralized the military spirit of the fleet.
This defeat marked the beginning of a series of Japanese failures at sea, and the military command had to invent alternative ways of waging war. Real patriots should have appeared, brainwashed, with a gleam in their eyes and not afraid of death. So there was a special experimental unit of underwater kamikaze. These suicide bombers were not much different from aircraft pilots, their task was identical - sacrificing themselves to destroy the enemy.
Underwater kamikazes used kaiten torpedoes to carry out their mission under water, which means “the will of heaven” in translation. In fact, the kaiten was a symbiosis of a torpedo and a small submarine. He worked on pure oxygen and was able to reach speeds of up to 40 knots, thanks to which he could hit almost any ship of that time.
A torpedo from the inside is an engine, a powerful charge and a very compact place for a suicide pilot. At the same time, it was so narrow that even by the standards of small Japanese, there was a catastrophic lack of space. On the other hand, what difference does it make when death is inevitable.
1 Japanese kaiten at Camp Dealy, 1945 3. Kaitens in drydock, Kure, October 19, 1945. 4, 5. A submarine sunk by American aircraft during the Okinawa campaign.
Directly in front of the face of the kamikaze is a periscope, next to it is the speed switch, which essentially regulates the oxygen supply to the engine. At the top of the torpedo there was another lever responsible for the direction of movement. The dashboard was crammed with all sorts of devices - fuel and oxygen consumption, pressure gauge, clock, depth gauge and so on. At the pilot's feet there is a valve for letting seawater into the ballast tank to stabilize the weight of the torpedo. It was not so easy to control a torpedo, besides, the training of pilots left much to be desired - schools appeared spontaneously, but just as spontaneously they were destroyed by American bombers.
Initially, kaiten were used to attack enemy ships moored in bays. A carrier submarine with kaitens fixed outside (from four to six pieces) detected enemy ships, built a trajectory (literally turned around relative to the location of the target), and the submarine captain gave the last order to the suicide bombers.
Through a narrow pipe, the suicide bombers penetrated into the cabin of the kaiten, battened down the hatches and received orders by radio from the captain of the submarine. The kamikaze pilots were completely blind, they did not see where they were going, because it was possible to use the periscope for no more than three seconds, since this led to the risk of detecting a torpedo by the enemy.
At first, kaitens terrified the American fleet, but then imperfect equipment began to malfunction. Many suicide bombers did not swim to the target and suffocated from lack of oxygen, after which the torpedo simply sank. A little later, the Japanese improved the torpedo by equipping it with a timer, leaving no chance for either the kamikaze or the enemy. But at the very beginning, kaiten claimed humanity. The torpedo was provided with an ejection system, but it did not work in the most efficient way, or rather, did not work at all. At high speed, no kamikaze could safely eject, so this was abandoned in later designs.
Very frequent raids by submarines with kaitens led to the fact that the devices rusted and failed, since the body of the torpedo was made of steel no more than six millimeters thick. And if the torpedo sank too deep to the bottom, then the pressure simply flattened the thin body, and the kamikaze died without due heroism.
The first evidence of a kaiten attack recorded by the United States dates from November 1944. The attack involved three submarines and 12 kite torpedoes against a moored American vessel off the coast of Ulithi Atoll (Caroline Islands). As a result of the attack, one submarine simply sank, of the eight remaining kaitens, two failed at launch, two sank, one disappeared (although it was later found washed ashore) and one exploded before reaching the target. The remaining kaiten crashed into the Mississineva tanker and sank it. The Japanese command regarded the operation as successful, which was immediately reported to the emperor.
It was possible to use kaitens more or less successfully only at the very beginning. Thus, following the results of naval battles, the official propaganda of Japan announced that 32 American ships were sunk, including aircraft carriers, battleships, cargo ships and destroyers. But these figures are considered too exaggerated. By the end of the war, the American Navy had significantly increased its combat power, and it was increasingly difficult for kaiten pilots to hit targets. Large combat units in the bays were reliably guarded, and it was very difficult to approach them imperceptibly even at a depth of six meters, the kaitens also had no opportunity to attack the ships scattered in the open sea - they simply could not withstand long swims.
The defeat at Midway pushed the Japanese to desperate steps in blind revenge on the American fleet. Kaiten torpedoes were a crisis solution that the imperial army had high hopes for, but they did not materialize. Kaitens had to solve the most important task - to destroy enemy ships, and no matter what the cost, however, the farther, the less effective their use in hostilities was seen. A ridiculous attempt to irrationally use the human resource led to the complete failure of the project. The war ended with the total defeat of the Japanese, and kaitens became another bloody piece of history.
