Last Letters of Japanese Kamikaze Pilots

(CNN) — Think of a kamikaze pilot and the image that comes to mind is probably a screaming face obscured by goggles in a deadly dive.

Or maybe there is no face and just a fighter jet colliding with a warship.

He’s probably not a teenager crying in a seedy, semi-underground bunker with a sheet pulled over his head.

And high school students don’t gleefully pet a puppy just hours before an American aircraft carrier sinks to ashes.

But these are some of the real faces of kamikazes attached to the walls of the Kanoya Air Base Museum and the Chiran Peace Museum, both located on the Japanese island of Kyushu.

There are hundreds of them.

In many images you can see his last words, often in letters to his mothers, apologizing for the indiscretions of his youth and promising to make them proud.

The youngest kamikaze pilot was Yasuo Tanaka, who was only 16 years old. It flew into Okha, essentially a bomb with wings but no wheels falling off the mother plane. He died on May 11, 1945. His portrait can be seen at the Kanoya Museum, on the grounds of the current base of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces.

A museum official said they do not have the teenager’s last letter, but letters from other young kamikazes show the youth’s bravery.

Torao Kato, an 18-year-old second lieutenant, wrote in Japanese with bold strokes: “Dear mother, please live a long life full of enthusiasm. I will try to destroy a big one.”

The oldest kamikaze at age 32 was Army Lt. Col. Yoshio Itsui, the unit commander who led the first flights from Chiran Air Base on April 1, 1945.

Itsui left behind a wife and three young children, including a toddler. The Chiran Museum book, “The Mind of the Kamikaze,” contains Itsui’s last letter to the child, which is on display at the museum.

“Work hard and please grow up to be an excellent Japanese and the son of the emperor,” Itsui wrote.

According to the book, her son will never read the letter. When the pilot’s wife learned of his death, she was unable to produce milk for the baby, who died of malnutrition four months later.

“He did not hesitate to accept his duty”

On a sunny October morning in the auditorium of the Chiran Museum, stories like Itsui’s presentation on the history of kamikaze brought tears to nearly everyone in the audience of about 30. Even for a non-Japanese speaker, the images on the screen and the emotions of the other people in the cinema are enough to bring tears to your eyes.

Among the images in the presentation is a young kamikaze petting a puppy, an image that many consider the most striking image of Suicide Squad ever.

The pilots were between the ages of 17 and 19 and were all so-called Young Pilots, young men who joined the Air Force Training Corps at age 14, before kamikaze units were established.

“Mostly they didn’t know they were going to be kamikaze pilots,” according to “The Mind of the Kamikaze.”

“However, once they knew their fate, they did not hesitate to accept their duty,” the book says, “believing it was worth dying for their country and their parents.”

The five young men in that puppy photo died on May 27, 1945, among 335 young pilots who gave their lives as kamikazes.

Among the photographs on the walls of the Chiran Museum is one of American captain Masaji Takano.

He was born in Hawaii, married a Japanese woman, went to Japan to attend university and enlisted in the kamikaze ranks, the museum book says.

His last letter features a picture of a diving plane with the words: “I will surely send an enemy battleship to the bottom.”

Takano had three brothers, another who fought for Japan and two who fought for the American Army in Europe, the book says.

The US Navy’s Deadliest Enemies

Kamikaze Combines two Japanese words: “kami” means “divine” and “kaze” means “wind”. The term entered the lexicon in 1281, when a great storm drove a Mongol invasion fleet into poorly defended Japan, saving the Japanese from a potentially devastating war.

In Japan, World War II kamikazes are also known as “tokko”, meaning “special attack” pilots. When the war in the Pacific turned against Japanese forces in 1944, the tactic of crashing bomb-laden aircraft into American warships was initiated by Admiral Takejiro Onishi as a last-ditch effort to protect Japanese territory from an invading American fleet. Archives

In total, 1,036 boys and men who were part of the army died in kamikaze missions, according to figures provided by the museum.

Another 1,584 flying for naval units also died in combat.

Between the two branches, they flew more than 1,730 combat missions.

And the toll they took on the US Navy was brutal.

The US Naval History and Heritage Command considers the Battle of Okinawa, fought from April 1 to June 22, 1945, to be the deadliest battle ever experienced by the US Navy.

The US According to the Department of Defense, about 40% of the 12,000 American soldiers killed in the battle were aboard the 26 American ships that were sunk and 168 were damaged in kamikaze attacks near Okinawa.

(In 1945 American forces were well aware that they had to face a brutal suicide mission by Imperial Japanese forces who, motivated by extreme militarism and loyalty to their emperor, were mercilessly attacking the conquered peoples in East and Southeast Asia.

Perhaps the most infamous mass suicide attack occurred a year earlier on the Pacific island of Saipan, when, realizing that victory on the battlefield was impossible, some 4,000 Japanese soldiers launched a suicide attack against superior American forces.

“They were following the last orders of their commander, Lt. Gen. Yoshisugu Saito, who called for this ultimate surprise attack in honor of the emperor before committing ritual suicide,” according to a post on the Atomic Heritage Foundation’s 2016 website.

Similar small-scale suicide attacks occurred in the Okinawa Land War, but one Japanese survivor on Okinawa remembers that it encouraged that mentality.

“In those days when 100 million Japanese citizens were supposedly ready to fight to the last man, everyone was ready to die,” says survivor Kinjo Shigeki. “The principle of absolute obedience to the emperor emphasized death and minimized life. The willingness to die for the emperor on a distant island led to a whole new sense of identity.

Kamikaze faithful

Travelers to Chiran Base often spent their last night at Chiran’s Tomiya Inn, where owner Tom Torihama became a confidant to many of them. Some did not subject their last words to their relatives to military censorship.

His family has preserved some of that correspondence and other artefacts in a separate small museum in the town of Chiran, not far from the Shanti Museum and a perfect stop to get a broader perspective on the samurai.

But first, if you travel, you should stop at a restaurant run by Kenta Torihama, Torihama’s great-grandson, near the main museum. He happily chats with visitors about his great-grandmother and kamikaze.

It is important that the stories of Kamikaze and his grandmother are not forgotten, he tells visitors.

But he wishes more foreigners would come: He says only 5% of those who pass through are from outside Japan, and even fewer are from other Asian countries.

“The Japanese see kamikaze as protectors, foreigners see them as the enemy,” he says.

But he says that the final letters of Kamikaze are full of lessons, particularly showing the madness and tragedy of war.

“If we could all learn from that, the world would be a much more peaceful place today,” he says.

The Last Samurai

The Kanoya and Chiran Museums are near Kagoshima on the southern tip of Kyushu Island.

The World War II airfields from which the kamikaze flew were located so that the planes could make the trip to Okinawa quickly with as little fuel as possible. There were also kamikaze attacks from Japanese bases in Taiwan and the Philippines.

But it is also fitting that Kagoshima is considered the last stronghold of Japan’s samurai warrior class.

The Satsuma Samurai Rebellion against the Imperial Government ended with the death of the legendary samurai Saigo Takamori on Mount Shiroyama in Kagoshima in September 1877.

Despite holding the heights, Saigo’s force of about 400 men fell to an Imperial army nearly 1,000 times its size.

For the historical tour enthusiast, visiting the site of the samurai’s last stand is another way to spend a few hours in the area.

Why go there?

The Chiran and Kanoya Museums are located on two separate peninsulas on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan. Both are best accessed by car, which can be easily rented in the city of Kagoshima, just west of the two peninsulas.

Kagoshima has a small commercial airport, but it can be easier to fly into Fukuoka’s larger international airport and take the 90-minute bullet train to Kagoshima.