You pace across the the bridge of the American Destroyer, keeping a look out for Japanese warships in the Pacific Ocean. As you gaze over the horizon, you hear a sound. A loud buzz, the buzz of an aircraft. Terrified, you look up into the blue sky and see a small aircraft. The aircraft starts shooting, gunning down everything that it sees. The aircraft starts to dive, straight towards your ship. The destroyer opens fire but can’t stop the aircraft. It strikes the destroyers, blowing itself to smithereens. The destroyer is severely damaged. As the crack in the hull expands, the destroyer starts to sink. You know that this is the end of the line for you and your ship. You accept your fate as the salty water soaks your uniform and you go down with your ship.

This was the fate for more than 400 ships in the Pacific Theater. Ships struck down or damaged by small, sneaky, and swift Japanese planes. Kamikaze is Japanese term which meant the ‘divine wind’.

The Japanese forces believed that it was the most honorable act to die while fighting for their country while it was the most disrespectful thing to surrender to the enemy. Kamikaze attacks embodied this very moral. Kamikaze attacks were organized suicide attacks where Japanese forces sent in men in planes, ship and small submarines with one objective, hit the enemy ships as hard as possible. Some of these boats were equipped with 250 Kilograms (551 lbs) of explosives to blow up the enemy ships.

These were very effective attacks as the pilots didn’t need to worry about out-maneuvering the enemy. Their main object was to collide with them, so it didn’t matter if the craft when it hit the ship. They could go in blazing and still do tons of damage.

Kamikaze attacks were started as a last ditch attempt by the Japanese to fight off the Allied ships. They had been suffering heavy losses in the previous battles and could not train new pilots as fast. They also didn’t have the industrial capabilities to make new crafts. They knew their outdated war machines couldn’t fight off the Allied forces so they decided to use untrained pilots to fly outdated machines into Allied ships to slow them down.

One of the biggest Kamikaze attacks of all time was on the USS Bunker Hill by two Japanese pilots, Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and Lieutenant Junior Grade Seizō Yasunori. On May 11, 1945, they attacked the ship. Out of the 2600 personnel on the USS Bunker Hill, 389 were killed/missing and 264 were wounded.

These attacks showed the Allies the guts and the extent the Japanese forces were willing to go to fight against the Allied forces. These attacks led to the Allies push in on the Japanese forces and ultimately dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Credit: Colonel Tannenbusch via Youtube.com