The Divine Wind.

[von Poop]

A mention of a Kamikaze museum on one of those 'Gladiators of ww2' type television programmes just now led me to this interesting web site/project:
Kamikaze Images
Worth a shufti.

Cheers,
Adam.

[marcus69x]

Was that on last night Adam? I watched something about kamikaze pilots last night on the history channel. They were off their heads them guys like. All singing songs on their last walk to their aircraft??? Some of the footage showed that some of them even missed their target. I wonder how daft they would have felt knowing that. Also, if this was their contribution to helping their country, the fact that they lost, does that make their actions pointless?

[von Poop]

Yes mate, UKTV History, one of their series they repeat ad nauseum.

The site intrigued me due to it's serious attempt at getting a balanced view of US & Japanese perspectives. (though not much on what commonwealth troops who faced them thought, can't blame him for that, it seems a big subject he's taken on)
It's a tricky road he's chosen to follow which raises all sorts of questions on national and political perceptions of what is acceptable in warfare, These questions could so easily be diverted into arguments useful to apologists and even a kind of denial but he seems to walk the line rather well.
You can't always be too 'balanced' about grim events of politics and war but I'm always pleased when someone makes a serious attempt to be as neutral as possible as it can avoid the understandable subjective condemnation that can sometimes cloud the gathering of historical information. It could be said that the end result of such careful enquiry is a little bland but it is an approach that can provide much more material from both sides of a divide to base future enquiry, disagreements and even arguments upon.

[adrian roberts]

They were off their heads them guys like. All singing songs on their last walk to their aircraft??? Some of the footage showed that some of them even missed their target. I wonder how daft they would have felt knowing that. Also, if this was their contribution to helping their country, the fact that they lost, does that make their actions pointless?

If you read the site carefully, you will see that the Japanese considered - and sometimes still consider - that these men were not only heroes but that their tactics and mentality were entirely logical, given the culture in which they lived.

It is only in Western culture, since the Renaissance and more especially in the last hundred years or so, that the individual is seen as more important than community. In other cultures, people's identity is seen as having validity only in the context of their family and community. Therefore giving your life for the sake of the community is perfectly justifiable.

I'm not supporting suicide weapons - I still consider Western culture,founded first on Greek and then on Christian philosophy, to be superior precisely because it values the individual. But current events in Middle East show that we misunderstand the culture that leads to suicide warfare at our peril. It just won't do to say that Kamikaze pilots, or modern suicide bombers, are a bunch of brainwashed fanatics.

Sorry to lead onto modern politics, but the parallels are highly compelling, and the whole point of studying history is to learn from it.

[jason taylor]

I think that all this is somewhat exaggerated. Every belligerant that had any effectiveness at all at those times did things like that once in a while. Anyone remember Churchill saying, "you can always take one with you"? And history shows that that was not always metaphor-but the fact that the metaphor came so naturally shows that it really isn't so odd a thought to Westerners. The difference is that the Japanese did that routinely and often by their own hand(the last difference is minute as regards "mindset" and is really only a cultural eccentricity as compared to the similarities). However many countries at such a desperate situation would have done something similar.
And singing songs going on one's last walk to one's aircraft doesn't seem weird to me at all. It is just putting up a front to make a good impression when they go. Like a condemned man wearing evening dress and paying a tip to the hangman. Or like Spartans saying "tonight we dine in Hades". Or like that guy in "God's and Generals" quoting classics as he advances on Fredricksburg. The point is the same, to work oneself up and to make sure one retains one's pride.
As for "giving ones life for one's community" being less acceptable in Western countries, you do realize that it would be kind of hard to fight World War II without that being acceptable in Western Countries. And in any case valuing individuals in this regard usually means valuing other individuals. Neither Greek nor Christian philosophy says that an individual ought to value HIMSELF over other individuals. That is more Seinfield philosophy.
As for comparing Kamikazes with suicide bombers, that is more then a little insulting. Suicide bombers are attacking civilians walking the streets peacefully.
It is the curious, and rather unclassy conceit of Anglo-Americans that we are brave but our enemies are fanatical. Not only is that ungracious but it prevents us from understanding our enemies and one must understand ones enemy to fight him.

[SouthWestPacificVet]

Heroes?

Read up on the japs first, spidge has some very accurate posts on what the heroes really did.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by SouthWestPacificVet

Heroes?

Read up on the japs first, spidge has some very accurate posts on what the heroes really did.

I have "read up" quite a bit on the Japs. And I do know the "it took him a long time to die" stories. And I don't see how all that is really relevant to the specific point about whether the Kamikazes came from a mindset which we can't understand. Obviously I can understand it in any case as I have demonstrated.
And I never used the word heros and it never occured to me as that would be a simplistic word. I did imply that I did not despise the Kamikazes, which of course I don't.
My point was that much of that ideology has reflections in any service culture which includes our own. It also includes the Germans and the Russians, neither of which services had a high reputation for niceness. I did not say that because they were similar in that area which is a military necessity, that they are similar in everything. That is like saying I think Eisenhower was a Nazi because he had a German name.
Courage and compassion are different virtues and there is no reason why a brave man cannot be cruel or a cowardly man kind. Nor does it mean that because two men are brave, honorable, chivalrous, etc but on opposite sides that their respective causes are therefore equally valid In fact all that happens all the time. Nor do I think my patriotism or my credentials as an abhorrer of tyranny and oppression are harmed by my acknowlegement that an oppressor can be brave. Or can have a little brother back home who never sacked Nanking or tortured a prisoner, but was willing to die.
If you must know, many of the Kamikaze pilots were students who had never been outside of Japan before that time and bear no blame except for being born at the wrong time.
And by the way if you really wish for the comparison between mindsets, wouldn't the "it took him a long time to die" kind of thing work better as an example of an alien mindset. At the least I find it harder to understand.

[spidge]

On reading the total thread Jason, the "heroes" statement by SouthWestPacificVet, was in response to post #4 by Adrian Roberts not yours.

[Christos]

The Pacific War has examples of self sacrifice on both sides.....as for Divine Wind pilots singing, well, lots of troops from all nationalities sing going into battle....If I'm getting into the cockpit of an aircraft to take off for a most probable one way trip I'm going to wan't SOMETHING to lift my spirits.....Never forget that these pilots were VOLUNTEERS to a man, but that is the only real difference between them and Ensign George Gay's Torpedo 8 at Midway, plowing in suicidally and acchieving for their efforts no hits, but drawing Japanese Combat Air Patrol down onto the deck and clearing the way for McKluskeys dive bombers.....most of those boys knew very well they would not make it out of that run, which makes their sacrifice no less worthy of mention than the Divine Wind......Is it not time that we see these human weapons not as products of diseased minds, but the inevitable result of a desperate situation.....Russia has many examples of suicidal self sacrifice as a deliberate policy, and I don't hear mention of their mental state of mind being called into question....

History deserves equal treatment for all participants, not just the winners....otherwise, we get the same wartime propaganda being perpetuated round and round by the writers of the history afterward....the winners...

[SouthWestPacificVet]

Have a look at this which had been posted by earlier Spidge.

Terrorism and Atrocity

This was not wartime or post war propaganda, it is real. Look at the dates, these were not desperate acts committed by a beaten nation,
this was how the japs conducted themselves.