Current Events: Kamikaze

Friday, Sept. 15, 2006; Suicide bombers; Japanese heroes

Based on a novel by Hideo Yokoyama, with a script by Yoji Yamada and Motofumi Tomikawa, Kiyoshi Sasabe's "Deguchi no Nai Umi (Sea Without Exit)" depicts the pilots of kaiten -- one-man submarines known by their enemies as "human torpedoes." Like the better-known tokkotai pilots, many of them were young, college-educated idealists who, in the normal course of events, would have gone on to lead normal lives, not to shout rightist slogans from the tops of sound trucks.

The film says that they were willing to die for their country. (This conflicts with material I have read which indicates that, at least towards the end, many of the kamikaze pilots were less than enthusiastic about going to their deaths.)The article says that the Westerners who liken them to today's terrorists are historically wrong and are being disrespectful to the memory of the honorable (or sainted) fallen.

The film deals with the pilots of kaiten vessels. The kaitens, a form of submarine, are not as well-known as the aircraft kamikaze, but their purpose was the same.

There are other recent films about kamikaze including:

Yoko Narahashi's "Winds of God" in 1995 (a time-traveling comedian from the present day ends up volunteering for a tokkotai mission)

"Otokotachi no Yamato" (2005) (sailors aboard the famed battleship Yamato knowing it is about to meet its doom).

There are four pilots featured in the film, and they have varying views on what it is they are doing, including one who resents what he has to do.

March 2, 2007, from yahoo.com. Tokyo governor promotes WW2 kamikaze film

The governor of Tokyo launched a publicity campaign for a film celebrating the bravery of the kamikaze pilots. The film is entitled I Go to Die for You.

The governor will be running for a third consecutive term, and posed with stars of the film by a replica of a plane of the type used by the special attack forces.

The article points out that the film, which casts japan's wartime military as tragic heroes comes out just as South Korea is talking about Japan's failure to atone for atrocities committed by its armed forces..

The movie apparently talks about a woman who ran a restaurant near a base where the young pilots trained, and who was a mother figure for many of them.

The governor said the film is not meant to glorify the kamikaze. The scriptwriter is careful to make sure that what the kamikaze did and what terrorists do in today's world are not confused as being the same thing. He noted that the special attacks were acts of war, not attacks on civilians like those of the terrorists.

Japanese look for new meaning from kamikaze sacrifice (CNN, July 8, 2007)

As yet another part of the growing ultra-nationalism in Japan, the governor of Tokyo is working on a film glorifying the kamikaze. The article starts by quoting a kamikaze who claimed he would “bring back the neck” of President Roosevelt. He never returned from his mission.

There is a museum about the kamikaze located in Chiran, and it gets more than 500,000 visitors each year.

The article also talks about government efforts to “expunge accounts of Japanese atrocities from history books and reinstate patriotic instruction in the public schools.”

The film is supposed to be anti-war, but the director said that Japan launched the war in Asia “in self-defense.” The article points out that not all historians agree to glorify the kamikaze, and they quote one who said "It's extremely dangerous to glorify the kamikaze pilots as tragic heroes.”

There is a painting in the lobby that shows angels bearing the bodies of the kamikaze pilots to heaven. The museum director says the pilots gave their lives for their families, not the emperor, and points out that they attacked military and not civilian targets.

July 18, 2007; Rightists reinvent kamikaze image as patriotic role model

The article opens talking about Lt. Shinichi Uchida who, on April 12,1945, was preparing to crash his plane on purpose into a U.S. warship. He said “Now I'll go and get rid of those devils”, and he vowed to “bring back the neck” of FDR. He never returned from his mission.

One way of looking at that is as a warning about Japanese extreme militarism during World War II. Many people, however, see that as “the kind of guts and commitment that Japanese youth need today.”

The governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, a nationalist, wrote a film about the kamikaze, called “I Go to Die For You.” Such a movie is part of the different way many Japanese are looking at the country's involvement in World War II.

The article talks about the government removing accounts of Japanese atrocities from history books, and reinstating patriotic instruction in schools.

Then the article gets back to talking about the 4,000 or so kamikaze. According to the article, about 90% failed to reach the warships they were to attack.

The film will deal with the futility of the suicide missions, but still presenting them in a nationalistic way.

Not all Japanese agree with glorifying the kamikaze, though, as the article quotes a Japanese historian who says "It's extremely dangerous to glorify the kamikaze pilots as tragic heroes. The people who glorify them want to connect the prewar period with the present and future Japan," said Atsushi Shirai, a historian who has written about the pilots.

Another writer about kamikaze, who wrote "Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers," said the pilots' private writings and other evidence show that rather than stoic warriors, many were tortured souls, browbeaten and abused into flying to their deaths.”

The article talks about the Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots in Chiran. It takes the approach that the fliers “nobly gave their lives for their families.”

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