Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Samurai
by Raymond Lamont-Brown
Cassell, 1997, 192 pages
With the term "suicide bomber" constantly in the
news in the late 1990s, many people associated modern-day terrorists in Iraq, Israel, and other
countries with Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II. British historian
Raymond Lamont-Brown discusses the suicide attack phenomenon in this book's
Prologue (p. 9):
And what of the 'kamikaze' of the 1990s? Does the spirit of the
self-sacrificing Japanese of WWII live on? The answer is probably yes; that
spirit is still to be found among the world's terrorists.
Lamont-Brown also argues that the motivation of the kamikaze
pilots was still alive when three terrorists in the Japanese Red Army murdered
26 passengers and wounded about 80 others in the Tel Aviv airport in May 1972.
Although the term "suicide bomber" may be a
technically correct term for both kamikaze pilots and modern-day suicide
terrorists, the spirit of kamikaze pilots and the motivation of modern-day
terrorists differ radically. The kamikaze of World War II did not target
innocent civilians. The book mentions the more reasonable view of French
historian Jean Baechler, who "saw the kamikaze of WWII not as suicides for
'patriotic or romantic exultation' but purely as conducting a military
technique" (p. 8). In other words, just as Americans used incendiary and
atomic bombs to win the war against Japan, the Japanese military leaders
employed suicide attacks as their best hope in combating the Americans. Due to
the loss of experienced pilots, some Japanese leaders and pilots thought that
their best chance to inflict damage on enemy ships was to guide planes into
them rather than try to bomb or torpedo them and then escape to survive for
another attack. In 1944 in the Battle of the Philippine Sea (nicknamed by
Americans as "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot") and the Formosa Air Battle prior to
the start of kamikaze attacks, Japanese pilots suffered staggering losses
during conventional aerial attacks, so Japan's military leaders tried to
formulate a more effective strategy in the final stages of the war.
The author makes an unfair comparison between the kamikaze
of World War II and the three Japanese Red Army members who killed many
civilians in Tel Aviv in 1972. Although these terrorists were Japanese, the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine recruited them. Also, the
Japanese Red Army had an extremely small following, so no conclusion about
kamikaze pilots should be made based on the terrorist actions of three members
of an extremist group with very few members.
After the book's provoking Prologue, about half the chapters
provide a generally chronological history of Japan's kamikaze operations, and the other
half deal with special topics such as the battleship Yamato, types of
aircraft used in suicide attacks, the ōka
glider bomb, and four types of ocean kamikaze including the kaiten human
torpedo. One chapter covers the British
experience with kamikaze.
Although Kamikaze: Japan's
Suicide Samurai contains much interesting information (including 16 pages of
photos in the middle and some information not found in other English-language
histories of kamikaze operations), some of the book's
features and arrangement make it a struggle to get through. Unlike other
English-language books on kamikaze, the author uses numerous Japanese terms and
military ranks throughout the book. Although a five-page glossary provides
definitions for Japanese terms, most readers will have difficulty remembering
the many Navy and Army ranks. The author includes certain chapters
not directly related to the book's main topic, such as one chapter on balloons
with attached bombs launched from Japan in the hope of reaching the U.S. west
coast. Also, Chapter 17 on "Portraits of the Kamikaze" has brief
biographical details on several men who were not even kamikaze pilots. The book also
includes some detail lists that will interest very few readers, such as a
one-page listing of missions of the Divine Thunderbolt Corps (p. 120).
Even though this book covers the basic history of Japan's kamikaze
attacks, other books such as The Divine Wind
by Inoguchi and Nakajima and The Sacred Warriors by Warner
and Warner tell the story with a more organized and documented approach.
Cover of hardback edition published
by Arms and Armour Press in 1997
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