WAR RESPONSIBILITY--delving into the past (7) / Suicide air, sea attacks gradually become systemized part of warfare

The Yomiuri Shimbun

After suffering heavy losses due to the reckless continuation of the war, the Japanese military launched campaigns of tokko (special attacks), in which airmen turned themselves into human bombs and hurtled into enemy targets.

The Army and Naval General Staffs of the Imperial Headquarters incorporated a policy in July 1944 that sought to "destroy enemy aircraft carriers and transport ships at any cost."

In early October, Koshiro Oikawa, chief of the Naval General Staff, met with Seiichi Ito, vice chief of the Naval General Staff, Tasuku Nakazawa, chief of naval operations at the Naval General Staff, and Takijiro Onishi, who was about to assume his post of commander in chief of the 1st Naval Air Fleet in Manila.

At the meeting, Onishi said, "Appealing to the high integrity of front line soldiers in terms of martyrdom and self-sacrifice, we have to dare to conduct attacks using aircraft."

Oikawa, who was in command for the operations, accepted the proposal, saying, "Holding back my tears, I endorse the proposal, but I request that it be carried out based on the voluntary will of each soldier."

Onishi told Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, "I will make the Philippines the last battleground by carrying out tokko attacks." He then left for Manila.

Onishi formed the first Kamikaze Special Attack Force, which consisted of four units.

On Oct. 25, the 13-man attack force led by Lt. Yukio Seki crash-dived their explosives-laden aircraft into enemy forces. The battles in the Philippines continued until January 1945, and about 700 special air attack pilots died in the operation.

Although suffering a major defeat in the Philippines, the Army and Naval General Staffs of the Daihonei decided to use all army and navy aircraft for tokko attacks.

Dating back to August 1943, about a year before the first kamikaze attack was carried out, Kameto Kuroshima, who had just assumed the post of assistant chief of staff of the Naval General Staff and was called the "God of Operations," spoke to top navy commanders about the necessity of tokko air attacks.

Just around the same time, Eiichiro Jo, aide-de-camp to the Emperor, requested Onishi, who was then head of the administrative section of the Navy Ministry Naval Aviation Bureau, to carry out aviation tokko attacks.

From then onward, the navy developed weapons for special attacks, including the "Oka" manned flying bomb and the "Kaiten" human torpedo under the supervision of Kuroshima and Nakazawa, among others. In September 1944, the navy finally established the "Tokko department (Office of Special Attacks)," thereby systemizing tokko attacks.

Army planning for special air attacks also shifted into full swing as soon as Jun Ushiroku assumed the post of inspector general of army aviation in March 1944. In the Battle of Okinawa, suicidal attacks became the core tactic of operations, led by Michio Sugahara, commander of the 6th Air Army. More than 9,500 were killed in tokko attacks.

Meanwhile, in battlefields around the South Pacific, soldiers were decimated unit after unit, division after division, under the name of "gyokusai," which literally means "jewel smashing" but actually means "dying an honorable death."

Senior officers in charge of operations in the Imperial Headquarters steadfastly stuck to their principle of "no reinforcement, no retreat and no surrender" until the end of the war. Garrisons were discarded on isolated Pacific islands, left to inevitably be annihilated sooner or later.

The prime symbol of such irresponsibility and disrespect for human life was the Imphal operation, which started in March 1944 in an attempt to capture the Indian city of Imphal.

A telegram message sent by Masafumi Yamauchi, leader of the 15th Army Division, conveyed the misery and monstrousness of the operation, in which 72,500 soldiers, out of 100,000, died or were wounded.

"Our men on the front line have lost their ability to fight due to illness and starvation, without ammunition, in torrential rain and a sea of mud, all due to incompetency of the army and Mutaguchi," he wrote.

Renya Mutaguchi, commander of the 15th Army, who brushed off objections from subordinates and insisted on carrying out the operation, must bear grave responsibiity but Masakazu Kawabe, commander of the Burma Area Army, who did not stop Mutaguchi, and the Southern Army and the Daihonei, which approved the operation, must be held accountable.

Those mainly responsible

-- Takijiro Onishi, commander of the 1st Naval Air Fleet in Manila

-- Tasuku Nakazawa, chief of naval operations at the Naval General Staff

-- Kameto Kuroshima, assistant chief of staff of the Naval General Staff

-- Renya Mutaguchi, commander of the 15th Army