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The poor quality of replacement pilots frustrated Admiral Takajiru Onishi. He believed a new Japanese weapon was needed immediately to stop the Allies. Onishi's search for a new weapon was premised on the belief that Japan would never surrender. He did find a weapon to compensate for the disparity between Japanese and allied pilots. He believed the airplane should be used as an extension of the warrior spirit. Onishi opined the ultimate weapon would be the use of the plane as a human bullet. He only intended the human bullet to be used as a stop gap measure. He believed that the employment of this weapon, the Kamikaze tactic, would provide time for Japan to rebuild their forces. Unfortunately, Onishi's new weapon subordinated the most basic of human instincts, self preservation, to a predisposed death for the Emperor.
Onishi asserted that "The country's salvation depends on the appearance of the soldiers of the gods. Nothing but the sacrifice of our young men's lives to stab at the enemy carriers can annihilate the enemy fleet and put us back on the road to victory." He also stated, "What greater glory can there be for a warrior than to give his life for Emperor and country." Despite his positive rhetoric, considerable resistance to formalizing suicide tactics existed in the military and civilian communities. To circumvent the opposition, Onishi repeatedly attempted to gain a personal audience with the Emperor to convince him of the need for such desperate measures. Onisihi, however, never obtained a meeting with the Emperor. Eventually, the Naval Chief of Staff gave Onishi approval to covertly begin organizing special attack squadrons. This decision reflected the Bushido spirit of readiness to die for the Emperor.
Onishi intended to use the Kamikaze tactic as a temporary measure only. He planned to use the Kamikaze tactic to delay Western advancement to Japan so that Japan could recover from its losses. Once Japan had rebuilt the military, Onishi planned to abandon Kamikaze tactics.
Kamikaze acts were not unprecedented. Every air force in the world had experienced isolated incidents where injured pilots in damaged aircraft hurled themselves at enemy targets. These incidents showed the considerable damage that suicide tactics could inflict. What distinguished Japan's new approach, however, was the "voluntary" nature. Unlike their predecessors, these Japanese pilots were neither wounded nor were their aircraft damaged. These were organized, clearly suicidal, one-way missions.
The evolution of suicide tactics was slow and costly. Because of the ongoing lack of cooperation between the army and navy, suicide tactics were developed independently within both branches. Critical lessons learned during the initial stages of employment were not exchanged between the army and navy. This lack of communication undoubtedly resulted in wasting many lives.
When the official sanctioning of suicide tactics was revealed, it was fraught with great consternation throughout the Japanese public and military. While the Japanese culture did not view suicide as a disgrace, some viewed ordering a person to commit suicide for the Emperor as both inhumane and unnecessary.
The deteriorating situation for Japan required desperate measures. Japanese leaders knew America possessed vast resources but believed she lacked the stomach for the horrors of kamikaze attacks. Some Japanese believed the Kamikaze tactics would raise the stakes of the war and break the American will to fight. What Japan lacked in resources and equipment, it attempted to make up for in fighting spirit. The initial success of suicide attacks exceeded even Admiral Onishi's high expectations. Yet even these reported successes failed to gain the complete Japanese approval of Kamikaze tactics. The Emperor's response to the initial successes of suicide squads concerned Onishi. The Emperor was critical of the commander responsible for the tactics.
Admiral Onishi believed wholeheartedly in his plan but realized the continuance of his suicide program required the Emperor's approval, even if through silent consent. Two grave consequences resulted from his concern about what the Emperor thought. First, squadron commanders forwarded reports which grossly exaggerated enemy damages inflicted by Kamikazes to Imperial Headquarters to gain the Emperor and people's approval. These false reports garnered additional Japanese support by assuring the people that the deaths of these pilots were not without strategic reward. The second related consequence was the expansion of the Kamikaze program. The purpose shifted from a temporary delay tactic to the use of Kamikazes as the central focus of an offensive strategy. This expansion was due in great part to the inflated battle damage reports. The Imperial Headquarters, which believed these reports, created the propaganda "that the Kamikazes could win the war for them." Onishi did nothing to correct this false perceptions.
The initial Kamikaze pilots were some of Japan's finest. As the survivors of destroyed squadrons, these pilots were the best and the luckiest. There was no "rotation" of Japanese combat pilots. "A warrior went to war and fought until he was victorious or dead." Almost all of them had been shot down at least once, and none expected to survive the war. They flew on the ragged edge, and some were ready to try anything new. As this supply of experienced pilots was rapidly exhausted, they were replaced by innocent, unknowing teenagers.
Many Kamikazes eagerly volunteered for their one-way mission under the honor of the Bushido code. Some of these pilots volunteered, not in the hope of achieving victory, but due to the despair of the situation. One of these "volunteers" reasoned that "since I'm going to be killed anyway, I may as well make it account for something."
Initially, adequate numbers of volunteers existed to staff the Kamikaze squadrons. However, when the mission of these squadrons expanded and public support waned, there were not enough volunteers to fill the squadrons. As a result, the pressure on potential candidates was tremendous. Leaders told young pilots that Japan needed selfless warriors in these desperate times to put aside their worldly interests and eagerly sacrifice themselves. In doing so, their spirits would forever dwell in the Yasukuni Shrine for all of Japan to pay them homage.
One Kamikaze squadron commander, Captain Yoshiro Tsubaki, explained to his young pilots the gravity of Japan's situation and that it was now time to make a great decision. He stated "Any of you unwilling to give your lives as divine sons of the Great Nippon Empire will not be required to do so. Those incapable of doing so will raise their hands--now." This was, undoubtedly, an attempt to relieve the conscience of a commander who preferred to let volunteers commit suicide rather than to sentence them to death. However, his patriotic speech failed to rally the unanimous support for certain death that he had hoped for. Infuriated, the Captain called forward the six pilots who had raised their hands and "castigated the honest dissenters as cowards and then announced shamelessly that he had lied to them all, that these six would be set up as horrible examples to the others. These were to be the first to die."
Captain Tsubaki's actions were not an anomaly. Throughout World War II Japanese military leaders ordered thousands of men involuntarily to their death. These "sentenced" pilots often had weeks or months before their mission to contemplate the fate awaiting them. Many of these designated Kamikaze drank heavy after learning of their assignment and numerous accounts exist of drunken pilots being helped into their planes before taking off on their missions. As the motivation and spirit began to diminish in the Kamikaze squadrons, several methods were developed to ensure that pilots could not change their minds, once airborne, and safely abandon their mission. For example, pilots who returned to the base were ridiculed, labeled as cowards, and deemed unfit to serve the Emperor. Even those pilots who returned to their base because they could not locate their assigned target due to bad weather were subjected to ridicule. As a result, many pilots unable to find their targets crashed hopelessly into the water. Moreover, officials bolted some canopies shut to prevent the pilots from escaping certain death.
Onishi viewed the Kamikaze attack for what it was, a desperate act. He supported and developed these unprecedented squadrons as a temporary tactic to slow the American advance and give the Japanese Army and Navy a chance to recover from its defeats. Onishi had a clear hope that the employment of the Kamikaze would ultimately save more lives than it would lose. He quickly realized the ineffectiveness of the Kamikaze to achieve operational success but did nothing to end the use of this tactic. Instead he allowed Tokyo to continue to believe that Kamikazes could win the war for Japan, an idea he helped create through inflated battle damage reports.
Onishi was not the only Kamikaze advocate. Many other military leaders supported the continuation of Kamikaze and other suicide tactics and encouraged their expansion in both the military and civilian population. These leaders adopted the suicide slogan: "100 million die together." This death wish embodied the dream that Japan could be saved through the total sacrifice. These suicide tactics, divorced from any hope of victory, became a method of achieving glorious death and saving face. Japanese military leaders were more than willing to sacrifice every man, woman, and child in Japan.
