Blossoms in the Wind: Human Legacies of the Kamikaze (72 page)

[281]
The
Ashigara
was a
Takao
-class heavy cruiser. For technical details on the
Takao
class, see Worth (2001).

[282]
This was the same class as Tokurō Takei and Akinori Asano, the former Ōka pilots.

[283]
This area is now part of Tenri City, Nara Prefecture.

[284]
See Garon (1997) for details of Tenrikyō’s transformation from pariah to stakeholder through its support of state militarism.

[285]
http://www.combinedfleet.com/torps.htm

[286]
O’Neill, p.187

[287]
The Japanese never actually called the Type 93 the “Long Lance”; the poetic tag was coined by Morison, and is now standard usage among WW2 historians and naval buffs. See Kohata (2003) for a Japanese account of the torpedo’s development.

[288]
See Ikari (1991) for account of admissions process for— and life at—the college.

[289]
See Maeda (1989) and Yokota (1994) for biographical details on these officers.

[290]
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~un3k-mn/kai-nenpyo.htm

[291]
Proposals such as jettisonable crew pods were studied, then quickly dropped from the design as impractical. See Warner (1982), O’Neill (1999).

[292]
Konada (1998) in Gyokusaisen To Tokubetsukogekitai, pp.104-105 (note: For the sake of clear translation, I have taken the liberty of editing the order in which some of these sentences appear in the text).

[293]
One hundred new petty officers from the Tsuchiura Yokaren Kō
-
13 class had rotated into Ōtsushima to begin Kaiten training only days before the Nara Kō-13 group was scheduled to arrive. It soon became apparent that the Ōtsushima facilities were too small to accommodate both groups of Yokaren graduates, so in a case of first come-first served, the Nara group had to wait for other assignments while the Tsuchi’ura group proceeded with Kaiten training. The snafu likely saved Kawasaki-san’s life.

[294]
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x21/xr2145.html

[295]
In Ōtsushima’s case, these were barges at anchor – not giant squids.

[296]
http://community-2.webtv.net/ebb26/ULITHI/

[297]
The IJN’s unified sub command

[298]
These swords, as noted in Section Three, were from the same mass-produced batch handed out several weeks later to the Ōka pilots at Kōnoike.

[299]
Mike Mair, personal correspondence

[300]
http://www.usni.org/navalhistory/articles03/nhlambert04.htm

[301]
It is not known if this craft was piloted by Sekio Nishina or not, although IJN lore has traditionally credited the Kaiten co-inventor with the deed.

[302]
http://www.usni.org/navalhistory/articles03/nhlambert04.htm

[303]
http://www.ussmississinewa.com/

[304]
Her leak was finally taken care of by a special US Navy salvage team that pumped out the remainder of the Mississinewa’s oil in February 2003. (Mike Mair, personal correspondence)

[305]
Warner (1982), p.131

[306]
O’Neill (1999), p.200

[307]
Warner (1982), p.131

[308]
Given the timing, the most plausible motive for deliberate electronic interference with the Emperor’s message lies with Japanese militarists who wanted the war to go on.

[309]
See Wakashio Kai (1992-2001) for personal accounts and technical information about the army’s nearly identical suicide motorboat program.

[310]
Oide (1984), p.237. In an attempt to keep as closely as possible to the meaning of the original Japanese while maintaining plausible English syntax, I took the liberty of switching the line order in my translation while preserving the correct 5-7-5 haiku syllabic scheme.

[311]
Some tokkō survivors hold that Ōnishi did this by design, to prolong his suffering and penance before his “sleep of a million years,” as he described death in his second farewell letter.

[312]
Kawasaki, personal correspondence

[313]
Konada, personal correspondence. Two post-surrender broadcast suicides at Ōtsushima usually included in Japanese counts are not included here.

[314]
Ironically, had an American invasion fleet proved necessary, this storm may very well have turned out to be – at least in terms of its consequences for the invader -- the mythical kamikaze for which the Japanese had prayed so long during the war. As things were, the typhoon did enormous damage to Third Fleet anchorages in Okinawa as well as to other American naval units in Japanese waters at the time.

[315]
The most salient of these efforts at present is the right-wing agenda to have Japan’s conflict portrayed in history textbooks as a war of Asian liberation from Western colonialism. It has been my personal observation, however, that Asian neighbors feel about as much gratitude toward Japan for their postwar “liberation” as Hiroshima residents feel toward B-29s for their postwar “urban renewal.”

[316]
During the early stages of the Cold War, when America belatedly realized that a strong ally was more of an asset in this part of the world than a vassal state requiring protection, then Vice President Richard Nixon remarked that the “No War Clause” Article IX of the constitution imposed on Japan by GHQ after World War II had been “a mistake.” (La Feber (1997), p.298) 

[317]
Richie, The Image Factory (2003), p.120