Heroism and Fanaticism

Exhibit A: 

“Dear mother

I trust that you are doing well. To be honest, I cannot say that the wish to die for the emperor is genuine, coming from my heart. However, it is decided for me that I die for the emperor. I shall not be afraid of the moment of my death. But I am afraid of how the fear of death will perturb my life.

Even for a short life, there are many memories. For someone who had a good life, it is very difficult to part with it. But I reached a point of no return. I must plunge into an enemy vessel. As the preparation for the takeoff nears, I feel a heavy pressure on me. I don’t think I can stare at death… I tried my best to escape in vain. So, now that I don’t have a choice, I must go valiantly

I will go with your photo firmly next to my heart.”

                                                                                            – Hayashi Ichizo, March 1945.

The link to the FB post can be found here.

“Along with the rest of the force, Nevada shelled Japanese airfields, shore defenses, supply dumps, and troop concentrations. However, after the fire support ships retired for the night, dawn “came up like thunder” when seven kamikazes attacked the force while it was without air cover. One plane, though hit repeatedly by antiaircraft fire from the force, crashed onto the main deck of Nevada, next to turret No. 3. It killed 11 and wounded 49; it also knocked out both 14 in (360 mm) guns in that turret and three 20 mm anti-aircraft weapons. (emphasis mine)

The link to the Wikipedia article is here.

Hayashi succeeded in flying his plane into the American USS Nevada (BB-36) Battleship on March 25th 1945, killing 11 sailors and wounding 49.  

I normally don’t link to either Facebook or Wikipedia.  The room for error is great and the tendency to miss the whole picture too often the rule rather than the exception. In these cases, however, the pertinent information is accurate, and I thought it was worth kicking around.  

The human story is a complicated one, and our tendency to want to boil it down to a bumper sticker, made all the easier in our modern Facebook and #Twitter generation, has been one of the banes for good relations between those made in God’s image for time immemorial. 

Go here to comment.  The Kamikaze pilots at the tail end of World War II were taken by most Americans as further proof of the essential barbarism of the enemy we were fighting, an example of Japanese fanaticism which placed absolutely no value on human life.  And yet:

One of the vignettes in the film Midway (2019) was of director John Ford, who was making a film about the battle as a Navy Commander while the battle was raging.  Privately, Ford made a film tribute for the families of Torpedo Squadron 8 from the USS Hornet.  The film was not to be shown commercially and was meant only for the families.  Their sacrificial unescorted torpedo runs, in which they were all shot down, against the Japanese carriers at Midway paved the way for the devastatingly successful Navy dive-bomber attacks on the Japanese flattops.  Ensign George Gay was the only survivor among the pilots of the squadron, who knew that they had little chance to survive their torpedo runs, and made them anyway. Japanese observers at the time noted the sacrificial heroism of the attack of Torpedo Squadron 8 which reminded them of the best tales of Samurai self sacrifice.