Going by the raw numbers, Japan’s use of kamikaze pilots in the dying days of the second world war was an effective military action. While the country lost almost 4,000 of its men by asking them to fly planes laden with explosives into enemy ships – a task that entailed certain death – the losses on the other side were closer to 7,000. But it was a bewildering act of collective desperation that still has the ability to shock, and tells us a lot about the futility of modern warfare and the power of mass hysteria in times of conflict.
Kamikaze: An Untold History is a documentary by the Japanese public broadcaster NHK that could have been a very powerful film at 60 minutes but is still impactful at an exhaustive hour and a half. It starts with the first suicide pilots who flew in October 1944, as the Americans advanced inexorably across the Pacific towards mainland Japan. The programme is determined to commemorate individuals who perished, beginning with 20-year-old Hirota Yukinobu. There is clear footage of his plane hitting an aircraft carrier and creating a large explosion on deck, having taken a hit to the wing on its descent: we can well imagine the last moments of a young man’s life being filled with fear of failure and perhaps the physical pain of fire in the cockpit, followed by a final split-second of realisation that his mission had been accomplished.
What is even more extraordinary was what happened once the first wave of kamikaze pilots had flown. Newsreel propaganda, shown in cinemas nationwide, lauded the men as something beyond heroic: “With your departure,” said one proud announcer, “you have joined the gods.” It was thought that a nation that was willing to resort to such measures could not possibly lose, and that if Emperor Hirohito were forced to negotiate for peace, this show of strength would enable a more favourable deal.
The men became superstars. The home village of 19-year-old Terashima Tadamasa erected a stone monument to his memory, and local dignitaries attended his funeral. In one of several interviews recorded in the 2000s and 2010s with first-hand witnesses, who have since died, the sister of 23-year-old Ishii Mitoshi recalls how hordes of well-wishing strangers made it hard for her family to grieve for him. Pilots had their final written statements read out on national radio (“Mother, are you well? I will not squander the 21 years of life you have given me!”). As the slogan “100 million kamikaze” became popular, schoolchildren wore headbands expressing support for the men, while adults who were not physically fit to serve often proved to be particularly fervent amateur agitators, urging the kamikaze on.
The film is a straightforward historical account, so it doesn’t debate the spiky moral and philosophical conundrums the kamikaze phenomenon raises. War requires the mass sacrifice of human life, often in the form of strategies that will certainly lead to heavy losses for your own side. The emotional pull of last year’s American-made second world war drama Masters of the Air, for example, was provided largely by the idea of men being sent on missions from which many would not return. What is the logic in feeling inspired by the selflessness of soldiers who had a tiny chance of survival, but horrified by those who had none? Clear answers are not to be found here but, as we gaze at photographs of squadrons of men under the age of 25, whose whole adult lives were rehearsals for their death, we have to ask why.
The slightly baggy back half of the film does give us more to chew on, as it looks at those who weren’t selected, or who volunteered with some reluctance. Documents are found that suggest the Japanese navy rejected some men’s applications if they had scored top marks in aptitude tests: at a time when few Japanese families could afford higher education, university graduates saw their peers become kamikaze pilots and wondered whether the country really wanted to turn its brightest minds into ammunition.
More distressing than the tales of those whose privilege didn’t protect them are reports of kamikaze mania driving men of all backgrounds to sign up unwillingly. We hear how they felt that the political climate gave them no choice: the dynamic that is always in place during conflicts, where it is treasonous to criticise the war effort, crushed any dissent. The kamikaze strategy gave Japanese citizens hope. The film ends by glimpsing the atomic bombs hitting Hiroshima and Nagasaki, brutal events that showed that hope to be false. Whether that made the gestures of the kamikaze pilots more or less noble than any other war death is a question that can’t ever be answered, but this film shines new light on it.