A selection of five aircraft used by Japan’s Special Attack Corps (Tokobetsu Kogekitai aka Kamakaze). The amount of training aircraft shown is an alarming indication of the desperate situation of the Japanese and how low the higher-ups in the Imperial General Headquarters stooped to get enough planes and pilots to throw against the Allied fleets, using training aircraft and often experienced instructors (not to mention experienced fighter and bomber pilots were also being killed off by being sent into the Special Attack Corps). All but one (the exception being the A6M2 Model 21- that was used in the first ever Special Attack on October 25th 1944) of these aircraft were used during the Kikusui (Floating Chrysanthemum- the Imperial sign of the Emperor) Operations during the Battle of Okinawa from April to June 1945, when huge waves of suicide planes attacked the ships of Okinawa but despite sinking many destroyers on picket duty and putting one fleet carrier (USS Bunker Hill) out of action for the rest of the war little was achieved.

In all, 4,400 Japanese airmen, many hastily trained college students, perished as a result of the Special Attack Corps with nothing to show for it except 66 ships sunk or never repaired and 400 damaged but even that was only a small part of the Allied fleets in the Pacific. Vilified or made into heroes, it should never be forgotten that these 4,400 seemingly senseless deaths were a result of Japan’s warlords in the Imperial General Headquarters refusing to accept that the war was lost and instead trying to find a way to continue the killing and prolong the war by sending young men to die trying to crash their planes into enemy ships.