For most people, Japan during the Second World War is associated with the attack on Pearl Harbor, as well as the first (and so far only) use of nuclear weapons on Japanese settlements. An equally popular association with Japan is associated with pilots, whose main task was to reach the enemy and send their aircraft at him.
Of course, the appearance of such pilots cannot be explained simply by the coincidence of a number of chance circumstances. Even though the Japanese had developed their own military code of honor over the centuries, according to which it was as honorable to die in battle as it was to win, it took a powerful enough propaganda to get young people into kamikaze schools. One might even say that the echoes of this propaganda are still present. For example, it is now very common for young men to line up at recruiting points for kamikaze schools. But the reality was somewhat different, there were those who clearly did not want to be a one-time pilot.
Proof of this can be found in the memories of Kenichiro Onuki, one of the few kamikaze who failed (by chance). As Kenichiro himself recalls, enrollment in schools was voluntary and when he was offered to enroll in one of the schools, he could refuse. However, such a refusal could be perceived not as a sensible act, but as a manifestation of cowardice, which could lead to not the best consequences for both himself and his family. Therefore, I had to go to school.
Kenichiro Onuki survived only thanks to a favorable coincidence: when the other graduates went on their last flight, the engine of his plane refused to start, and soon Japan surrendered.
The word "kamikaze" is associated mainly only with pilots, but not only pilots went to their last battle.
In addition to training suicide pilots, there was another project in Japan that prepared a living homing part for torpedoes from young people. The principle was absolutely the same as with the pilots: while controlling the torpedo, the Japanese soldier had to direct it to the vulnerable spot of the enemy ship. Such a phenomenon has been designated in history as "kaiten".
The technical capabilities of that time did not allow the use of guidance means available and widespread today, although in theory even then it was possible to create a semblance of homing, but this is only from the height of modern knowledge and achievements. In addition, such a development would be very expensive in production, while the human resource is free and walks the streets completely aimlessly.
Several versions of torpedoes with a suicide bomber on board were built, however, none of them could give advantages to the Japanese on the water, although high hopes were pinned on the project. Paradoxically, the weak point turned out to be precisely the impossibility of normal aiming at the target, although it seems like a person had to cope with this task with a bang. The reason was that the torpedo manager was virtually blind. Of all the means that would allow him to navigate the battlefield, there was only a periscope. That is, at first it was necessary to mark the goal, and then, without the opportunity to navigate, swim forward. It turns out that there was no particular advantage over conventional torpedoes.
To the immediate vicinity of the enemy, such mini-torpedo submarines were “thrown up” by a carrier submarine. After receiving the order, the kamikaze submariners took their places in the torpedoes and set off on their last journey. The maximum known number of such torpedoes with a live guidance system on one submarine was 4. An interesting feature: on the first versions of such torpedoes there was an ejection system, which, for obvious reasons, did not work normally and, in principle, was meaningless, since the speed of mass-produced torpedoes reached 40 knots (just under 75 kilometers per hour).
If you look at the situation as a whole, a lot is not clear. Among the kamikaze were not only poorly educated, in fact, still children, but also regular officers, respectively, simple mathematics shows not only the ineffectiveness of such attacks both in the air and under water, but also the obvious financial cost. Whatever one may say, an experienced pilot could bring much more benefit precisely as a pilot, and not as a suicide bomber, taking into account the cost of his training, not to mention the cost of the plane. In the case of kaitens, which showed even less efficiency, often passing targets, everything is even more strange. It seems that a group of people was actively working in Japan at that time, the main goals of which were to undermine the economy and promote the most unpopular ideas in the army, which, even with the silence of the real situation, were not always well received.
You can draw parallels between kamikaze and other suicide bombers for an infinitely long time, but let's try to focus on the period of World War II, while we will not take into account the manifestation of heroism in a hopeless situation, but consider the purposeful destruction of the enemy with us, after all, these are somewhat different things.
Speaking about the Japanese kamikaze, I did not mention the "live" anti-tank grenades. It would be unfair to say how the Japanese tied anti-tank grenades to poles and tried to fight American tanks in this way, while keeping silent that the same picture could be observed in North Africa, only the fight was already waged with German armored vehicles. The same method of dealing with Japanese armored vehicles was used in China. In the future, the Americans had to face anti-tank kamikazes already in Vietnam, but that's a different story.
A well-known fact is that by the end of World War II, kamikaze training was launched on the territory of Iran, but they did not have time to prepare or use semi-trained pilots due to the end of hostilities, although later, in the 80s, training was resumed, but without use in battle.
And what was happening in Europe at that time? And in Europe, for some reason, people absolutely did not want to die in this way. If you do not take into account the use of faust cartridges, which were not much better than a stick with a grenade and were only suitable for combat in the city, if you do not take into account isolated cases, then we can say that the Europeans really wanted to live. At the same time, the planes were sent to enemy ground targets and enemy ships were attacked with the help of light boats filled with explosives, only people had the opportunity to evacuate, which they used and, in most cases, very successfully.
It is impossible to ignore the mention of the preparation of kamikaze, in one form or another, in the USSR. Recently, articles have appeared with enviable regularity, for which in a decent society they can give in the face, telling about such things. It all boils down to the fact that, on the basis of the experience of the Japanese and individual examples of the heroism of Soviet soldiers, the possibility of creating fanatics capable of unquestioning self-sacrifice was considered. Usually such articles are referred to the foreign press of the Cold War period, and not to real facts or documents. The absurdity of the idea itself lies in the fact that in the Soviet Union there was no commonplace religious doctrine or ideology conducive to the emergence of kamikaze.
As history shows, and modern events as well, kamikaze as a phenomenon can arise not from scratch, but with a sufficiently long cultivation of certain religious ideas and with appropriate traditions, and they are often not enough without the addition of propaganda and the threat of reprisals against relatives and friends.
In conclusion, it should be noted once again that the difference between a kamikaze who was trained and trained morally for only one purpose - to kill himself along with the enemy, and the manifestation of self-sacrifice in a hopeless situation is a huge difference - the size of an abyss. The same gap as between the feat of Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello and the death of Ugaki Matome.
