On April 8, 1942, there was a hot air battle in the skies over Murmansk. Lieutenant Aleksey Khlobystov threw himself on the twin-engined Me-110 and boldly poked it with the wing of his Kittyhawk. A sharp jerk to the right, a terrible crack … Aleksey mechanically leveled the car and carefully looked at the wing - the right plane was pretty shabby. "Messer" disappeared somewhere. The German fighters that arrived in time did not give a feeling of joy - in the ensuing "merry-go-round" Alexei contrived and cut off the tail of another "Messerschmitt" with his damaged right wing. This time it was more difficult - a blow tore off half of the plane. Only thanks to the exceptional courage and skill of the pilot, "Kittyhawk" was able to return to the Murmashi airfield. Well, also because it was durable, an infection …
Suicide attacks were practiced in all belligerent countries without exception. Each army had its own Gastello and Sailors, who threw themselves with their chests on the embrasures of machine guns and fell like a fiery meteorite on the enemy's head. Someone was lucky - like, for example, Alexei Khlobystov, who in his short life made 3 successful air rams (but accidentally died when he collided in the air with his wingman). Someone, finding themselves in a hopeless situation, desperately rushed at the enemy, gritting their teeth with hatred - knowing that he was seeing this heaven and earth for the last time. But despite all the vicissitudes, people loved life and did not want to die! Life made the choice for them.
But only in Japan, suicidal attacks from the last decisions of the heroes in an extreme situation turned into a nationwide entertainment with special rituals and theatrical performances. Kamikaze "sentenced" themselves to death in advance, life has lost all meaning for fanatics, the main thing is to die beautifully in battle. Having admired themselves enough, they, waving their swords, sat in the cockpits of aircraft (as an option - in the cockpit of guided kaiten torpedoes) and rushed towards the enemy.
There is an opinion that kamikaze are untrained youths on decrepit Zero fighters with an exhausted resource. This is not entirely true - for suicidal attacks the Japanese used everything that could fly: fighters "Zero", "Oscar", "Abdul", "Nick"; Val, Keith, Judy bombers, Gecko and Babs scouts; float seaplanes "Jake", "Paul", "Elf" … New and old, sea and land-based, combat and training, with suspended bombs and without them. For the kamikaze, they even created a specific means - the Oka jet projectile suspended under the fuselage of the carrier - the Betty G4M bomber. Fierce weapon. Awkward, though, the two planes were a tasty target for American fighters. Well, in a desperate desire to stop the enemy fleet, all means were good (or rather, bad).
As statistics show, two-thirds of the kamikaze were shot down by air patrols and automated anti-aircraft guns or disappeared without a trace in the vastness of the Great Ocean. And from those who were still "lucky" to crash on the decks of enemy ships, the damage was by no means as much as the Japanese command had hoped. Especially when you consider the scale of suicidal attacks - 3913 Japanese pilots have become "divine wind" (excluding combat pilots of the Navy, who independently decided to crash against the side of the ship).
Kamikaze managed to sink several dozen ships and vessels, with a total displacement of about 150 thousand tons.
For comparison, the submarines under the command of Otto Kretschmer sank 40 ships - 208 thousand gross register tons (taking into account the fact that the transport weighs about the same as its cargo - Kretschmer launched to the bottom: 208 x 2 ≈ 400 thousand tons) + 4 warships, one transport was captured and about 10 damaged. The German ace himself survived the war and crashed in a car in 1998.
Among the sunken kamikaze ships, there is not a single large artillery or aircraft carrier ship. All victims - destroyers, boats, support ships and four escort aircraft carriers. The exact number of the destroyed is still unknown - in open sources and registers you can find information on any ship of the US Navy, another thing is that there is no clear classification of damaged, sunk or non-recoverable ships.
For example, the escort destroyer "Oberrender" (USS Oberrender, operational code DE-344) - damaged by a kamikaze plane on May 9, 1945 (what date!), But reached the coast. Not recovered, was sunk as a target in November 1945.
Another example is the destroyer Hutchins (USS Hutchins, operational code DD-476). Damaged by a kamikaze boat off Okinawa. There are no personnel losses, the destroyer was able to return to Portland on July 15, 1945. It was not restored, but was sold for scrap in 1948.
What was the reason for the refusal to restore the Hutchins and Oberrender: too heavy damage, or a global reduction in the fleet after the end of the war?
If serious damage is to blame, then why, for example, was the destroyer "Laffey" (DD-724) destroyed from bow to stern, into which six kamikazes crashed in a row, was restored?
In order to exclude the manipulation of facts in the future, I propose the following scheme - to consider destroyed the ship that, after the fatal campaign, was never used as a ship (even if it did not sink immediately and was able to return to base). According to this logic, I was able to reliably establish 64 deaths American ships and ships from the actions of kamikaze pilots (names of ships, their operational code, photographic materials, a brief history of the death, date and coordinates of the sinking site). There are probably a dozen more unreported cases hidden in the archives - as a result, their number may exceed seven dozen … although this already has little meaning. It is stupid to count boats and barges, if only because their cost is less than that of an airplane.
Let's go further:
On account of the man-torpedoes "Kaiten" three trophies - tanker "Missineva", landing boat and destroyer escort "Underhill". Using the "Kaitens" the Japanese ultimately hurt themselves - the submarine with the "Kaitens" attached to the hull was especially vulnerable at the time of preparation for the launch of man-torpedoes. As a result, the Japanese lost eight submarines, another 15 people died during the tests of the "miracle weapon".
Another 7 American ships destroyed speed boats operated by suicide bombers - one destroyer (the same Hutchins), a hunter boat and five landing barges. And this despite the fact that 400 kamikaze boats loaded with explosives were preparing for attacks on Okinawa!
Finally, the most mystical part of the Kamikaze project is the suicide combat swimmers. With a 9 kg ballast strapped to their backs and two compressed air cylinders, these freaks had to come up to the bottom of American ships standing in shallow water and detonate them with a 15 kg bomb tied to a long bamboo pole. The official result of all efforts is the damaged LCI-404 landing craft.
In total, 74 American ships were destroyed as a result of kamikaze attacks (aircraft, man-torpedoes, speedboats). Includes ships of the Navy, Coast Guard, and US Army. In a nutshell, the story looks like this:
- 4 escort aircraft carriers - "Saint-Lo", "Ommani Bay", "Sangamon" and "Bismarck Sea". The Bismarck Sea, whose crew lost 300 people, was especially hard killed. At St. Lo and Ommani Bay, there were fewer deaths - 113 and 95 people, respectively.
But a particularly delusional story happened with the escort aircraft carrier "Sengamon": in May 1945, a single kamikaze crashed into it. A large fire broke out on the flight deck, and three dozen sailors died. One of the escort's destroyers rushed to the aid of the aircraft carrier - but it would be better if he did not. The aircraft carrier awkwardly turned around - and with the edge of the flight deck demolished the entire superstructure to the destroyer. All would be fine, but at this time from the "Sangamon" sailors in panic began to push the burning planes into the sea - one of them crashed right on the deck of the unfortunate destroyer. Something exploded on the destroyer - as a result, both ships were severely damaged. "Sengamon" managed to get to the coast, but was removed from the lists immediately after the war - in October 1945.
- 26 destroyers of various types. Such a large number of destroyers killed is explained by the fact that they often performed the tasks of a radar patrol in the most dangerous areas, and they were primarily attacked by the fury of Japanese pilots.
Actually, this is where the list of worthy victories ends. All other trophies look like a mockery of the kamikaze. Six US Navy special transports (converted from obsolete 1920s destroyers), twenty amphibious assault ships, three small fire support ships, a torpedo boat, two ammunition transports, three hunter boats, two tankers, a hospital ship, and a floating dock!
By the way, not all of them are fair prey of the kamikaze - for example, the LST-808 tank landing ship was first damaged by Japanese aircraft, lost its speed, and only then was finished off by a suicide ram.
Another great victory for the kamikaze was the Soviet minesweeper boat KT-152, aka the former fishing boat "Neptune" with a displacement of 62 tons. Was sunk by a ram of a twin-engined Japanese fighter in the Kuril ridge on August 18, 1945.
26 destroyed destroyers - a lot or a little? On the one hand, this is more than the number of destroyers in the Northern Fleet throughout the Great Patriotic War. On the other hand, in April 1945, a squadron of 1200-1300 (according to various sources) Allied ships operated near the island of Okinawa … kamikaze could dive with their eyes closed - it was simply impossible to miss.
The destructive power of the kamikaze plane was clearly not enoughto sink a large battleship. Therefore, most of the victims of the Japanese suicide attacks were "only" damaged. The number of damaged ships, according to various estimates, ranges from 200 to 300 units, the Americans themselves admit 288 ships and vessels damaged by kamikaze strikes.
In assessing the scale of losses, Gauss's law is a great help - most of the victims were injured of "moderate severity" - the deck flooring was broken, a number of mechanisms were put out of action, two or three dozen injured crew members.
A smaller number of ships, sometimes for quite objective reasons, were extremely difficult to endure the strikes of air suicides - for example, 22 aircraft carriers were damaged in the battle for the Philippines. On the Franklin, 33 planes and 56 sailors were destroyed by fire. The damage to Bello Wood was no less severe - about a hundred people died on this aircraft carrier! But a particularly terrible fate awaited the heavy aircraft carrier "Bunker Hill" during the battle for Okinawa: as a result of a double attack by the kamikaze, she lost her entire wing (80 aircraft) and almost 400 crew members!
The British aircraft carriers Indomitable, Victories and Formidable were also subjected to suicidal rams. This was more fortunate: the kamikaze, like nuts, cracked against their thick flight armored deck, without harming the insides of the ship. The Australians also got it - their flagship cruiser Australia was attacked six times by madmen, alas, without much success.
Finally, the lucky few are ships whose damage, for various reasons, was limited to cosmetic defects and peeled paint. For example - the battleship "Missouri", for which the suicide bomber ram was just a funny incident without human casualties and destruction.
Although even highly protected battleships were not insured against accidents: on New Mexico, a kamikaze destroyed a superstructure in the chimney area, as a result, the ammunition of nearby anti-aircraft guns was in the engine room, boilers failed, 55 people died. On the battleship "Maryland" the kamikaze destroyed the forecastle, twisting the 89-mm armored deck, the explosion raised all the hatches and doors in this part of the ship, 31 people died in the fight against fires.
And yet, despite the colossal damage caused to the American fleet, the effectiveness of kamikaze tactics was, to put it mildly, controversial … From a purely military point of view: the destruction of 30 ships of the third rank (destroyers and escort ships) and the infliction of more or less serious damage to 150 ships (half of the total number of damaged ships) instead of the loss of 3,913 pilots and about 2,500-3,000 aircraft (excluding the downed G4M - jet carriers Oka missiles, high-speed boats, Kaiten man-torpedoes and submarines killed because of them) looks dull and uninteresting against the background of the successes of German submariners or Captain McCluskey's 30 bombers, who burned three heavy Japanese aircraft carriers near Midway in a minute.
On a strategic scale, the successes of the kamikaze generally come to naught: the loss of four escort aircraft carriers did not affect the combat capability of the US Navy - the Americans had 130 such ships.
26 destroyers destroyed by kamikaze? For comparison: over the years of the war, the US Navy lost 81 destroyers, but they were not at all upset about this - they had five hundred in stock.
Didn't the American steel armadas notice the brave Japanese guys at all? Have noticed. The appearance of suicide pilots forced to make changes in the organization of the fleet's combat service: radar patrols appeared, the composition of the aircraft carrier air groups (3/4 - fighters) changed, work began on the creation of the ship-based Lark anti-aircraft missile system.
Reflecting and preventing suicidal attacks (echeloned air patrols, strikes on enemy airfields) took a lot of time and effort, the actions of the kamikaze distracted the sailors from the main tasks of fire support and depressingly affected the psyche of the crews - it is still unpleasant to have an enemy who, in principle, is not afraid of death …
Epilogue. For me, the feat of non-commissioned officer Sakio Kamatsu, performed by him on June 19, 1944, looks much brighter and more tragic. His Zero took off from the Taiho deck just as the US Navy submarine Elbacor fired six torpedoes into a fan at a heavy Japanese aircraft carrier. Seeing the death trail of foam in the direction of his ship, Sakio Komatsu in an instant made the right decision - "Zero" rushed down and disappeared in a cloud of spray, warding off the trouble from the aircraft carrier.
Sakio Komatsu did not wear a “hachimaki” bandage on his head, he did not drink the ritual bowl of sake before the flight, and the schoolgirl with sakura branches did not accompany him on the flight. But in an extreme situation, this person without the slightest hesitation sacrificed his own life for the sake of his homeland. Isn't this a real feat?
