During World War II, the Japanese kamikaze special attack was a method of combat to carry out suicide attacks, that is, a large amount of high explosives were loaded on the fighter aircraft, placed in front of the pilot's cockpit, and once the target was found, even the man with the plane crashed down, and there was no return.
However, today I would like to talk about a kamikaze team member named Yuji Sasaki, who performed 9 suicide attacks, and before the death obituary was issued, the person returned. The superiors tried to send him away one time at a time, but he was able to return brazenly each time. Until Japan surrendered, he did not die.
As soon as he left school, he became a member of the Kamikaze Suicide Team
Tomoji Sasaki was born in Hokkaido in 1923 to his father, who fought in the Russo-Japanese War. There are 12 brothers and sisters in the family, and he is the sixth oldest. How did he come up with the idea of being a pilot? When he was a child, he used to think of the plane flying from the roof as a big bird, and since then he has had the desire to become a pilot.
Not to mention that this wish actually came true when he was 17 years old, and Sasaki became a flight cadet. After a year of training, Sasaki went to war. And he was very "lucky" to be in the kamikaze team.
Why can you fight in the sky so quickly? And what is the kamikaze? It turned out that the Japanese Combined Fleet, known as the "World's Third Navy" in 1944, was at the end of its rope, from the Battle of Midway to the Battle of Mariana. The Japanese Navy shifted the focus of combat readiness to special offensive operations. As one of Yamamoto's confidants and one of the core figures who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, the commander of the Japanese First Air Fleet, Onishi Takijiro, believed that the organization was organized by the Japanese Zero fighters into a death attack team, each carrying 250 kilograms of explosives, diving into the US aircraft carrier, only in this way could it be possible to stop the US military to save the crisis. In this way, the Kamikaze special attack team that the Japanese army trained hard to send to death was produced, and the young Sasaki was one of them.
Sasaki
Let's talk about Sasaki's personality, and many Japanese people are respectful to their superiors, but the order is different, Sasaki is still very personal, he is often beaten by his superiors in flight school, other students do not dare to resist, but Sasaki took the lead in hunger strike in protest.
In addition, the reason why Sasaki was different in the kamikaze team was that he met an alternative superior named Iwamoto Masatoshi. He reminded Sasaki that his superiors only ordered us to bomb the U.S. warship, and did not say that the explosives had to be tied to the body, and that everyone would bomb normally. This attitude makes Sasaki like it very much.
Therefore, don't mythologize the kamikaze team, there are still many who do not obey and die.
The family's funeral was ready and he returned
In November 1944, Sasaki yu ushered in his first mission and began his shameless life of cheating and drinking.
As the last meal of the kamikaze team, it was all delicious and delicious. Not long ago, the newly married captain Officer Guan Zhixiong, led the first 24 Kamikaze members of Japan to rush to the US aircraft carriers and cruisers, all dead. These students, who have not yet graduated, name their planes "Sunrise" and "Cherry Blossom Mountain", but in fact, they can no longer see the sun of tomorrow. Thinking of this, Sasaki was also sad.
Drink the wine of the grand march. Sasaki follows the kamikaze on a suicide mission. Seeing his teammates rushing towards the U.S. ship one by one, Sasaki simply threw the explosives from the sky and then turned around and returned to the base.
Sasaki's superiors were directly stunned, and had never seen such a thing, because, with the kamikaze team's expedition, the top brass had announced the news of the collective jade fragments, and Sasaki's family was already preparing for his funeral. As a result, the deceased himself returned.
The top brass had to block the news and immediately arranged for Sasaki to go out again in ten days. Don't come back if you don't die! Sasaki said that there were no doors.
On November 15th, Sasaki and his party of "dead soldiers" set off again, and before leaving, his superiors told him, this time you must drive a plane into the battleship, please!
Sasaki solemnly agreed. In the air, his teammates rushed to the US ship, and in the blink of an eye, there was no shadow, and this time Sasaki did not even throw explosives and directly returned to the ship. This refusal, he himself gave the task to cancel.
The superiors all finished asking, thinking that this time Sasaki must be dead and warped, hurrying to organize the funeral, unexpectedly, Sasaki shook and came back again, dizzy again.
The Death Watchdog did not kill him, but was blown away
The top level held a meeting to study, and had to let the boy "jade shatter", so the third action began. This time, Sasaki was assigned a "death supervisor", Captain Okuhara. If Sasaki doesn't crash the plane by then, kill him.
Sasaki was really lucky, and before the plane could take off, it encountered a burst of American fighters charging at them, and Captain Okuhara was blown up on the spot. Sasaki returned happily.
Again and again, the upper echelons were already mad at Sasaki. In the fourth operation, two death supervisors were assigned, and Sasaki had to be killed. As a result, the two supervisors not only sympathized with Sasaki, but also admired his bravery. He didn't get to the battlefield and returned. Sasaki followed suit. The report's superiors said that no U.S. warships were seen.
Sasaki became a thorn in the head and led a group of followers, which made Sasaki crazy. Soon, Sasaki was included in the fifth batch of death squads. Sasaki thought of a new way to play, and he went off as usual, throwing explosives, but did not return. Instead, land at another airport and wait leisurely until the mission is over.
After making sure that Sasaki had not returned, the superior was overjoyed and announced that Sasaki had broken the jade and asked the Sasaki family to hurry up and prepare for the funeral.
It was at Sasaki's funeral that he returned. Sasaki said he ran out of gas and had to land at another airport.
This time you must die, or the whole country will spit on your whole family
The upper echelons went crazy, Sasaki did not die, and the blood pressure of the superiors soared. On the sixth expedition, his superiors directly said to him, you must crush the jade this time, otherwise your whole family will be spurned by the people of the whole country.
Sasaki was worried this time, survival or destruction made Sasaki's head bigger. Arriving at the battlefield, Sasaki still threw explosives first, and as a result, the sky was hungry and blind, and he did not expect to sink a US transport ship. I don't know if it's true or not, but Sasaki believes it anyway.
Sasaki flew straight back and said to his superiors, I Sasaki Yuji, blew up a U.S. military transport ship. The superiors thought that this was a great achievement, and immediately announced that Sasaki had successfully sunk the AMERICAN warship. Good fellow, the transport ship turned into a battleship.
In December 1944, Sasaki participated in the Seventh and Eighth Suicides. They were unable to participate in the battle and returned on the grounds of mechanical failure and lost halfway, respectively. His superiors had given up on him completely.
On December 18, 1994, Sasaki participated in a suicide mission for the last time. This time, Sasaki didn't even throw a single explosive, and after a circle in the sky, he returned to the base. Soon, the atomic bomb of Hiroshima exploded and the war ended. Sasaki was completely liberated.
The edge of death jumps repeatedly, and happiness lives to 92
The day after Japan announced its surrender, Jiro Ōnishi Taki, who had created the kamikaze task force, committed suicide by caesarean section. The Japanese government's attitude toward kamikaze has also changed drastically, believing it to be a disgrace to Japan. Many kamikaze strikers were sent to the U.S. Military Penitentiary, where they were humiliated.
After coming out, many of the surviving kamikaze team members lost their job opportunities and their lives were ruined. Sasaki was quick-witted, and after Japan's defeat in the war, he returned to his hometown in anonymity. It wasn't until 2016 that Sasaki died at the age of 92.
In fact, the success rate of the kamikaze special attack team is only 5%, but it has paid more than two thousand young lives. Undoubtedly, the kamikaze task force is a war freak, so that a group of young people who have just left the school, forced to volunteer to die, at a young age to accept the emperor as a family, to send death fate, even if there is reluctance in their hearts must be silently accepted.
In order to force the kamikaze to die with the U.S. army, the pilots will be tied to the seats, forced welded into the hatch, and only rationed with one-way gasoline, whether you can complete the task or not, the plane will definitely crash anyway. It can be seen how desperate Sasaki is in order to survive.
This is the story of Sasaki, has he subverted your perception of kamikaze? If you have any thoughts about Sasaki's behavior, please write it in the comments section.