SDHF Newsletter No.115 The Greater East Asian War 7

The Greater East Asian War: How Japan Changed The World
By Kase Hideaki
(Published by KK Bestseller in Japanese, 2015)
Chapter 7 – Why Do We Praise The Kamikaze?

April 4, 2016

This link is to Chapter 7.
Mr. Kase wrote a book Kamikaze: Japan’s Suicide Gods in English and had it published through Longman, the United Kingdom’s largest publishing firm. The book was co-authored with Mr. Albert Axell, famous American military history writer.
The book sold well in the United States, and was subsequently translated into Spanish, Danish, Finnish, and Estonian.
During the battle Okinawa, the Japanese Navy sent 1,005 planes and the Japanese Army sent 886 planes on kamikaze missions. 1,986 members of the Navy and 1,201 members of the Army were killed during these missions. The US Navy lost 5,000 servicemen, most of whom were killed in kamikaze attacks.
Maurice Pinguet was a French philosopher. He was a professor at the University of Paris, and then, by invitation, at the University of Tokyo. In his book, Voluntary Death in Japan, Pinguet praises the young Japanese pilots who perished in kamikaze attacks:

“Their sacrifice was all the more poignant for being devoid of pessimism and bitterness. When they looked back on the brief time which had been allowed them, they were grateful for it… Pilot Officer Nagatsuka had the gentle, but now for ever unrealizable, ambition of reading the whole of George Sand’s The Master Bell Ringers. He thought of his mother and sisters, who must be protected from invasion. A good son, a good student, a good soldier, the young pilot of the Special Units was martyr less to his faith than to his good will. He was no daredevil and no boaster: he was serious, industrious… But what reaches us [about the kamikaze pilots] is their sense, their calm, their lucidity. From the outside they looked like raving madmen, or robots, those eager hearts too aware of the ills of their time to cling to their own lives. No one could understand what they were doing, but for them it was simple and spontaneous. People believed they were forced, inveigled, brainwashed, fed on promises, illusions and drugs; people’s eyes went through the crystal clarity of their self-denial, so clear it was impossible to perceive. It is this purity which is so unbearably moving. These young men, learning to die well at an age when life might have been so fair, were misunderstood. It is for us to give them the tribute of admiration and compassion which they deserve. They died for Japan, but we do not need to be Japanese to understand them.”

URL: https://www.sdh-fact.com/book-article/663/
PDF: https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Greater7.pdf
Author profile: https://www.sdh-fact.com/auther/kase-hideaki/

*For your reference; Chapter 1. Up to the Day Japan Surrendered
https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/The-Greater1.pdf
　　　　　　　　　　Chapter 2. The Trap Laid by the United States
https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Greater2.pdf
Chapter 3. The Greater East Asia Conference and the Dream of Racial Equality
https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Greater3.pdf
Chapter 4. The Noble Spirit Which Inspired the People of Asia
https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Greater4.pdf
Chapter 5. Freedom From Racial Discrimination
https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Greater5.pdf
　　　　　　　　　　Chapter 6. Japanese Army’s “Spirit-First Policy”
https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Greater6.pdf
　
Questions are welcome.

MOTEKI Hiromichi, Acting Chairman
for KASE Hideaki, Chairman
Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact