Kamikaze was a special attack troop by the Japanese, which used suicide methods to attack the enemy. One of the forms of attack included using their planes to ram into the enemies fuselage or even into a warship when they ran out of firepower. This idea as adopted towards the end of the war as Japan had the inferior technology to the United States and was desperate enough to turn the tide against the Allies.
The idea was proposed by a high ranking Japanese Captain Motoharu Okamura, who asked for 300 planes (Wolff et. al, 1980). Fortunately, there were more volunteers than the planes that would be used to fight the war due to the methods used to select them. The soldiers were first assembled, and those who did not want to participate would be asked to leave. This made it difficult for the pilots to resist the pressure. If they refused, they would be treated as persona non grata and would face administrative afflictions together with their families in their country.
Furthermore, besides the volunteers, the pilots were given a paper to confirm in writing whether they would participate or not. This is further heightened the pressure. Those who dared refuse would be identified from their writing hence they would rather accept than suffer their afflictions. The soldiers were motivated to attack for the sake of the empire having been fed propaganda that they were fighting for the emperor who was like their god and was the direct representation of their country (Slade, 2006). Their families were also rewarded a given amount of cash as a token of consolation.
There are accounts of soldiers who were forced into the battle by their superiors hence could not dare argue with them. It was an order and in the army, an order must be followed first then questions later. Some survivors from Taiyo magazine in 1945 claim that they feared death and did not want to go but went because they were ordered to (Slade, 2006). This produced more Kamikaze soldiers than the country could afford to send hence the attack became mainstream and popular.
References
Slade, M. (2006). Kamikaze. New York, N.Y: Signet.
Wolff, P., Elliott, D., IRJA Films. Video Images (Firm), & Video Yesteryear (Firm). (1980). Kamikaze. Sandy Hook, Conn: Video Images/Video Yesteryear.
