8 - Kamikazes

In the late 13th century, after Genghis Khan had united the Mongol empire, it was left up to his successors to continue his conquests throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe, and Kublai Khan, Genghis' grandson, was diligently continuing his grandfather's work. His victories, however, would not extend to Japan. According to legend, a series of two intense typhoons—known as the “Kamikaze" for their exceptional strength and supposedly divine origins—decimated the Mongol fleet on its approach to Japan, both in 1274 and 1281. 

By 1944, the American army and naval air forces not only outnumbered their Japanese counterparts, it also had technologically superior aircraft, and better pilots. Unlike the five million German soldiers who eventually surrendered to the Allies in Europe, less than 5% of Japanese forces were captured. They considered it a disgrace to their families, and instead fought to the death.  Although Allied troops were acquainted with their enemy's sacrificial nature, they were unprepared for what came out of the sky during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. Japanese pilots flew their planes and themselves directly into American warships, causing massive damage. So attacked, the U.S.S. St. Lo sank with 114 hands — the first, but far from the last, victims of the kamikazes.

The concept was Vice Admiral Onishi Takijiro's. Japanese air forces were no longer competitive, so Takijiro proposed turning planes into human missiles. The pilots needed little training — takeoffs, but no landings — and a sacrificial dive-bomber would be hard to shoot down. Kamikaze pilots were often university students, motivated by obligation and gratitude to family and country. They prepared by holding ceremonials, writing farewell poems, and receiving a “thousand stitch belt" — cloth into which 1,000 women had sewn one stitch as a symbolic uniting with the pilot. Then, in planes wrapped around 550 pound bombs, they would fly off to die.