Kamikaze Pilots

During World War II in the Pacific, there were pilots of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy who made suicide attacks, driving their planes to deliberately crash into carriers and battle ships of the Allied forces. These were the pilots known as the Kamikaze pilots. Because right-wing organizations have used the Kamikaze pilots as a symbol of a militaristic and extremely nationalistic Japan, the current Japanese respond to the issue with ignorance and false stereotypes and with generally negative and unsympathetic remarks. However, the Kamikaze fighters added a new wrinkle to navel warfare. Kamikaze expressed their feelings and thoughts about the missions through haiku poems. In many of the haiku that the Kamikaze pilots wrote, the Emperor is mentioned in the first line. According to those who have lived through the early Showa period (1926-1945), the presence of Emperor Showa was like that of a god and he was more of a religious figure than a political one. In public schools, students were taught to die for the emperor. By late 1944, a slogan of Jusshi Reisho meaning "Sacrifice life," was taught. …