David Knights' Weblog

Book review: Blossoms in the Wind
Human Legacies of the Kamikaze
By M.G. Sheftall
ISBN 0-451-21487-0
421 Pgs
16 Pgs black & white photos

Usually while building a model, I find myself reading books related to the subject I’m building.  Recently, I have been building the new, fantastic, Tamiya 72^nd scale A6M5.  I’ve got a set of decals by the late, lamented, Aeromaster company with a collection of markings for Kamikaze aircraft, including several A6M5s.  This led me to pull to book above from my bookshelf, and I am glad I did.

The author is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) and lives and teaches in Japan and is married to a Japanese wife.  In the wake of the Sept. 11^th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center the author found himself motivated to examine the motivations of the tokkō (kamikaze) pilots of WWII and how they differed from the terrorists of 9/11.

The book starts off with the story of the first major tokkō attack of WWII, the attack on the carriers of Taffy 3 and the sinking of the St Lo.(CVE-63).  The author tells the story in gripping fashion, and the reader is hooked.

The book then goes into a brief description of how the tokkō attack method came to be put forth and then accepted.  Contrary to the accepted wisdom that the Japanese were readily willing to commit suicide in battle, the idea of tokkō attacks was rejected on numerous occasions by both the Navy and Army high command.  Only when it became obvious during the American invasion of the Philippines that the Japanese had no hope of resisting the US military via conventional means, did the high command finally relent to the use of the tokkō method of attack.

The rest of the book consists of stories of various kamikaze pilots (aircraft and human torpedo) who for one reason or another survived the war.  There is also a chapter on a group of young women who were organized to give send offs, day after day, to pilots going off to fly on their final missions.

All the various stories in the book are fascinating, and the author’s deep understanding of Japanese culture leads to special insights into the psychology of the kamikaze method and mind set.  The reader learns that not all kamikaze pilots were strictly volunteers and that many were ambivalent about using the tokkō method of attack.  However they were all united by their love of their country and desire to do what was necessary to protect their country and family from invasion. Another thing that struck me as a reader is how young many of these pilots were.  Some were as young as 15, and rarely were they older than 18.  A 22 year old was considered an old man in the kamikaze community.

I highly recommend this book.  It is a quick and fascinating read, despite its 400+ pages.  I happened to pick this copy up for about $5 at Half-Priced Books.  It was more than worth the price.