Kamikaze: Japanese Special Attack Weapons 1944-45 (New Vanguard)
Language: English
Pages: 48
ISBN: 1849083533
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The destruction of much of the remainder of the Japanese fleet and its air arm in the later half of 1944 left the Japanese Home Islands vulnerable to attack by US naval and air forces. In desperation, the Imperial Japanese Navy proposed using "special attack" formations, a euphemism for suicide attacks. These initially consisted of crude improvisations of conventional aircraft fitted with high-explosive bombs that could be crashed into US warships. Called "Divine Wind" (Kamikaze), the special attack formations first saw action in 1944, and became the scourge of the US fleet in the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945.
In view of the success of these attacks, the Japanese armed forces began to develop an entire range of new special attack weapons. This book begins by examining the initial kamikaze aircraft attacks, but the focus of the book is on the dedicated special attack weapons developed in 1944, including the Ohka, a rocket-powered guided missile and the Kaiten man-guided torpedo submarines. It also covers specialized suicide attack weapons such as anti-tank lunge mines. Much of the information in this book comes from little known US intelligence reports and photos compiled after the war that have never been widely published.
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conversion than the Type 1, but also considerably more limited in performance, with only a 660lb (300kg) warhead. It had not entered production before the end of the war and only about six were completed. Kaiten Operations The Kaiten operations were codenamed Gen and were scheduled to begin in September 1944 against US Navy anchorages because these contained a large volume of relatively static targets. Due to delays in manufacturing and training, the first Gen operation did not leave Otsujima
area in early 1945 on Kerama Retto and the neighboring islands under the command of the 5th Sea Raiding Base Headquarters. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Sea Raiding Regiments on the islands were mostly overrun by US forces, which took the Kerama chain in late March 1945 as a preliminary step to the main assault on Okinawa. A few boats were launched with no effect, and most of the 250 vessels there were scuttled or burned by their units. On Okinawa itself, the IJN deployed the 22nd and 42nd Shinyo
escort carrier St. Lo and damaging the carrier USS Santee off the Philippines. The success of this small group of aircraft validated the Tokko concept in the eyes of many commanders. On October 30, therefore, the Emperor received the navy minister, Adm Mitsumasa Yonai, and remarked: “It is truly regrettable that it should be necessary to go to this extreme, but they have done well.” These remarks were taken by the IJN as the Emperor’s tacit approval for the Tokko missions. Onishi was instructed
ordinary fighters and attack aircraft like their navy counterparts. Tokko attacks began to peter out at the end of 1944, after the Japanese had exhausted their air fleets in the Philippines. During the course of the Philippines fighting from October 1944 to January 1945, a total of 421 IJN Tokko aircraft sortied, of which 378 were expended; they were supported by 239 escort fighters, of which 102 were shot down, crashed, or were otherwise lost. The army sent out 400 aircraft on 61 Tokko missions.
developed without rockets but with a skid landing gear. Static firing tests of the rocket motor began later in September. An unmanned Ohka was dropped over Sagami Bay on October 23, 1944, and the first manned test flight of an Ohka K-1 was conducted on October 31, 1944, using two wing-mounted rockets for propulsion. This flight was successful enough that series production of 45 Ohka K-1 trainers began immediately. The first successful test of a rocket-powered Ohka Type 11 took place on November
