Kamikaze Attacks: World War II Veteran Remembers
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 24 окт 2021
- Washington State-born Donald Raleigh was a World War II veteran who served with the United States Navy in the Pacific Theater. He was stationed on the USS Maryland (BB-46) which was moored in Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7th, 1941. In this video, Raleigh recalls later encounters in the war, when his carrier group came under attack from Japanese kamikaze. Kamikaze were Japanese military pilots assigned to carry out suicide attacks, usually crashing their explosive-laden plane into Allied navy ships.
Explore his entire oral history in The Museum of Flight's archives ➡️ bit.ly/3ng7aB1
I have in fact met a WW2 Kamikaze pilot. He survived WW2 only because his unit ran out of aircrafts. I asked him why so many Japanese were willing to volunteer for the Kamikaze unit, and his answer would surprise many people. He said most Kamikaze pilots did not want to join, but were coerced or peer pressured into it. He gave 2 examples of how it was done: 1) A recruiter for the Special Attack Unit would go to the graduating class (naval or army aviation academy) of pilots and tell them about it and then say if anyone who did NOT want to join to stand up. This is in front of the entire class of graduates. 2) A high ranking recruiter would post the names of everyone who did join; leaving out names of those who did not. Everyone knew that the names would be published and posted. While there were Japanese who volunteered willingly, there were also those who were "volunteered".
There is a lot of misinformation about the Kamikaze in the United States, thanks largely to the US military's propaganda effort during the war that was never corrected following the war. The devastating loss of life and materiel caused by Kamikaze is irrefutable, but many (though not all) of the stories of fanaticism were exaggerated during the war, and the wider context of why someone might end up in the cockpit of a Kamikaze plane is lost.
No experienced pilot would volunteer for kamikaze duty only the rookies
I doubt anyone today would do a kamikaze attack seeing as how much fighter jets cost to make nowadays lol