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Are we gonna get a mention of USS Franklin How that carrier survived a Midway style attack? an attack that exploded almost ever plane in the carrier deck?
For post war wrap up I would like to know to what extent Ford, GM and other US companies were involved in production in Germany and how payment, if any, was made. I am aware Ford and GM sued and won for damages post war.
The "Victory at Sea" series was initially run on U.S. TV in 1952 without advertisements, as NBC thought that no one would want to watch war movies; they did run it anyway as a patriotic duty. How wrong they were!
I read a book about the Laffey and it was the absolute refusal of her crew to abandon her and instead keep her afloat that is astonishing! There was also a story, maybe made up, that said when US pilots spotted her they reported her as a barge due to her incredible damage.
My grandfather served on the USS New Mexico. He died before I was born but he told my mom a story about how there was a "huge explosion" and that initially the crew who found him thought he was killed, thankfully not but two of his friends were. A few years later I did my own research and found out what that huge explosion was. We have the memorial service pamphlet that is dated the day after the attack, along with several photos collected during his time in the Navy. I believe he would have been 17 when all of this happened too.
My Great Grandfather was also on the New Mexico. I never met him either our family also has a massive book of photos documenting the war. Its crazy what these guys went through.
The book "Blossoms on the Wind" is a really good source for contemporary Japanese perspectives on the "Special Attack" programs, based on extensive interviews with survivors and civilian witnesses. If anything it mostly contributed to the sense of helplessness and betrayal that prompted the Japanese to completely reinvent their entire society after the war,
9:16 Bit of trivia for fellow space nerds. The USS Intrepid (nicknamed the Decrepit) would many years later be used as the recovery vessel for the Mercury capsule carrying Scott Carpenter and later again for the Gemini capsule carrying John Young and Gus Grissom.
400ft in the air. One of the most incredible pictures of the war at sea. Its also interesting to know the pilot Shunsuke Tomiyasu. Respect to the Big E
The Japanese fought so fiercely in an attempt to frighten the Allies away from invading the home islands. Ironically, that made the decision to drop the A-bombs more easy.
Its crazy how many top generals and admirals voiced against the a-bomb use for various reasons, one being they didn't understand why using it on a civilian target. US governement just wanted an excuse to flex a nex weapons to the soviets and scare them and Japan was the perfect excuse
The rusky made them surrender, overall stalin win the second world war, yet sometimes wikipedia and all western historian said that allied win this brutal conflict lol 😅@@tugg3024
@@danendraabyantara2931 Comies made the kwantung army freakout ,Nuke made gave the window for mainland to surrender Civilian sector wanted out so bad. Its a team effort the allied do know how to fight a total war. Without any of the big ones(included ROC) the war would be much different.
My brother-in-law joined the Navy at 17 and was stationed on a troop carrier to operate a 40mm anti-aircraft gun. When he was 87, I interviewed him for a biography to give to his children. One of the stories he recounted was, as he was throwing his leg over the lip of the gun-tub because his relief had showed up, a flash of light from the guns of a nearby ship illuminated a Kamikaze going past his position close enough to reach out and touch the wing. It crashed into the water between his ship and the next.
My grandfather and grandmother were first generation Japanese immigrants shipped to Brazil for what Japanese policy makers called “Waste Life Policy”. During the 1920s Japan were suffering from overpopulation (similarly to Irish during the potato famine) and were actively looking for ways to basically get rid of people in profitable ways. One was selling “Wasted Life” off to Brazilian coffee farms as “Labours”. For Imperial Japanese Government, wasting life wasn’t a cost. It was a goal. I’m glad that they’ve got defeated.
I have never heard of waste live policy… Japan also was asked by Brazil to allow immigrants and not vice versa and 10 times the amount of Japanese immigrated to Korea and Manchuria which was subsidized by the Japanese government due to the rapid industrialization of the Japanese agricultural sector putting people out of work… But maybe you have a link for us that Japan deliberately "sold“ Japanese to Brazil?
Correct, the Japanese were also angry when the US limited their immigration to Hawaii, etc. Not many know that there are tons of Japanese in Brazil and also many Brazilians (or of Brazilian descent) in Japan, esp. Tokyo.
My great grandpa was on USS Little when it was sank by the kamikaze attacks of Kikusui V. He never liked to talk about it, all we could get from him was that it basically blew him off the ship. Still have the deck overalls he was wearing at the time.
Its surreal watching this. My grandfather was on a destroyer on the radar pickett line, and the stories he told me were still quite vivid 50+ years after the event (he died in 2008) His ship was grazed by a ki61 tony army air force fighter, one of very few used in suicide attacks. The CO of his 3 ship formation was capt moosebrugger of Guadalcanal fame, and he developed formations for 3 ship destroyer groups to maximize their AA fire concentration to great effect.
When the USS Bunker Hill was attacked on 11 May 1945, my grandfather was there. He was a 23 year old PO1 and anti-aircraft gunner on the USS Wilkes-Barre (CL 103). He passed away in 1996, but when I was a boy he told me about this day. He told me that after the attack when rescue and evac operations were underway, the Wilkes-Barre wedged her bow into the Bunker Hill to help stop her from listing too far over while her crew put out the fires and bilged the water they'd taken on. The US Navy website details this in the service history of Wilkes-Barre as well. The AA gunner you show a brief clip of at (12:31) actually kinda looks like him.
@@SyndicateSuperman that's why pacific is so brutal, you need an extra armor, massive firepower and carriers, and usmc guys to beat this tojo fanatical machines 😅
Our damage control was awesome. This was a time when guys pre war skills brought a lot to the table. Farm boys that knew tractors, machinists, factory workers, mechanics. That generation worked with their hands. Most kids today can’t change their oil or gap a spark plug.
@@larry648 It had nothing to do with their civilian pre-war occupations. It was entirely due to their military training and the procedures about US Navy ships. That has not changed.
Just a fun bit of trivia to demonstrate the size of naval forces we're talking about in the Western Pacific in mid-late 1945: The BPF (British Pacific Fleet) was the largest and most powerful British fleet of the war (and, depending how you measure it, the most powerful British Fleet ever to sail against an enemy in combat - comprising 6 fleet carriers, 4 light carriers, 2 maintenance carriers and 9 escort carriers, 5 battleships, 11 cruisers, 35 destroyers, 14 frigates, 44 smaller warships, 31 submarines, and 54 large vessels in the fleet train). This fleet is largely forgotten as it was only in theater conducting operations for about 3 months, and - most importantly - because the American Pacific Fleet was the largest and most powerful fleet of warships EVER FIELDED in human history (in fact, if one were to attempt to aggregate the firepower of naval forces over time, the 3rd/5th fleet could be said to be more powerful than all of the navies of the world and much of human history - combined). Each of the 4 main Task Groups of the fleet (a sort of independent task force of multiple fleet and auxiliary carriers, plus BB's, CA's, DD's, etc. as escorts) was larger and better equipped with aircraft (although the unarmored decks of the American Fleet did make them more vulnerable to kamikaze attack than their armored-decked British counterparts) then the BPF.
There’s also the fact that they were the one British fleet in the whole theatre, so instead of being seen as a ‘big fleet’ they’re seen as effectively a ‘smaller navy’, where multiple fleets in the European and Atlantic theatre tend to be thought of together. Which is strange when one considers that the Royal Navy was still the largest ever in 1939 (and some way into the war).
These are all great facts. I think a 2020's US Navy fleet of 2 fleet carrier task forces are more powerful than these WW2 Pacific fleets. Also if both of today's UK aircraft carriers joined as a fleet, they would over match its WW2 counterpart. Missile and computer targeting technology have come that far.
Maybe not. Once the missile arsenal is exhausted many modern ships are very much reduced in effectiveness. Modern instrumentation would be a better addition to an earlier fleet.
@@ZER0ZER0SE7EN i think they meant the most powerful navy up until that point in history, the modern US navy could destroy the entire WW2 pacific fleet without ever seeing them
One of the officer running the Kamikazee raids wrote a book about them.One thing that I noticed was that they tended to massively over report the successes of Raids,ships that were minimally damaged were reported as sunk, destroyers were reported as Cruisers or battleships..
@@exeggcutertimur6091 they thought that they had sunk the Yorktown before the second attack at Midway- because of the damage control they thought it was undamaged carrier.
Japanese piolets almost always seriously overestimated the amount and type of American ships they sank and damaged throughout the war. The Americans also did but not to the same degree. It was easy to overestimate these numbers do to the stresses of combat but the numbers of inflicted losses the Japanese reported are in my opinion are far beyond accidental.
"Don Rickles" perfected his "Quick Delivery of Verbal Assault's". By manning a 20 MM Oerliken Anti-Aircraft Gun Against Kamikaze Attacks aboard a Liberty Ship supplying PT Boats.
If you go to Charleston, SC the USS Laffey is part of the Patriot Point museum along with the USS Yorktown. They have a great video in the aft turret which was hit in the battle.
My next door neighbor served aboard the USS Little DD-803. It was sunk by four kamikaze hits on May 3. He was part of the crew of one of the 5" mounts.
I learnt of USS Laffey’s epic at 1st in Pierre Clostermann’s «Flames In The Sky» (1955) Along with the story of US Army Captain William Dyess & the desperate fight on Bataan before The Death March.
Awesome seeing this and the weekly coverage. Had great uncle's in an LST and the seabees plus knew other people in and around Okinawa and the Philippines during all of this.
Western POWs often saw Japanese officers or NCOs slapping their subordinates. There was no embarrassment about doing this in front of POWs - this was just the Japanese way of doing things. POWs would themselves be abused, often by low-ranking Japanese soldiers or Koreans, as the POWs were at the bottom of the hierarchy.
@@stevekaczynski3793 A tradition inherited by the South Korean military, at least as of the late 1990s. I was a cannoneer in the US Marines and in the run up to a massive joint training exercise involving the US & ROK Marines simultating an amphibious assault in North Korea, we were posted on a ROK Marine base. On one afternoon during this prep phase we saw ROK Marine artillerymen doing dry fire drills (going through the procedures for fire missions without using live ammunition) and with not much to do at the moment, we decided to watch out out of professional curiosity. Anyhow, one junior ROK Marine on the gun nearest us made an error and the section chief gave him an earful before slugging him, I suppose to hammer home whichever point was being made. The ROK Marines also had basic training on the same base and we saw a bit of their recruit taining. Oddly, when the recruits were on formation runs they were all fixed to another with these white ropes. I asked one of our Staff NCOs what that was all about, and he said it was so that if anyone couldn't keep up they'd be dragged. Grain of salt with that last bit of course, because that was coming from a US Marine rather than Republic of Korea one. I will say that despite their somewhat "hands on" approach to discipline the ROK Marines were impressive overall. They & the British Royal Marines made the best impressions out of the foreign military I had some interaction with.
Imagine being "selected" for the "honor" of flying to your death in an attempt to destroy an enemy ship. You know that once you take off, you are not expected to return. I know they believed their emperor was considered a 'god' and dying for him was an 'honor'. That had to be the worst day of their lives. Our culture does honor those who die in battle, but it also wishes and hopes for those men to survive the battle.
There are stories of pilots returning too many times, causing them to be judged by their superiors Having that happen was of course, not unheard of. The plane not finding targets, or simply being too damaged to reach its objective are possible issues that are reason for a plane to return.
Some kamikazes did turn back, claiming to have found no targets, and the vastness of the Pacific and the rather limited skills of most kamikaze pilots (including navigational) made this credible. At least one pilot who turned back multiple times was however executed.
And post war, those that survived (either by ditching or simply not been sent out before the war ended) were shunned back home. There was no winning for those guys.
B17 Crews in Europe at best a 33% chance of surviving their tour of duty. The officers who sent them out must have had an inkling of this, the crews must have been aware of this. They were still sent, they still went. If people don’t want to think of the flights as suicide missions thats fine.
IDk. As much as I try to honor my ancestors and show respect, I can't help but be displeased that they also chose to surrender to their enemy. That I had never been born to a line whose very existence proves cowardice. 😢
The USS Laffey is currently docked in Charleston harbor in South Carolina. Charleston has been a vacation spot for me and my family my entire life, and I’ve made frequent visits to the museum. However, the main attraction is the carrier there, USS Yorktown (CV-10). My entire life, I’ve considered the Laffey “the other ship” there, and I usually skipped going onboard in favor of more time on the Yorktown or nearby Fort Sumter. I was completely unaware of its story until this episode. I lit up with excitement and intrigue when its name was mentioned. “I know that one!” lol.
Back in 1983 my Grandpa took me to Quantico as he was a lawyer for the DOD following his WW2 commission. Quantico had a small war museum which featured one of those specially designed Kamikaze "Rocket with wings". Lord knows how they got it but it had in it's small cockpit a joystick and specialized crosshairs on the dashboard. I hope it's still their and if not it would be at the Smithsonian. I didnt't realize it then but the bravery of my Grandpa to show me a lot of that war stuff(Virginia/Wash. DC area was dripping with old Revolutionary & Civil War battlefields) he would take me almost every weekend to see from the Summers of 83-86. Thanks Time Ghost team for putting this together.
You call it bravery... could easily be a way of dealing with PTSD? See the same stressful things a few dozen times in a nice peaceful setting, could be theraputic.
Great episode. The armoured deck of HMS Formidable proved its worth in saving the ship (and many lives). I gather filling the dent in the flight deck with concrete had the carrier up and running again in short order
When Kamikaze attacks began in 1944, a number of the 20mm and even 40mm Bofors antiaircraft guns were deemed no longer suited for the task. The US Navy was working on bringing back old 3"/50 (76.2mm/50) guns on new mounts to replace these. This gun size was important because it was the smallest that could use proximity fused shells. These medium sized AA guns were needed as a layer of air defense behind the larger but slower firing 127mm/38 guns the US Navy had a lot of already. The war ended before this program was completed and guns fielded. They did show up post WWII.
The channel should do an episode on why the Americans were growing stronger and stronger at this time. I have been a buff of WW II since childhood and am astonished by the sheer production the US was able to accomplish during the war. The US produced 10 battleships, 2 battle cruisers, about 40 plus cruisers, about 200 modern destroyers, over 500 escort destroyers, over 100 escort carries, at least 10 light carriers, and more than 15 fleet carriers during the war! This is in addition to thousands and thousands of troop ships, tankers, landing craft, mine sweepers, mine layers, and other support ships and last but not least about 200 submarines which inflicted about 85 percent of all losses on the Japanese Nave and merchant fleet. That said I see two episodes, US production and the US submarine war. The US produced more ships than all other combatants combined, it is an astonishing achievment and one that is little appreciated in todays world.
Population and raw resources advantage; simple as that. Everybody else was busy getting bombed, didn’t have the population, or otherwise didn’t have the natural harbors to produce and protect the new ships.
One other note about the Kamikaze aircraft: since they were on a one-way trip, they theoretically had twice the range of a standard plane. This meant that they could be staged farther away. Thus, harder to destroy on the ground.
This series does so much to show all the interconnections, it's baffling. We all have seen the hightlights and lowlights before, but here they are highlighted all and but in perspective. Magnum Opus.
Drachnifel made a video pointing out that at the time this tactic would be most effective (early in the war 41-42), the Japanese didn't have a real need for it, and when they did deploy it (1945) it was ultimatley counterproductive.
There is someplace here with a blow by blow description of the assault on the USS Laffey, showing all the maneuvers and hits. You're right, it is a whole episode.
Terrific episode. I had one source that mentioned some of the bullying and coercion of the kamikaze pilots. It is of course no surprise that the amazing World War Two team dug deeper to put together a more complete and nuanced account of Operation Kikusui. Last year when our sailboat docked in Hualien, Taiwan, we learned that the nearby military air base had been a kamikaze air base late in the war. Every day and all day we were there, F16 pilots were training. Our next port of call was Okinawa, and then Japan - where to get our passports stamped we went to an airport/air base. Where more F-16 pilots busy training. To preserve the peace, prepare for war. Hopefully it works. The Destroyer Laffey is anchored in Charleston, South Carolina. Gun #4 has an interactive display in it. If you're curious what the crew of the Laffey experienced off Okinawa... do go inside. If you have PTSD, perhaps not.
Not that there was a whole lot of argument against using the Bomb but if there had been, tactics like this could help make a compelling case that the old rules were out the window by this stage in the war.
Great episode. My father’s ship was in the thick of it off Okinawa. It took several near misses and helped shoot down a kamikaze that was diving on the USS Wichita. He told me that they were at general quarters for hours at a time.
The Marines weren’t surprised after the first Banzai charge. Kamikaze, Lunge mines, human land mines, little girls being taught to charge with bamboo spears isn’t too nonsensical from the Imperial Japanese point of view.
Oh wow, so much gruesome, bloody and brutal tactics for the sake of dying empire in 1945, what we're they thinking, they think the suicide tactics is the best weapon to beat american industrial machine lol 😂
Absolutely agree although civilians actually fighting basically didnt happen… Not even on Okinawa. Only 2k or so school aged boys of which most didnt fight and a couple of hundred women to support the troops.
My Grandma was taken out of school to stab straw dummies while screaming Dıe Roosevelt Dıe Churchill! So yes they would've used little girls like that.
The ironic thing is that dropping the Atomic bombs probably saved millions of Japanese lives. If the allies would have landed on the home islands there would have been fanatical attempts by the Japanese to kill them.
@@bingobongo1615the Japanese were preparing them instead in both Operations Olympic and Coronet. Also the natives of Okinawa were considered 2nd class citizens by their Japanese overlords so civilian fanaticism is understandably different compared to the Home Islands.
My late grandfathers ship, USS Stanley DD-478, while off Okinawa, was hit by an Ohka but they were lucky as it just punched clean through and didn't explode. A second Ohka was a near miss. It's suspected a gunner got lucky and hit the pilot or a control surface on the rocket as it swerved at the last second. I've heard but can't confirm that it was so close that the wing of the Ohka ripped the flag (ensign) off the mast as it passed over.
If we're thinking of the same special on the Franklin, it was actually a lone dive bomber with two 250 kg semi-armor piercing bombs. This was on March 19, 1945, while Franklin's kamikaze hit was the previous fall off the Philippines.
The last kamikaze raid occurred after the Japanese surrender. The guy who was second in command to Yamamoto was in the second aircraft, accompanying Yamamoto on his inspection flight. His aircraft was also shot down but he survived and was put in charge of defense of the home island or something like it. At war's end he refused to accept the surrender and sadly, convinced a number of young pilots to accompany him on a final attack on the American fleet. Nothing more was heard of them but it is clear they were all shot down.
"We will strike a DECISIVE blow". Uhhh wasn't Pearl Harbour supposed to be a ..decisive blow?", " Shut up, shut up."" Wasn't Midway supposed to be a ...decisive blow?" " Shut up, shut up, THIS TIME it's going to be a...decisive blow." " Yeah to...US."
Most military leaders harbor the fantasy goal of leading that "decisive blow" which almost never happens in history against any strong enemy. That type of leader tends to commit what I call 'suicide by proxy' by sending their men to their death needlessly in those attempts, while more realistic leaders simply seek the best victory they can attain even if it is not utterly decisive.
The Intrepid in this video is moored in New York City as a floating museum. Definite must see, to her, various air craft and the Space Shuttle Enterprise :)
My father-in-law was crew on a troop carrier. As the invasion of the Home Islands became a (seeming) inevitability, they were carrying troops that were to be fed into the maw of that invasion. Whatever moral qualms we feel now about it (and I do), the atomic bombings saved the lives of most of those men, waiting to disembark. War leaves us with such awful moral quandaries.
I’ve read somewhere that the Kamimazi’s had their guns and anything but the body of the wings all removed so all the weight is in explosives. This is why the Allied pilots didn’t experience return fire.
12:36 My sainted father served on the USS Birmingham during World War II. He joined the ship just a few days too late to be considered a "plank owner" and stayed on the ship through to the end of the war.
I believe that comes from a USN officer attached to an RN carrier when it took a a kamikaze hit, oversimplified yes, but it makes the point. Ton for ton US carriers had larger air groups but RN carriers were tougher. The kamikaze hit on HMS Formidable's flight deck mentioned in the video put a 2 foot dent in the armoured flight deck, spalling from which caused further damage lower in the ship to her propulsion systems. She was back operational ie landing on and launching aircraft in about five hours, back up to full speed about seven hours later.
I remembered USS Laffey from an old History Channel documentary on naval/air warfare, but I couldn't figure out where the attack took place and when... well, until now!
One of the aspects of the channel I really appreciate is the lead-in artwork and its flow into the look and feel of the set (The Dr who fob watches are a nice touch/anachronism). From the credits, Mikołaj Uchman seems to be the lead character in these adventures, but I suspect others have been involved over time. Could you pass on my compliments please Indy? This kind of thing takes the channel out of the ordinary into the stratosphere of RUclips fare. Oh, and looking forward to the reinvention of the channel with its shift to the Korean conflict. Will you be getting new suits and a set?
The airfield for most these pilots training and main base is in Chiran. There is a museum there now filled with the letters and personal items of the men chosen. I think it is really hard to understand the perspective of the Japanese for most westerners unless you visit this place and read what these men and their families wrote. Many pilots broke off and flew over their homes dropping letters and messages to their families against orders on their final flights. It is easy to just think, "they are just fanatics for the emperor", but if you read the reality of what they said you know they had been told their nation is facing extermination, the act in their eyes was to save their families and nation. With your cities under strategic bombardment non-stop, its pretty obvious to see what gave them the idea. Its so easy for people to envision brainwashed fanatics, rather than scared young men desperate to protect their hometowns. 永遠の0
Totally off topic, but since this is primarily a Navy episode. Bob Feller served aboard the USS Alabama on the gun crew. I asked him (radio call-in show) about coming up with the slider while on board ship. He didn't go into any real detail, but he did say "We left a lot of baseballs in the Pacific".
I've never seen so much footage of the Ki-61 Hien "Tony" fighter before. It was one of the more unusual Japanese fighter types because of its liquid cooled inline engine which gave it a profile very similar to the German Bf109. They were first encountered during the Doolittle Raid when prototypes of the fighter were scrambled but didn't manage to shoot down any bombers. They were initially misidentified as Bf109's during these first encounters. Plus at 7:00 appears to be a Japanese captured C-47.
I read somewhere that Nimitz planned to send a decoy invasion fleet of Liberty ships with their decks crammed with as many AA guns that could be mounted to approach the main islands of Japan and draw as large a Kamikaze attack that the Japanese could organise. The idea being to induce the Japanese to shoot their bolt on ships that had little strategic/tactical value. The Kamikaze had their limits- it was a one-shot weapon.
Respectfully, Indy: the lighting from certain angles is way too bright and it is making you look unwell with the shadows it casts on your cheeks. Love what you do! The contrast was a bit off on that one.
When the only choice left to your military is suicide attacks, what other sign is needed that not only is the war lost, but that all sanity has departed the leadership?
The suicide attacks were rational. The kamikazes were more effective per plane and man lost than conventional attacks. The difference is that most militaries allow the average soldier the pretense that he isn't being expended like a round of ammunition.
@@Veylon A YT documentary I saw years ago drew the conclusion that the kamikaze attacks did more damage to the Allies than if the Japanese had stuck with conventional attacks. It made a pretty convincing case.
@@Veylonits only rational if it has a chance of stopping the attacker. Otherwise all that is happening is that fewer of Japan’s troops are dying. As there was rationally no chance of stopping the attacker, the rational choice is surrender.
The US losses would have destroyed the Pacific Squadrons of other Navies. It’s only the big reserves of Fletchers, Essexes and escort carrier swarm built up over 5 years, that makes the divine wind a huge bust.
This RUclips channel is the only one that I watch on WW2 videos it the best one the rest well really suck. Just this one is good. Keep up the great work
There was an American study/interviews of participating Japanese pilots and officers after the war about Kamikazes. One thing that stuck with me reading about it was that the American officers were floored that the pilots were volunteers. They thought for sure the pilots had been coerced in some way, their families threatened, got them drunk, would be summarily executed if they didn't, etc. Despite what Indy alluded to with pilots being forced to man the planes/bailing out after takeoff, most of the "Special Attack Force" were willing volunteers, men who were prepared to quite calmly sacrifice their lives for country & emperor. There still exists a vast a gulf in understanding that mentality to Western audiences.
@@NightingaleVictor I wouldn't say bogus. When a whole people/nation follow something, isn't that honesty? Isn't it a kind of democracy, and the people's responsibility for country's actions by NOT stopping it??
@@MM22966 If you’re kept ignorant of the rest of the world by your leaders, intentionally not taught to think scientifically, and are socially and legally punished for questioning authority; whether 99% of the country believes the ideology or not, it doesn’t quite matter - it’s not the kind of public support for the ideology/empire that arises from a free conscience or an educated mind, but from the heavy hand of the state, through oppression.
Regarding the issue of "volunteering", Japanese fighter ace Saburo Sakai would later write that his squadron were given forms asking whether they were willing to take part in special attack operations. The options were 1) No. 2) Yes and 3) Yes, with all my heart. Everyone signed the third option: the general feeling was that if you refused, high command would only find some other way to get you killed.
Mitsuru Yoshida said something similar; after Operation Ten-Go the surviving crew of the Yamato were ordered to fall in and their COs yelled at them, then asked if they wanted to get back in the fight...
A last gesture of insanity to round out an era of insanity. Sending the future of your nation on a one way trip, to win a war that had already been lost. Excellent look at kamikaze operations.
There are smart people in every country, so I'd be cautious attributing whatever success the Allies or Germany had to ingenuity and engineering. I think being in the right place and right time, dumb luck, particular histories leading up to the war, etc., ... that kind of stuff is a lot more important than (I think) a lot of people realize. It's hard to explain to a popular audience for at least two reasons: 1) it makes for a much less compelling story, and 2) people like to feel that they're in control over their lives, success/failure depends on how hard one works, settle on an explanation of what is going on, etc. .. people usually feel distressed when confronted with how little control they have over their fate. People would rather believe in a lie than acknowledge an uncomfortable truth.
My father's ship was part of the layered anti-aircraft defences for the British Pacific Fleet at this time. He was always rather dismissive of the kamikazes - he was some sort of radar operator and he claimed that they simply shot them down. I always thought he was maybe a bit too dismissive but then I discovered that only one British ship was ever sunk by a kamikaze - a minesweeper which was actually eventually sunk by British torpedoes. Maybe he was right. Or maybe they just didn't get the obsessive attention that the American fleet got.
Due to the lack of training & outdated planes, it was suicidal to send most Japanese pilots into combat with the well-trained American pilots. Also, The USA had the luxury of rotating pilots with combat experience back to the USA to train new pilots. The Hellcats & Corsairs outclassed most Japanese fighters. Yes, any way you cut it, kamikazes were an act of desperation.
I thought another "funny" aspect of it was that it was about the first and last time the Japanese went for a "mill-grinder" training approach for pilots, rather than the high standards/low pass rate that made their air forces very good but hard to replace during most of the war.
@@Boron121 Well, they could kill themselves and as many Americans as they could reach before they went down. Inevitably, the weak Americans would get sick of the bloodshed first and sue for a ceasefire. That was their primary thinking at the time.
Kamikaze was born out of the reality that conventional attack against US fleet is practically suicidal with just how dense their AA's are, the material and trained pilot sacrifice for the very limited impact is simply not worth it Kamikaze practically solve this, you don't need highly trained pilot to manned missions like this, you don't need advance aircraft to do this, old zeros and even training biplane is very much sufficient for this kind off mission, Japan have shittones of all of them. The casualties ratio is also far more modest to Japanese than any conventional attack, even in the series of operation Kikushui, there will be More dead US and allied personnels than the Japanese, something this is something unthinkable in this late war, in the battle of Okinawa, despite practically having no surface fleet, the Japanese manage to sink dozens of US ships and killed thousands of US navy personnel, more than they lost in Kamikaze attacks. In the end, the only effective way to stop a Kamikaze is having an effective air arm on your own, and detecting the Kamikaze planes during their way or destroying their plane on the base, even this is not a full proof, the Japanese still maintain mixed conventional attack with Kamikaze, so it is not a risk free operation for the US pilot.
I once read the half joking observation that a zero with a 250kg bomb was the ultimate smart weapon, although it didn't use lasers and CPUs for guidance...
I'll say this for the Axis, they really liked their horribly expensive weapon systems they couldn't really afford. With Hitler it was the V2 and his "wonder weapon" programs. With the Japanese they took expensive and soon to be irreplaceable fighters and expended them as guided munitions. The Japanese simply didn't have the industrial strength left to pursue this tactic. The US could swamp them with ships planes and munitions This situation wasn't helped by the Japanese obsession with the single decisive victory. They'd been trying to achieve that since before Midway and had repeatedly failed. Now they had even less resources to fight with. Humans are weird critters.
It's fair to say that kamikaze planes were history's first precision guided bomb. No wonder they were so deadly. I wonder how the pacific war would have gone differently if they'd used these tactics from the start?
Drach made a video talking about that. He made the point that suicide tactics could have been very decisive at the early part of the war where the loss of a few ships could have shifted a campaign, but nobody was thinking that way then because the IJN wasn't that desperate yet...and by the time they were ready to embrace it, the USN had too many ships for such tactics to make a real difference other than pile up bodies.
14:53 I never noticed that the crosses they put next to the death tolls have their nation's helmets on them. I think I'd noticed the helmets before but I now just saw that they are specfifcly American and British helmets
Expecting ten thousand kamikaze aircraft was a factor in the decision to use atomic bombs. That is an unacknowledged kamikaze "success story," frightening the USA enough so that two atomic bombs were expended and the third atomic bomb was waiting on the weather when Imperial Japan announced its surrender.
@@MM22966 Interesting trivia: In preparation for the invasion of Japan, the US Govt minted so many Purple Hearts (the medal given for getting wounded in combat) that the remnants of that stockpile still exist to this day. Officers in Afghanistan often had some on hand to give out to soldiers while still in hospital.
@@michaelfodor6280 Funny how that works. The Brits still hand out Victoria Crosses that were minted from melted down captured French guns in the Napoleonic wars.
May the men who fought and endured the whirlwind, fire, and smoke of these raids never be forgotten. For to me, this is where the war truly comes to my family... My paternal grandfather was an Electricians' Mate on USS Bunker Hill, one of the ships damaged in the course of these raids. And was wounded as a result of one of the two kamikazes that hit the ship, or from the secondary explosions that the hits triggered. And from what I've been told... lost a good many friends as a result of that... And from other family members, I've been told that he really didn't like to talk about the war all that much, likely as a result of being wounded and losing so many friends. But... he did survive the war and I was able to meet him, though, I was little at the time. From the book "Dangers' Hour," I've been able to get some idea on what lead to the heavy loss of life on Bunker Hill, nearly 350 killed, came from the placement of air vents on the island, near where one of the two planes hit the carrier. When that happened, toxic oil smoke was sucked into those air vents and then pumped through the rest of the ship and thus exposed far more of the ship's company and crew to it than just those who had been in the areas where the two planes hit.
The Timeghost Army makes specials like this possible. There’ll be plenty more for the rest of this war and in our next project, Korea with Indy Neidell. Join the army today at timeghost.tv or Patreon.com.
Iv been here watching Indy and you guys since the great war and I'm super excited about Korea guys and glad our journey together isn't over yet 🎉🎉
Thanks indy, hope you guys covering the post war too 😊
Are we gonna get a mention of USS Franklin
How that carrier survived a Midway style attack?
an attack that exploded almost ever plane in the carrier deck?
Are you doing a video on the planning for Operation Downfall?
For post war wrap up I would like to know to what extent Ford, GM and other US companies were involved in production in Germany and how payment, if any, was made.
I am aware Ford and GM sued and won for damages post war.
Victory at sea said it best
“the battle becomes a duel between gunners who want to live, and pilots who want to die.”
The "Victory at Sea" series was initially run on U.S. TV in 1952 without advertisements, as NBC thought that no one would want to watch war movies; they did run it anyway as a patriotic duty. How wrong they were!
« To die is to die
To live is to fight »
‘Suicide For Glory’ in Victory At Sea
6:37 that response "delete all after crazy" 😂😂😂
This sounds like a zoomer text message.
The best part of the episode. If I'd heard or read that out of context I'd assume it was some history meme and not something actually said by Nimitz.
Laconic. Pertinent.
Gotta love Nimitz.
@@LuxiBelle guess that explains why boomers hate us. we talk like there grandparents
@@LuxiBelle Not really, it was just a witty reply. If it was a zoomer text it'd have been crying about pronouns or something.
USS Laffey is still floating as a museum ship, that is one tough tin can.
The Laffey is a museum ship in Charleston Harbor.
I got to visit the Laffey this past April on the anniversary of the attack on her.
I took my scout troop on a trip to see the Yorktown and Laffey, this past January, it’s an amazing story
I read a book about the Laffey and it was the absolute refusal of her crew to abandon her and instead keep her afloat that is astonishing! There was also a story, maybe made up, that said when US pilots spotted her they reported her as a barge due to her incredible damage.
It is! Alongside the Yorktown!
I like the sarcastic energy of "Delete all after 'crazy'"
I don't think there was sarcasm involved
I think Nimitz was just being based
My grandfather served on the USS New Mexico. He died before I was born but he told my mom a story about how there was a "huge explosion" and that initially the crew who found him thought he was killed, thankfully not but two of his friends were. A few years later I did my own research and found out what that huge explosion was. We have the memorial service pamphlet that is dated the day after the attack, along with several photos collected during his time in the Navy. I believe he would have been 17 when all of this happened too.
My Great Grandfather was also on the New Mexico. I never met him either our family also has a massive book of photos documenting the war. Its crazy what these guys went through.
So, what was the huge explosion?
@@jenningsrozzell7557 A kamikaze plane hitting the ship, I presume.
Yes it was kamikaze damage.
FWIW- OP included the ship name and we all have access to search engines.
The book "Blossoms on the Wind" is a really good source for contemporary Japanese perspectives on the "Special Attack" programs, based on extensive interviews with survivors and civilian witnesses. If anything it mostly contributed to the sense of helplessness and betrayal that prompted the Japanese to completely reinvent their entire society after the war,
Than you for the book information, ordered it just now for a future project.
9:16 Bit of trivia for fellow space nerds. The USS Intrepid (nicknamed the Decrepit) would many years later be used as the recovery vessel for the Mercury capsule carrying Scott Carpenter and later again for the Gemini capsule carrying John Young and Gus Grissom.
Another nickname was "The Dry I" for the amount of time spent in drydocks!
Lucky I came here early because I just wanted to say that I appreciate the content you create and the dedication of the crew
Thank you very much!
Interestingly, the kamikaze attack on the USS Enterprise (CV-6) that blew up her forward elevator was the last one on a fleet carrier in World War 2.
Wow, so much bloody tactics for restoring the dying empire, i wonder what tojo think during that trial 😂
I'll always think what happened to bestgirl Enterprise as being a crime.
400ft in the air. One of the most incredible pictures of the war at sea. Its also interesting to know the pilot Shunsuke Tomiyasu. Respect to the Big E
The Japanese fought so fiercely in an attempt to frighten the Allies away from invading the home islands. Ironically, that made the decision to drop the A-bombs more easy.
Its crazy how many top generals and admirals voiced against the a-bomb use for various reasons, one being they didn't understand why using it on a civilian target. US governement just wanted an excuse to flex a nex weapons to the soviets and scare them and Japan was the perfect excuse
Atleast it most of the damage were on the big cities this way
The rusky made them surrender, overall stalin win the second world war, yet sometimes wikipedia and all western historian said that allied win this brutal conflict lol 😅@@tugg3024
@@danendraabyantara2931ok tankie
@@danendraabyantara2931 Comies made the kwantung army freakout ,Nuke made gave the window for mainland to surrender Civilian sector wanted out so bad. Its a team effort the allied do know how to fight a total war. Without any of the big ones(included ROC) the war would be much different.
My brother-in-law joined the Navy at 17 and was stationed on a troop carrier to operate a 40mm anti-aircraft gun. When he was 87, I interviewed him for a biography to give to his children. One of the stories he recounted was, as he was throwing his leg over the lip of the gun-tub because his relief had showed up, a flash of light from the guns of a nearby ship illuminated a Kamikaze going past his position close enough to reach out and touch the wing. It crashed into the water between his ship and the next.
My grandfather and grandmother were first generation Japanese immigrants shipped to Brazil for what Japanese policy makers called “Waste Life Policy”.
During the 1920s Japan were suffering from overpopulation (similarly to Irish during the potato famine) and were actively looking for ways to basically get rid of people in profitable ways. One was selling “Wasted Life” off to Brazilian coffee farms as “Labours”.
For Imperial Japanese Government, wasting life wasn’t a cost. It was a goal. I’m glad that they’ve got defeated.
I have never heard of waste live policy… Japan also was asked by Brazil to allow immigrants and not vice versa and 10 times the amount of Japanese immigrated to Korea and Manchuria which was subsidized by the Japanese government due to the rapid industrialization of the Japanese agricultural sector putting people out of work…
But maybe you have a link for us that Japan deliberately "sold“ Japanese to Brazil?
@@bingobongo1615 Yes. Its in Toake Endoh’s “Nanbei Kimin Seisaku no Jitsuzo”. I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it already.
Correct, the Japanese were also angry when the US limited their immigration to Hawaii, etc. Not many know that there are tons of Japanese in Brazil and also many Brazilians (or of Brazilian descent) in Japan, esp. Tokyo.
And now Japan suffers of underpopulation, ironic.
Forgive me, but I would be quite interested to see what a woman of both Japanese and Brazilian ancestry would look like.
My great grandpa was on USS Little when it was sank by the kamikaze attacks of Kikusui V. He never liked to talk about it, all we could get from him was that it basically blew him off the ship. Still have the deck overalls he was wearing at the time.
I like Mr Neidell more than all the other ww2 presenters, he just has that cool uncle feat
The Operations Room channel on RUclips has a great video detailing the attacks that Laffey endured. It's worth a watch.
Thanks for the suggestion!
The destroyer USS Kidd was hit April 11th off Okinawa. She’s a museum ship in Baton Rouge if any viewers are in the area.
Thanks for watching and thanks for sharing!
Its surreal watching this. My grandfather was on a destroyer on the radar pickett line, and the stories he told me were still quite vivid 50+ years after the event (he died in 2008) His ship was grazed by a ki61 tony army air force fighter, one of very few used in suicide attacks. The CO of his 3 ship formation was capt moosebrugger of Guadalcanal fame, and he developed formations for 3 ship destroyer groups to maximize their AA fire concentration to great effect.
There is a chance he could be in these reels!
When the USS Bunker Hill was attacked on 11 May 1945, my grandfather was there. He was a 23 year old PO1 and anti-aircraft gunner on the USS Wilkes-Barre (CL 103). He passed away in 1996, but when I was a boy he told me about this day. He told me that after the attack when rescue and evac operations were underway, the Wilkes-Barre wedged her bow into the Bunker Hill to help stop her from listing too far over while her crew put out the fires and bilged the water they'd taken on. The US Navy website details this in the service history of Wilkes-Barre as well. The AA gunner you show a brief clip of at (12:31) actually kinda looks like him.
As far as I'm concerned, that IS your Grandpa.
My great grandpa was on the Bunker Hill as a Corsair Pilot, I think he got blown off the ship too when it got hit, that or his buddy.
The Essex-class will never falter from the Kamikazes thanks to the major efforts of the damage control teams
The Allied (mainly U.S.) damage control teams were beyond amazing. How they were able to keep their vessels operational was truly a feat of magic.
@@SyndicateSuperman that's why pacific is so brutal, you need an extra armor, massive firepower and carriers, and usmc guys to beat this tojo fanatical machines 😅
Our damage control was awesome. This was a time when guys pre war skills brought a lot to the table. Farm boys that knew tractors, machinists, factory workers, mechanics. That generation worked with their hands. Most kids today can’t change their oil or gap a spark plug.
@@larry648 It had nothing to do with their civilian pre-war occupations. It was entirely due to their military training and the procedures about US Navy ships. That has not changed.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 it’s always the training, but it’s a lot easier with men that already know how to work with their hands and tool.
Just a fun bit of trivia to demonstrate the size of naval forces we're talking about in the Western Pacific in mid-late 1945: The BPF (British Pacific Fleet) was the largest and most powerful British fleet of the war (and, depending how you measure it, the most powerful British Fleet ever to sail against an enemy in combat - comprising 6 fleet carriers, 4 light carriers, 2 maintenance carriers and 9 escort carriers, 5 battleships, 11 cruisers, 35 destroyers, 14 frigates, 44 smaller warships, 31 submarines, and 54 large vessels in the fleet train).
This fleet is largely forgotten as it was only in theater conducting operations for about 3 months, and - most importantly - because the American Pacific Fleet was the largest and most powerful fleet of warships EVER FIELDED in human history (in fact, if one were to attempt to aggregate the firepower of naval forces over time, the 3rd/5th fleet could be said to be more powerful than all of the navies of the world and much of human history - combined). Each of the 4 main Task Groups of the fleet (a sort of independent task force of multiple fleet and auxiliary carriers, plus BB's, CA's, DD's, etc. as escorts) was larger and better equipped with aircraft (although the unarmored decks of the American Fleet did make them more vulnerable to kamikaze attack than their armored-decked British counterparts) then the BPF.
There’s also the fact that they were the one British fleet in the whole theatre, so instead of being seen as a ‘big fleet’ they’re seen as effectively a ‘smaller navy’, where multiple fleets in the European and Atlantic theatre tend to be thought of together. Which is strange when one considers that the Royal Navy was still the largest ever in 1939 (and some way into the war).
These are all great facts.
I think a 2020's US Navy fleet of 2 fleet carrier task forces are more powerful than these WW2 Pacific fleets. Also if both of today's UK aircraft carriers joined as a fleet, they would over match its WW2 counterpart. Missile and computer targeting technology have come that far.
Maybe not. Once the missile arsenal is exhausted many modern ships are very much reduced in effectiveness.
Modern instrumentation would be a better addition to an earlier fleet.
@@ZER0ZER0SE7EN i think they meant the most powerful navy up until that point in history, the modern US navy could destroy the entire WW2 pacific fleet without ever seeing them
Doesn't mean jack if it was the most powerful navy ever, the US navy would never compete with the history and legacy of the Royal Navy.
One of the officer running the Kamikazee raids wrote a book about them.One thing that I noticed was that they tended to massively over report the successes of Raids,ships that were minimally damaged were reported as sunk, destroyers were reported as Cruisers or battleships..
The IJN was doing that crap since day 1 of this war.
@@exeggcutertimur6091 they thought that they had sunk the Yorktown before the second attack at Midway- because of the damage control they thought it was undamaged carrier.
Japanese piolets almost always seriously overestimated the amount and type of American ships they sank and damaged throughout the war. The Americans also did but not to the same degree. It was easy to overestimate these numbers do to the stresses of combat but the numbers of inflicted losses the Japanese reported are in my opinion are far beyond accidental.
Japan had that problem all during the war as units inflated their kill numbers messing up high command as thought many of our units were destroyed
"Don Rickles" perfected his "Quick Delivery of Verbal Assault's". By manning a 20 MM Oerliken Anti-Aircraft Gun Against Kamikaze Attacks aboard a Liberty Ship supplying PT Boats.
If you go to Charleston, SC the USS Laffey is part of the Patriot Point museum along with the USS Yorktown. They have a great video in the aft turret which was hit in the battle.
I moved to Charleston earlier this year, used it as an opportunity to visit the Laffey on the anniversary of the attack on her.
Just reading "Bloody Okinawa" and it's a brutal book that defys belief
My next door neighbor served aboard the USS Little DD-803. It was sunk by four kamikaze hits on May 3. He was part of the crew of one of the 5" mounts.
The story of USS Laffey incredible, I read the story when I was a child in the 80`s, I urge everyone watching this to look it up.
I learnt of USS Laffey’s epic at 1st in Pierre Clostermann’s
«Flames In The Sky» (1955)
Along with the story of US Army Captain William Dyess & the desperate fight on Bataan before The Death March.
Thanks!
Thank you so much!
Awesome seeing this and the weekly coverage. Had great uncle's in an LST and the seabees plus knew other people in and around Okinawa and the Philippines during all of this.
11:32 "often brutalized and treated abusively by their superiors", so just like every other man in the Imperial Japanese armed forces.
Exactly not differently to the rest of the brutal Japanese training
Western POWs often saw Japanese officers or NCOs slapping their subordinates. There was no embarrassment about doing this in front of POWs - this was just the Japanese way of doing things. POWs would themselves be abused, often by low-ranking Japanese soldiers or Koreans, as the POWs were at the bottom of the hierarchy.
@@stevekaczynski3793 The behaviour of the Japanese military against civilians and PoWs are horrifying
@@stevekaczynski3793 A tradition inherited by the South Korean military, at least as of the late 1990s. I was a cannoneer in the US Marines and in the run up to a massive joint training exercise involving the US & ROK Marines simultating an amphibious assault in North Korea, we were posted on a ROK Marine base. On one afternoon during this prep phase we saw ROK Marine artillerymen doing dry fire drills (going through the procedures for fire missions without using live ammunition) and with not much to do at the moment, we decided to watch out out of professional curiosity.
Anyhow, one junior ROK Marine on the gun nearest us made an error and the section chief gave him an earful before slugging him, I suppose to hammer home whichever point was being made. The ROK Marines also had basic training on the same base and we saw a bit of their recruit taining. Oddly, when the recruits were on formation runs they were all fixed to another with these white ropes. I asked one of our Staff NCOs what that was all about, and he said it was so that if anyone couldn't keep up they'd be dragged. Grain of salt with that last bit of course, because that was coming from a US Marine rather than Republic of Korea one.
I will say that despite their somewhat "hands on" approach to discipline the ROK Marines were impressive overall. They & the British Royal Marines made the best impressions out of the foreign military I had some interaction with.
Imagine being "selected" for the "honor" of flying to your death in an attempt to destroy an enemy ship. You know that once you take off, you are not expected to return. I know they believed their emperor was considered a 'god' and dying for him was an 'honor'. That had to be the worst day of their lives. Our culture does honor those who die in battle, but it also wishes and hopes for those men to survive the battle.
There are stories of pilots returning too many times, causing them to be judged by their superiors
Having that happen was of course, not unheard of.
The plane not finding targets, or simply being too damaged to reach its objective are possible issues that are reason for a plane to return.
Some kamikazes did turn back, claiming to have found no targets, and the vastness of the Pacific and the rather limited skills of most kamikaze pilots (including navigational) made this credible. At least one pilot who turned back multiple times was however executed.
And post war, those that survived (either by ditching or simply not been sent out before the war ended) were shunned back home. There was no winning for those guys.
B17 Crews in Europe at best a 33% chance of surviving their tour of duty. The officers who sent them out must have had an inkling of this, the crews must have been aware of this. They were still sent, they still went. If people don’t want to think of the flights as suicide missions thats fine.
IDk. As much as I try to honor my ancestors and show respect, I can't help but be displeased that they also chose to surrender to their enemy. That I had never been born to a line whose very existence proves cowardice. 😢
The USS Laffey is currently docked in Charleston harbor in South Carolina. Charleston has been a vacation spot for me and my family my entire life, and I’ve made frequent visits to the museum. However, the main attraction is the carrier there, USS Yorktown (CV-10). My entire life, I’ve considered the Laffey “the other ship” there, and I usually skipped going onboard in favor of more time on the Yorktown or nearby Fort Sumter. I was completely unaware of its story until this episode. I lit up with excitement and intrigue when its name was mentioned. “I know that one!” lol.
Back in 1983 my Grandpa took me to Quantico as he was a lawyer for the DOD following his WW2 commission. Quantico had a small war museum which featured one of those specially designed Kamikaze "Rocket with wings". Lord knows how they got it but it had in it's small cockpit a joystick and specialized crosshairs on the dashboard. I hope it's still their and if not it would be at the Smithsonian. I didnt't realize it then but the bravery of my Grandpa to show me a lot of that war stuff(Virginia/Wash. DC area was dripping with old Revolutionary & Civil War battlefields) he would take me almost every weekend to see from the Summers of 83-86. Thanks Time Ghost team for putting this together.
You call it bravery... could easily be a way of dealing with PTSD? See the same stressful things a few dozen times in a nice peaceful setting, could be theraputic.
Great episode. The armoured deck of HMS Formidable proved its worth in saving the ship (and many lives). I gather filling the dent in the flight deck with concrete had the carrier up and running again in short order
When Kamikaze attacks began in 1944, a number of the 20mm and even 40mm Bofors antiaircraft guns were deemed no longer suited for the task. The US Navy was working on bringing back old 3"/50 (76.2mm/50) guns on new mounts to replace these. This gun size was important because it was the smallest that could use proximity fused shells. These medium sized AA guns were needed as a layer of air defense behind the larger but slower firing 127mm/38 guns the US Navy had a lot of already.
The war ended before this program was completed and guns fielded. They did show up post WWII.
The channel should do an episode on why the Americans were growing stronger and stronger at this time. I have been a buff of WW II since childhood and am astonished by the sheer production the US was able to accomplish during the war. The US produced 10 battleships, 2 battle cruisers, about 40 plus cruisers, about 200 modern destroyers, over 500 escort destroyers, over 100 escort carries, at least 10 light carriers, and more than 15 fleet carriers during the war! This is in addition to thousands and thousands of troop ships, tankers, landing craft, mine sweepers, mine layers, and other support ships and last but not least about 200 submarines which inflicted about 85 percent of all losses on the Japanese Nave and merchant fleet. That said I see two episodes, US production and the US submarine war. The US produced more ships than all other combatants combined, it is an astonishing achievment and one that is little appreciated in todays world.
Population and raw resources advantage; simple as that. Everybody else was busy getting bombed, didn’t have the population, or otherwise didn’t have the natural harbors to produce and protect the new ships.
One other note about the Kamikaze aircraft: since they were on a one-way trip, they theoretically had twice the range of a standard plane. This meant that they could be staged farther away. Thus, harder to destroy on the ground.
This series does so much to show all the interconnections, it's baffling. We all have seen the hightlights and lowlights before, but here they are highlighted all and but in perspective. Magnum Opus.
And it is STILL just a synopsis, forced to skip...I couldn't even guess....70%? more? of the war.
Drachnifel made a video pointing out that at the time this tactic would be most effective (early in the war 41-42), the Japanese didn't have a real need for it, and when they did deploy it (1945) it was ultimatley counterproductive.
Yeah, I enjoy Drachinifel's videos and his turn of a phrase. His entry on the Laffey is especially good.
Forced us to use the bomb twice
Always so interesting, merci Indy , continuez!
There is someplace here with a blow by blow description of the assault on the USS Laffey, showing all the maneuvers and hits. You're right, it is a whole episode.
It’s at the Operations Room.
Terrific episode. I had one source that mentioned some of the bullying and coercion of the kamikaze pilots. It is of course no surprise that the amazing World War Two team dug deeper to put together a more complete and nuanced account of Operation Kikusui.
Last year when our sailboat docked in Hualien, Taiwan, we learned that the nearby military air base had been a kamikaze air base late in the war. Every day and all day we were there, F16 pilots were training. Our next port of call was Okinawa, and then Japan - where to get our passports stamped we went to an airport/air base. Where more F-16 pilots busy training. To preserve the peace, prepare for war. Hopefully it works.
The Destroyer Laffey is anchored in Charleston, South Carolina. Gun #4 has an interactive display in it. If you're curious what the crew of the Laffey experienced off Okinawa... do go inside. If you have PTSD, perhaps not.
Not that there was a whole lot of argument against using the Bomb but if there had been, tactics like this could help make a compelling case that the old rules were out the window by this stage in the war.
Great episode. My father’s ship was in the thick of it off Okinawa. It took several near misses and helped shoot down a kamikaze that was diving on the USS Wichita. He told me that they were at general quarters for hours at a time.
The Marines weren’t surprised after the first Banzai charge. Kamikaze, Lunge mines, human land mines, little girls being taught to charge with bamboo spears isn’t too nonsensical from the Imperial Japanese point of view.
Oh wow, so much gruesome, bloody and brutal tactics for the sake of dying empire in 1945, what we're they thinking, they think the suicide tactics is the best weapon to beat american industrial machine lol 😂
Absolutely agree although civilians actually fighting basically didnt happen…
Not even on Okinawa.
Only 2k or so school aged boys of which most didnt fight and a couple of hundred women to support the troops.
My Grandma was taken out of school to stab straw dummies while screaming Dıe Roosevelt Dıe Churchill! So yes they would've used little girls like that.
The ironic thing is that dropping the Atomic bombs probably saved millions of Japanese lives. If the allies would have landed on the home islands there would have been fanatical attempts by the Japanese to kill them.
@@bingobongo1615the Japanese were preparing them instead in both Operations Olympic and Coronet.
Also the natives of Okinawa were considered 2nd class citizens by their Japanese overlords so civilian fanaticism is understandably different compared to the Home Islands.
My late grandfathers ship, USS Stanley DD-478, while off Okinawa, was hit by an Ohka but they were lucky as it just punched clean through and didn't explode. A second Ohka was a near miss. It's suspected a gunner got lucky and hit the pilot or a control surface on the rocket as it swerved at the last second. I've heard but can't confirm that it was so close that the wing of the Ohka ripped the flag (ensign) off the mast as it passed over.
Drachinifel has a good video on the strike on Franklin the aftermath of it.
If we're thinking of the same special on the Franklin, it was actually a lone dive bomber with two 250 kg semi-armor piercing bombs. This was on March 19, 1945, while Franklin's kamikaze hit was the previous fall off the Philippines.
@@kemarisite yeah I don’t know what I was thinking I appreciate the correction and changed my comment
The last kamikaze raid occurred after the Japanese surrender. The guy who was second in command to Yamamoto was in the second aircraft, accompanying Yamamoto on his inspection flight. His aircraft was also shot down but he survived and was put in charge of defense of the home island or something like it. At war's end he refused to accept the surrender and sadly, convinced a number of young pilots to accompany him on a final attack on the American fleet. Nothing more was heard of them but it is clear they were all shot down.
That would be the same Matome Ugaki mentioned in the video
"We will strike a DECISIVE blow". Uhhh wasn't Pearl Harbour supposed to be a ..decisive blow?", " Shut up, shut up."" Wasn't Midway supposed to be a ...decisive blow?" " Shut up, shut up, THIS TIME it's going to be a...decisive blow." " Yeah to...US."
Most military leaders harbor the fantasy goal of leading that "decisive blow" which almost never happens in history against any strong enemy. That type of leader tends to commit what I call 'suicide by proxy' by sending their men to their death needlessly in those attempts, while more realistic leaders simply seek the best victory they can attain even if it is not utterly decisive.
The Intrepid in this video is moored in New York City as a floating museum. Definite must see, to her, various air craft and the Space Shuttle Enterprise :)
My father-in-law was crew on a troop carrier. As the invasion of the Home Islands became a (seeming) inevitability, they were carrying troops that were to be fed into the maw of that invasion. Whatever moral qualms we feel now about it (and I do), the atomic bombings saved the lives of most of those men, waiting to disembark. War leaves us with such awful moral quandaries.
I’ve read somewhere that the Kamimazi’s had their guns and anything but the body of the wings all removed so all the weight is in explosives. This is why the Allied pilots didn’t experience return fire.
Laffey deserves its own episode indeed! Lets hear it!
My uncle was on the USS Pringle when it was sunk. Thank you for mentioning it, as I did not know the details until now.
12:36 My sainted father served on the USS Birmingham during World War II. He joined the ship just a few days too late to be considered a "plank owner" and stayed on the ship through to the end of the war.
I got a book out of the library about the kamikazes and returned it the very same day before I got even halfway through---I felt sick just reading it.
only the pacific now, here we go !
If you're on a British carrier, sailors, man your brooms!
If you're on an American carrier, it's 6 months at Pearl.
Yeah the harassment in in Europe ensure RN that a typical size bomb will not sink their carriers
There’s always a trade-off. Armored decks or more planes.
Of course, an armored deck doesn’t do much against torpedoes.
@@spudskie3907 .
Also, the different climatic conditions in which each nation's aircraft carriers operated played a part in their design.
I believe that comes from a USN officer attached to an RN carrier when it took a a kamikaze hit, oversimplified yes, but it makes the point. Ton for ton US carriers had larger air groups but RN carriers were tougher. The kamikaze hit on HMS Formidable's flight deck mentioned in the video put a 2 foot dent in the armoured flight deck, spalling from which caused further damage lower in the ship to her propulsion systems. She was back operational ie landing on and launching aircraft in about five hours, back up to full speed about seven hours later.
'Armoured' and 'Unarmoured' Carriers - Survivability vs Strike Power
Drachinifel
ruclips.net/video/_dHdGHP8hCg/видео.html
The Laffey still floats today in the harbor of Charleston, SC, fyi
It does! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for the lesson.
I remembered USS Laffey from an old History Channel documentary on naval/air warfare, but I couldn't figure out where the attack took place and when... well, until now!
One of the aspects of the channel I really appreciate is the lead-in artwork and its flow into the look and feel of the set (The Dr who fob watches are a nice touch/anachronism). From the credits, Mikołaj Uchman seems to be the lead character in these adventures, but I suspect others have been involved over time. Could you pass on my compliments please Indy? This kind of thing takes the channel out of the ordinary into the stratosphere of RUclips fare.
Oh, and looking forward to the reinvention of the channel with its shift to the Korean conflict. Will you be getting new suits and a set?
The Korean War will be covered in a different channel
The airfield for most these pilots training and main base is in Chiran. There is a museum there now filled with the letters and personal items of the men chosen. I think it is really hard to understand the perspective of the Japanese for most westerners unless you visit this place and read what these men and their families wrote. Many pilots broke off and flew over their homes dropping letters and messages to their families against orders on their final flights. It is easy to just think, "they are just fanatics for the emperor", but if you read the reality of what they said you know they had been told their nation is facing extermination, the act in their eyes was to save their families and nation. With your cities under strategic bombardment non-stop, its pretty obvious to see what gave them the idea. Its so easy for people to envision brainwashed fanatics, rather than scared young men desperate to protect their hometowns. 永遠の0
Totally off topic, but since this is primarily a Navy episode.
Bob Feller served aboard the USS Alabama on the gun crew. I asked him (radio call-in show) about coming up with the slider while on board ship. He didn't go into any real detail, but he did say "We left a lot of baseballs in the Pacific".
I've never seen so much footage of the Ki-61 Hien "Tony" fighter before. It was one of the more unusual Japanese fighter types because of its liquid cooled inline engine which gave it a profile very similar to the German Bf109. They were first encountered during the Doolittle Raid when prototypes of the fighter were scrambled but didn't manage to shoot down any bombers. They were initially misidentified as Bf109's during these first encounters. Plus at 7:00 appears to be a Japanese captured C-47.
I read somewhere that Nimitz planned to send a decoy invasion fleet of Liberty ships with their decks crammed with as many AA guns that could be mounted to approach the main islands of Japan and draw as large a Kamikaze attack that the Japanese could organise. The idea being to induce the Japanese to shoot their bolt on ships that had little strategic/tactical value. The Kamikaze had their limits- it was a one-shot weapon.
Respectfully, Indy: the lighting from certain angles is way too bright and it is making you look unwell with the shadows it casts on your cheeks. Love what you do! The contrast was a bit off on that one.
Another great in depth real time investigation of events made real.
It’s like what newsreels would be like in heaven
When the only choice left to your military is suicide attacks, what other sign is needed that not only is the war lost, but that all sanity has departed the leadership?
The suicide attacks were rational. The kamikazes were more effective per plane and man lost than conventional attacks. The difference is that most militaries allow the average soldier the pretense that he isn't being expended like a round of ammunition.
@@Veylon A YT documentary I saw years ago drew the conclusion that the kamikaze attacks did more damage to the Allies than if the Japanese had stuck with conventional attacks. It made a pretty convincing case.
In other militaries, tactics like that get poems made about them, like when they charge light brigades headfirst into an enemy.
@@varana I guess that is the big internal difference, doing it as a one-off or in the heat of the moment versus a policy decision/planned campaign.
@@Veylonits only rational if it has a chance of stopping the attacker. Otherwise all that is happening is that fewer of Japan’s troops are dying. As there was rationally no chance of stopping the attacker, the rational choice is surrender.
The US losses would have destroyed the Pacific Squadrons of other Navies. It’s only the big reserves of Fletchers, Essexes and escort carrier swarm built up over 5 years, that makes the divine wind a huge bust.
There are many thing that people say won the war. What really won the was was U.S. industry.
Laffey is now a museum ship in Charleston Harbor.
Yes it is, alongside the Yorktown!
This RUclips channel is the only one that I watch on WW2 videos it the best one the rest well really suck. Just this one is good. Keep up the great work
Thanks, hope to see you when Indy begins covering Korea: www.youtube.com/@KoreanWarbyIndyNeidell
The destroyer Laffey and others were spread around Okinawa at different points of the compass as radar picket ships!
There was an American study/interviews of participating Japanese pilots and officers after the war about Kamikazes. One thing that stuck with me reading about it was that the American officers were floored that the pilots were volunteers. They thought for sure the pilots had been coerced in some way, their families threatened, got them drunk, would be summarily executed if they didn't, etc.
Despite what Indy alluded to with pilots being forced to man the planes/bailing out after takeoff, most of the "Special Attack Force" were willing volunteers, men who were prepared to quite calmly sacrifice their lives for country & emperor. There still exists a vast a gulf in understanding that mentality to Western audiences.
We tend to underestimate how easy it is to brainwash an isolated island population.
@@NightingaleVictor You don't need an island, but it helps!
@@MM22966 Agreed, just a bogus religion or a bogus culture of authoritarianism suffices.
@@NightingaleVictor I wouldn't say bogus. When a whole people/nation follow something, isn't that honesty? Isn't it a kind of democracy, and the people's responsibility for country's actions by NOT stopping it??
@@MM22966 If you’re kept ignorant of the rest of the world by your leaders, intentionally not taught to think scientifically, and are socially and legally punished for questioning authority; whether 99% of the country believes the ideology or not, it doesn’t quite matter - it’s not the kind of public support for the ideology/empire that arises from a free conscience or an educated mind, but from the heavy hand of the state, through oppression.
Regarding the issue of "volunteering", Japanese fighter ace Saburo Sakai would later write that his squadron were given forms asking whether they were willing to take part in special attack operations. The options were 1) No. 2) Yes and 3) Yes, with all my heart. Everyone signed the third option: the general feeling was that if you refused, high command would only find some other way to get you killed.
I wonder what happened to anyone candid enough to choose "No"?
Mitsuru Yoshida said something similar; after Operation Ten-Go the surviving crew of the Yamato were ordered to fall in and their COs yelled at them, then asked if they wanted to get back in the fight...
When I hear about the Kamikaze I can never help but think of the pilot who 'failed to find a target' multiple times and was never called out on it.
A last gesture of insanity to round out an era of insanity. Sending the future of your nation on a one way trip, to win a war that had already been lost. Excellent look at kamikaze operations.
At that point, the odds were not much better not being a kamikaze.
It's now the Pacific only from here on out.
No No No papa Iosif will sent a gift to Manchuria
Thank you.
Thanks for watching.
The emperor was why Japan surrendered. The need a special episode on him.
Definitely!!
prob in august
@@hwykng82most likely after the Hiroshima bomb is dropped.
There was a lot of activity behind the scenes going on between August 6 and 9.
Will Indy and Spartacus be doing the Nuremberg trials?
Or the Japanese trials?
Spartacus will be covering it at a later date.
US Laffey, Literally too angry to Die.
Military training in Imperial Japan was brutal even when the recruits were not a Kamikaze.
There are smart people in every country, so I'd be cautious attributing whatever success the Allies or Germany had to ingenuity and engineering. I think being in the right place and right time, dumb luck, particular histories leading up to the war, etc., ... that kind of stuff is a lot more important than (I think) a lot of people realize. It's hard to explain to a popular audience for at least two reasons: 1) it makes for a much less compelling story, and 2) people like to feel that they're in control over their lives, success/failure depends on how hard one works, settle on an explanation of what is going on, etc. .. people usually feel distressed when confronted with how little control they have over their fate. People would rather believe in a lie than acknowledge an uncomfortable truth.
Love the ocean like tie!
It's a good one!
@@WorldWarTwo It might be my favorite in a very long time (since some of the great ones during Barbarossa and Stalingrad).
My father's ship was part of the layered anti-aircraft defences for the British Pacific Fleet at this time. He was always rather dismissive of the kamikazes - he was some sort of radar operator and he claimed that they simply shot them down. I always thought he was maybe a bit too dismissive but then I discovered that only one British ship was ever sunk by a kamikaze - a minesweeper which was actually eventually sunk by British torpedoes. Maybe he was right. Or maybe they just didn't get the obsessive attention that the American fleet got.
Honestly its the latter. Kamikazes far and away focused on the americans, especially the picket destroyers.
My father took part that area of the war. Joined in 1943 as a young 19 year old.
Due to the lack of training & outdated planes, it was suicidal to send most Japanese pilots into combat with the well-trained American pilots. Also, The USA had the luxury of rotating pilots with combat experience back to the USA to train new pilots. The Hellcats & Corsairs outclassed most Japanese fighters. Yes, any way you cut it, kamikazes were an act of desperation.
I thought another "funny" aspect of it was that it was about the first and last time the Japanese went for a "mill-grinder" training approach for pilots, rather than the high standards/low pass rate that made their air forces very good but hard to replace during most of the war.
@@MM22966 What other options did the Japanese have other than to sue for peace, which we know wasn't going to happen at this time.
@@Boron121 Well, they could kill themselves and as many Americans as they could reach before they went down. Inevitably, the weak Americans would get sick of the bloodshed first and sue for a ceasefire. That was their primary thinking at the time.
All they had
I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
Appreciate the thumbs up!
Never underestimate destroyers called USS Laffey
Kamikaze was born out of the reality that conventional attack against US fleet is practically suicidal with just how dense their AA's are, the material and trained pilot sacrifice for the very limited impact is simply not worth it
Kamikaze practically solve this, you don't need highly trained pilot to manned missions like this, you don't need advance aircraft to do this, old zeros and even training biplane is very much sufficient for this kind off mission, Japan have shittones of all of them.
The casualties ratio is also far more modest to Japanese than any conventional attack, even in the series of operation Kikushui, there will be More dead US and allied personnels than the Japanese, something
this is something unthinkable in this late war, in the battle of Okinawa, despite practically having no surface fleet, the Japanese manage to sink dozens of US ships and killed thousands of US navy personnel, more than they lost in Kamikaze attacks.
In the end, the only effective way to stop a Kamikaze is having an effective air arm on your own, and detecting the Kamikaze planes during their way or destroying their plane on the base, even this is not a full proof, the Japanese still maintain mixed conventional attack with Kamikaze, so it is not a risk free operation for the US pilot.
Didn’t have the trained pilots
I once read the half joking observation that a zero with a 250kg bomb was the ultimate smart weapon, although it didn't use lasers and CPUs for guidance...
I'll say this for the Axis, they really liked their horribly expensive weapon systems they couldn't really afford. With Hitler it was the V2 and his "wonder weapon" programs. With the Japanese they took expensive and soon to be irreplaceable fighters and expended them as guided munitions. The Japanese simply didn't have the industrial strength left to pursue this tactic. The US could swamp them with ships planes and munitions
This situation wasn't helped by the Japanese obsession with the single decisive victory. They'd been trying to achieve that since before Midway and had repeatedly failed. Now they had even less resources to fight with.
Humans are weird critters.
It's fair to say that kamikaze planes were history's first precision guided bomb. No wonder they were so deadly.
I wonder how the pacific war would have gone differently if they'd used these tactics from the start?
Drach made a video talking about that. He made the point that suicide tactics could have been very decisive at the early part of the war where the loss of a few ships could have shifted a campaign, but nobody was thinking that way then because the IJN wasn't that desperate yet...and by the time they were ready to embrace it, the USN had too many ships for such tactics to make a real difference other than pile up bodies.
14:53 I never noticed that the crosses they put next to the death tolls have their nation's helmets on them. I think I'd noticed the helmets before but I now just saw that they are specfifcly American and British helmets
Expecting ten thousand kamikaze aircraft was a factor in the decision to use atomic bombs. That is an unacknowledged kamikaze "success story," frightening the USA enough so that two atomic bombs were expended and the third atomic bomb was waiting on the weather when Imperial Japan announced its surrender.
That and the casualties piled up at Okinawa and Iwo, then multiplied by what taking the Home Islands would have been like.
@@MM22966 Interesting trivia: In preparation for the invasion of Japan, the US Govt minted so many Purple Hearts (the medal given for getting wounded in combat) that the remnants of that stockpile still exist to this day. Officers in Afghanistan often had some on hand to give out to soldiers while still in hospital.
@@michaelfodor6280 Funny how that works. The Brits still hand out Victoria Crosses that were minted from melted down captured French guns in the Napoleonic wars.
over 4000!
May the men who fought and endured the whirlwind, fire, and smoke of these raids never be forgotten. For to me, this is where the war truly comes to my family...
My paternal grandfather was an Electricians' Mate on USS Bunker Hill, one of the ships damaged in the course of these raids. And was wounded as a result of one of the two kamikazes that hit the ship, or from the secondary explosions that the hits triggered. And from what I've been told... lost a good many friends as a result of that... And from other family members, I've been told that he really didn't like to talk about the war all that much, likely as a result of being wounded and losing so many friends. But... he did survive the war and I was able to meet him, though, I was little at the time.
From the book "Dangers' Hour," I've been able to get some idea on what lead to the heavy loss of life on Bunker Hill, nearly 350 killed, came from the placement of air vents on the island, near where one of the two planes hit the carrier. When that happened, toxic oil smoke was sucked into those air vents and then pumped through the rest of the ship and thus exposed far more of the ship's company and crew to it than just those who had been in the areas where the two planes hit.
”delete all after crazy” is such a brutal roast
It did give me a chuckle I must admit.
- Jake