Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (AP) – A Japanese pilot hit his zero -hunter aircraft in the USS Missouri and ignited a fireball on April 11, 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa. The suicide attack immediately killed the pilot, but none of the crew members of the battleship was seriously injured.
The Captain of the Missouri ordered a military funeral at sea with full distinctions and marked one of the more unusual and few well -known episodes of the Second World War. The pilot received the same funeral that the ship would have given one of its own sailors.
Eighty years later, the Missouri was moored a museum in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, not far from the immersed hull of the USS Arizona, which sank into the Japanese bombing of 1941 that the US pushed in the war. On Friday, three of the grandsons of the captain will mark the birthday of the attack and funeral with the mayors of Honolulu and the Japanese city of Minamikyushu, from which many Kamikaze pilots leave on their suicide missions.
“This is one of the great stories of the ship and partially explains why the ship became an international symbol of peace and reconciliation within two years after the launch and only an instrument of destruction,” said Michael Carr, CEO of the Battleship Missouri Memorial. “This is a remarkable story of compassion and humanity, even in the midst of one of the worst battles of the Second World War.”
This is what about the attack on Missouri's funeral and the pilot:
What is a Kamikaze pilot?
Japan launched a suicide attack campaign as a final measuring measure to push the American troops back in the war when it lost hopelessly.
The Imperial Navy founded the Kamikaze Toko Tai, which translates as a Divine Wind Special Attack Corps, and followed the imperial army with its own unity. Their missions are called kamikaze internationally, but in Japan they are better known as 'Tokko', which means 'special attack'.
The pilots rushed constructed planes and even reconnaissance and training aircraft because the army missed enough equipment. They left on one -way flights with just enough fuel to achieve their goals.
Kamikaze sank their first ship on October 25, 1944, when a Navy Zero pilot in the USS St. Lo hit the Filipino Sea while wore a few 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of bombs. The British Imperial War Museum says that they have killed a total of 7,000 Allied Navy staff.
Their initial success rate of 30% fell to around 8% against mid -1945 due to the falling crew skills, the declining aircraft capacities and improved American defenses.
About 4,000 pilots died of suicide missions, around 2,500 navy and more than 1,400 army, most of them university students drawn up at the end of 1943. Many launched from Chiran, a tea values town that today is part of Minamikyushu, a city in southwestern Japan.
The missions became more intense as Japan's prospects became more serious and the army showed the sacrifice of the pilots to increase patriotism and support for the war. Those who did not take or survived were considered a shame.
Despite stereotypes of kamikaze such as super patriots who sign up to die, many were not, as evidenced by their carefully nuanced latest letters to loved ones and surviving reports.
“They were the victims of war,” said Hiroyuki Nuriki, mayor of Minamikyushu, who noticed that the pilots were only about 20 years old and had futures.
“I'm sure they didn't want to die, but they still had to go,” he said. “That is the tragedy of war, and that is why we should never start a war again.”
What happened when the plane hit the Missouri?
The Battle of Okinawa lasted 82 today, with heavy fighting on land and sea. On April 11, the Missouri issued air strikes from several directions and had already brought down one kamikaze -when a second approached.
The Gunners of the Missouri hit the zero hunter with a round of 5 inches (12.7 centimeters). The plane dived, but it ran about 20 feet (6 meters) above the ocean and ran on the way to the starboard side of the ship.
The crash tore off the right wing of the plane, which landed on the deck. Fuel in the wing caught fire and unleashed a gigantic compliment smoke. The crew checked the fire within five minutes.
The dent left due to the attack is still visible on the hull of the Missouri.
What happened to the pilot?
Capt. William Callaghan ordered the funeral to be held the next morning.
The crew collected red and white cloth and sewed an improvised “rising sun” flag so that he could be buried under his own colors, said Frank Clay, curator of the Missouri Memorial battleship. They cleaned the body, wrapped it in canvas and placed it on a tray against the rail under the flag.
Marine rifle protectors gave a gun racing and a bugler played cranes. The chaplain gave a call and said, “commit his body deep.” The crew tilted the tray and the body slid into the sea.
It was the only well -known copy of American troops who had a military funeral for a kamikaze pilot.
Some crew members hated the ritual, while others hum, but later came to believe it was good to do, Clay said.
Ed Buffman, who was the Mate 2nd class of a teenage skutter on the Missouri, said he didn't think: “The next day you are ready to go back and fight again.”
Little is known for Callaghan's reasons to order the ceremony, which appeared on the daily schedule of the ship for meal times and other routine activities.
Carey Callaghan said his grandfather never talked about the funeral and his family only learned about it 2001. He said his grandfather had empathy and a sense of dignity, which was reflected by the funeral.
A remarkable thing, said Callaghan, that his grandfather three years earlier his brother, Achtere ADM. Daniel Callaghan, lost to the Japanese gunfire for Guadalcanal.
What is known about the pilot?
Scholars believe that he was Setsuo Ishino, a non -commissioned officer 2nd class in a flight training program.
The pilot left from Kanoya Air Base in Zuid -Japan with 15 others as part of the number 5 KenMu Squadron. Most did not get into their goals and crashed into the ocean.
“Dear mother, the time is for me to finally blossom. I fulfill my last duty with a smile. Please don't say anything, this is for our country,” Ishino wrote. “The next time we see each other, we will be under the beautiful cherry blossom trees at Yasukuni Shrine. Please don't cry, smile and tell me 'well done'.”
Why is the anniversary remembered decades later?
The then President Barack Obama then referred to the funeral in 2016 when he visited Pearl Harbor with the then Prime Minister Minister Shinzo Abe. He told those who gathered that Callaghan showed: “We must resist the urge to demonize those who are otherwise” and to do this “Even when hatred it burns the hottest.”
Thanks to the act of Callahan, the Missouri Museum and the Chiran Peace Museum, which shows Army Tokko artifacts, today are partners and help each other with exhibitions.
Nuriki, the mayor of Minamikyushu, said it is important to remember the events of April 11, 1945, and the tragedy of Kamikaze pilots while the tensions of Asia-Pacific rise.
“We share the history between the former enemies who have become friends,” he said. “We have to keep telling the story and think about peace.”
___
Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo.
