As Britain and America stand on the brink of war once again, it is timely to be reminded of the devastation wrought by conflict.
By 1944 the tide of the Second World War had turned and the Axis powers – Germany and Japan – saw the writing on the wall.
With Mussolini’s Italy already out of the war the British, Americans and Soviets were getting the upper hand both in Europe and the Pacific.
Japan’s success at Pearl Harbor and the conquest of Indo-China, Malaya, Singapore and the Philippines, had been followed by defeat at the crucial Battle of Midway and reverses in New Guinea and Burma.
As US forces captured one Pacific island chain after another and the enemy’s forces got closer and closer to their homeland, the Imperial command resorted to desperate measures.
They dreamt up the so-called Special Attack planes, better known as kamikaze (divine wind), a name derived from a typhoon which thwarted a Mongol invasion of Japan in the Middle Ages.
Pilots would take a one-way trip in planes packed with high explosives and hurl themselves at British and American aircraft carriers and battleships.
Albert Axell, who recently published a book called Kamikaze: Japan’s Suicide Gods, said only one in five got through the waves of anti-aircraft flak to reach their target.
He told BBC News Online: “They failed to sink a capital ship, a large aircraft carrier.
“But this was the first time in history there had been mass suicides in war and it came as a complete shock to the Allies.”
Leslie Lumber, 80, remembers the terror of seeing incoming kamikaze planes. He was on the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in 1945 when it was hit by a kamikaze plane.
“When you see them coming in and they had no plans on going back that was something else,” he told BBC News Online.
Thousands volunteered to become kamikaze. But why?
Mr Axell said Japan has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world – about 30,000 a year – and he said: “There is no doubt this kamikaze mentality was latent in the Japanese character.”
It was reflected in the ancient samurai code of bushido, which expected warriors to sacrifice their lives for their emperor or their nation.
Mr Axell’s co-author, Hideaki Kase, discovered a manual for kamikaze pilots and translated it into English for the first time.
The manual not only gave practical advice on the angle and speed of approach but also gave spiritual tips.
Pilots were told: “You are two or three metres from the target. You can see clearly the muzzles of the enemy’s guns. You feel that you are suddenly floating in the air.
“At that moment you see your mother’s face. She is not smiling or crying. It is her usual face…You may even hear a final sound like the breaking of crystal. Then you are no more.”
Hichiro Naemura, 82, is one of a select group of people who can call themselves “former kamikaze pilots”.
He volunteered for a suicide mission in January 1945 but was given the task of instructing kamikaze pilots in navigation and dive-bombing techniques.
In Kamikaze: Japan’s Suicide Gods, Mr Naemura explained why he volunteered: “When I heard about the formation of suicide squadrons I envied them for their commitment to the people and the nation.”
He said American air superiority in 1945 was such that few Japanese pilots returned alive from ordinary missions.
“The chance of getting away was very slim. So, smashing into an enemy vessel assured you success and you were able to die with ‘rewards’ instead of wasting your precious life.”
One of the most tragic tales in Mr Axell’s book is that of Lieutenant Hajime Fujii who, in December 1944, was turned down for a kamikaze mission because he was a family man.
A few days later he returned home and found a note from his wife Fumiko.
She had drowned herself and her two children, one-year-old Chieko and Kazuko, four, in the Arakawa river to free her husband for his mission. Five months later he flew to his death off Okinawa.
The Japanese Government was so shocked by this incident they prohibited its publication until the war was over.
But would young Japanese men do the same if there were a war today?
Mako Sasaki, a 25-year-old law student who wrote a thesis about kamikaze pilots for her university degree, does not believe so.
“That concept of self-sacrifice has pretty much disappeared from the younger generation of Japanese,” she said.
“Our generation does not think about the war. It’s off the radar. It’s like a different country.”
