A Japanese pilot slammed his Zero fighter plane into the USS Missouri and ignited a fireball on April 11, 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa. The suicide attack instantly killed the pilot, but none of the battleship's crew members were badly hurt.
The Missouri's captain ordered a military burial at sea with full honors, marking one of the more unusual and little-known episodes of World War II. The pilot received the same funeral that the ship would have given one of its own sailors.
