Going by the raw numbers, Japan’s use of kamikaze pilots in the dying days of the second world war was an effective military action. While the country lost almost 4,000 of its men by asking them to fly planes laden with explosives into enemy ships – a task that entailed certain death – the losses on the other side were closer to 7,000. But it was a bewildering act of collective desperation that still has the ability to shock, and tells us a lot about the futility of modern warfare and the power of mass hysteria in times of conflict.
Kamikaze: An Untold History is a documentary by the Japanese public broadcaster NHK that could have been a very powerful film at 60 minutes but is still impactful at an exhaustive hour and a half. It starts with the first suicide pilots who flew in October 1944, as the Americans advanced inexorably across the Pacific towards mainland Japan. The programme is determined to commemorate individuals who perished, beginning with 20-year-old Hirota Yukinobu. There is clear footage of his plane hitting an aircraft carrier and creating a large explosion on deck, having taken a hit to the wing on its descent: we can well imagine the last moments of a young man’s life being filled with fear of failure and perhaps the physical pain of fire in the cockpit, followed by a final split-second of realisation that his mission had been accomplished.
