Osprey - Aircraft of the Aces 109 - American Aces against the Kamikaze.pdf

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OSPREY AIRCRAF T OF THE ACES

• 109

American Aces Against

the Kamikaze

Edward M Young

OSPREY AIRCRAF T OF THE ACES • 109

American Aces Against

the Kamikaze

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

THE BEGINNING 6

CHAPTER TWO

OKINAWA – PRELUDE TO INVASION 31

CHAPTER THREE

THE APRIL BATTLES 44

CHAPTER FOUR

THE FINAL BATTLES 66

CHAPTER FIVE

NIGHTFIGHTERS AND NEAR ACES 83

APPENDICES 90

C O L O U R P L AT E S C O M M E N TA R Y 9 1

INDEX 95

CHAPTER ONE

THE BEGINNING

t 0729 hrs on the morning of 25 October 1944, radar on the

escort carriers of Task Force 77.4.1 (call sign ‘Taffy 1’), cruising

off the Philippine island of Mindanao, picked up Japanese

aeroplanes approaching through the scattered cumulous clouds. The

carriers immediately went to General Quarters on what had already been

an eventful morning. Using the clouds as cover, the Japanese aircraft

managed to reach a point above ‘Taffy 1’ without being seen. Suddenly,

at 0740 hrs, an A6M5 Reisen dived out of the clouds directly into the

escort carrier USS

Santee

(CVE-29), crashing through its flightdeck on

the port side forward of the elevator.

Just 30 seconds later a second ‘Zeke’ dived towards the USS

Suwannee

(CVE-27), while a third targeted USS

Petrof Bay

(CVE-80) – anti-aircraft

artillery (AAA) fire managed to shoot down both fighters. Then, at

0804 hrs, a fourth ‘Zeke’ dived on the

Petrof Bay,

but when hit by AAA

it swerved and crashed into the flightdeck of

Suwanee,

blowing a hole in

it forward of the aft elevator. Aboard

Santee

and

Suwannee

62 men had

been killed and 82 wounded in little more than 20 minutes.

Three hours later it was ‘Taffy 3’s’ turn to experience this new menace.

Having just narrowly escaped annihilation at the hands of the battleships

of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Central Force with the loss of only one

vessel (USS

Gambier Bay

(CVE-73)), the escort carriers of ‘Taffy 3’ came

under attack shortly before 1100 hrs. Five ‘Zeke’ fighters approached at

low altitude, then pulled up sharply to around 5000 ft and commenced

Magazines on USS

St Lo

(CVE-63)

explode after the first ever kamikaze

attack on 25 October 1944.

St Lo

sank within 30 minutes of being hit

(National Museum of Naval Aviation

(NMNA))

their dives onto their targets. USS

Kitkun Bay

(CVE-71) was the first to

be hit when a ‘Zeke’ dived directly at the ship’s bridge, passed over the

island, hit the port catwalk and crashed into the sea alongside the vessel.

Two more ‘Zekes’ then targeted USS

White Plains

(CVE-66), pulling

out of their dives when faced with a wall of AAA. One came back to

attack

White Plains

again, crashing just alongside.

At 1052 hrs the second ‘Zeke’, on fire from AAA hits, dove on USS

St Lo

(CVE-63) and crashed through its flightdeck into the hangar deck

below, setting off the vessel’s magazines in a huge explosion. Fatally

damaged,

St Lo

sank 29 minutes later at the cost of 114 lives. Three

‘Zekes’ then attacked USS

Kalinin Bay

(CVE-68), one hitting the

flightdeck before crashing overboard, the second striking the port stack

and catwalk and the third missing the carrier to the port side.

The sailors and airmen of Task Force (TF) 77.4’s escort carriers had

been witnesses to Japan’s new weapon of desperation – the first organised

employment of pilots to deliberately crash their aircraft into American

warships at the sacrifice of their lives. That morning the attacking

Japanese aviators dove into their targets with no chance, or intention,

of escape in an act that was incomprehensible to most Americans.

To them, it was simple suicide, and the actions of the Japanese pilots

were deemed to be suicide attacks – a term that came to be used

to describe any attempt to crash into an Allied naval ship. Shortly after

these initial attacks a new term would enter the American military

vocabulary – kamikaze.

THE BEGINNING

RIGIN

OF THE

AMIKAZE

‘If only we might fall,

Like cherry blossoms in the Spring,

So pure and radiant!’

This was the haiku of a kamikaze pilot killed in February 1945 that was

quoted in Ivan Morris’

The Nobility of Failure.

The kamikaze emerged from Japan’s increasingly desperate military

predicament, the failure of its conventional forces and long-standing

Japanese cultural traditions. The loss of Saipan and the defeat of the

Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in June 1944 was a devastating blow that

brought a reconsideration of Japan’s future strategy. It was clear that the

Americans would continue their inexorable advance across the Pacific,

and it seemed that there was little the Japanese military could do to stop

them. Japan’s connections to its Southeast Asian sources of fuel and vital

raw materials for its war industries were now directly threatened.

Having cast the conflict as a battle of annihilation between Japan and

the Western countries – a battle ‘to determine who shall devour and who

shall be devoured’ – the Japanese military saw no alternative but to

continue the war. It was hoped that some way could be found to force

the US military into a decisive battle that would inflict punishing losses

on American forces leading to a Japanese victory. With both the army

and navy expecting the next American operation to be an invasion of the

Philippines, the Imperial General Headquarters in Japan agreed to

commit the maximum number of troops, ships and aircraft possible in

order to obtain certain victory.

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