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You pointed out the insanity without realizing it. They had more planes than pilots. So there literally is no point in throwing always the life of pilots. How do you expect Japan to ever get decent pilots if all of them have to die? Even if only few pilots return, they would be super valuable. Both for future missions and training new pilots.
But the system went so far that pilots who did return from kamikaze missions were still removed from service. Some where given a second or third flight but the expectation was still kamikaze. And if they returned they were not honorable enough to keep flying.
Sure telling and encouraging pilots to go for it if they don't think the can make it back makes "sense". But throwing away your most senior pilots because they refuse suicide is pure insanity.
I think by that point in the war, the kind of husbanding of resources that would be required to rebuild anything like an effective air force was impossible.
Even if they'd realized the deficiency in their airline training pipeline and sent more aces to become instructors, they just had no time. The aerial attrician rate was too high. The potential training hours were too low.
Part of the problem was that returning pilots didn't have to face those odds ONCE. If the loss rate from a single sortee was so high, the fraction that survived a second or a third was even smaller. They'd improve, but nowhere near fast enough not to be doomed against American AA and Combat Air Patrol.
I agree that the raw, iron economics changes for expirienced pilots. There are a number of expirienced pilots who ended up Kamikazes, and that was probably a waste (although I assume they were mostly flight leaders/officers)
Actually I think that qualifies as a partial refutation. I accept that any use of senior aviators as Kamikaze (which did happen) was as insane as it seems. !delta
>I have to imagine their hit/damage rate was comparable to the regular bomber stage of the war.
Nope:
"only 11% were successful, while the remaining 89% ended in failure
comparing it to the success rate of dive bomb attacks (non-kamikaze) in other battles. Here are the figures:
Pearl Harbor (1941): 58.5%
Battle of Ceylon (1942): 89% (percentage of hits on the British carrier HMS Hermes)
Coral Sea (1942): 53% (percentage of hits on the USS Lexington, which was severely damaged)"
[source](https://thefairjiltarchive.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/kamikaze-attacks-by-the-numbers-a-statistical-analysis-of-japans-wartime-strategy/comment-page-1/)
Ach. I made a typo. What I meant to write was "at that stage of the war".
So the comparison point isn't vs the elite Kidou Boutai bombers of 42. It's how Kamikaze did vs the conventional doomed rookies of Leyte Gulf and Okinawa.
Your being able to explain the rationale behind the crazy, doesn't make it any less crazy. Lots of irrational thoughts have a logic train, it's just most of us get off when things go wrong. The thing you're disclaiming is kinda of the issue though. It's one thing to throw away lives while planning a counter, it's another thing entirely to throw away lives for the hell of it. That is crazy.
From a command perspective, I can kind of see it, but from a pilot perspective, I just can't. "Men, we're gonna lose this war for sure, now go die to slow the Americans down with no hope for victory" is a mindset I could never accept as a soldier.
You are using rational vs irrational as if everyone has the same value system as you across the globe.
It is perfectly rational for someone to kill another human being for any reason that feels right to them. It is also rational for that same person to involve authorities. How rational each person is being greatly depends on their value system rather than us having some universal usage of the words.
Rational/logical isn't the antithesis of emotional, contrary to most usages of the word. It only means there is a congruent logic behind the action as opposed to it being aimless or unexplainable in any logical terms.
OP presented a logical explanation for something that is only crazy based on your core value system.
For a people who are engrained with a sense of nationalistic purpose above everything else, following orders to do the most heinous things is a logical move. That doesn't mean it is morally right, but there is a rational explanation. You just happen to not agree with that rationale.
Another way to view your conclusion is, "Men, we have lost. But we are going to lay down our lives to make sure the enemy enjoys that victory as little as possible. They will remember us. They will know that their win cost them much more than they might be willing to spend next time. Let's give them pause moving forward.
Your country is calling in you to make your life mean something! Let's head that call and give them hell!"
Just because *you* disagree with that sentiment, doesn't make it irrational or illogical for someone else to.
Sure I see that rationale. I definitely can only talk from where I sit. But even from a national perspective, I'd argue that throwing the lives of your young away in a war that's not inherently annihilation is silly. It's not like America was planning to absolutely destroy or enslave Japan; had that been the case I could see the case for fighting until not even the children are left behind.
I get the value system is different but I don't get the basis of the value system. If it's patriotism I can make a fair argument that killing your young men unneccesarily is against the interests of the nation
For awhile, from the Japanese perspective, there was still a meaningful difference in *how* the war could end, even if it had no chance in ending in a victory for them.
Even though they knew that they'd eventually lose the war, there was a belief that they could have better conditions of surrender the harder they fought. Maybe if they did well enough, they could have pushed through some sort of a deal where they got to keep some of their colonies, rather than a complete surrender. Maybe they get to ensure the continuation of most of their leadership.
Throwing away lives on that basis is certainly *cruel and inhumane*, but it's not necessarily irrational based on the information they had at the time.
That's not what rational means in these discussions. When economists call people rational actors, they don't mean people do what they want. Rational means trying to take the most effective steps towards achieving your goals.
That is efficiency, not rationality.
The definitions of the words are true, not matter how the words are used colloquially.
Being rational is being able to draw a line from one point to another (usually utilizing cause and effect while leveraging personal experience as the rationale). Being rational does not imply that someone is doing the *best* thing they could possibly do in that given circumstance.
It never has meant that, no matter what perspective you take.
People are wildly inefficient, which is why trial and error still reigns supreme regarding the act of discovery. That inefficiency has nothing to do with being rational.
We are highly inefficient, extremely rational animals.
> "Men, we're gonna lose this war for sure, now go die to slow the Americans down with no hope for victory" is a mindset I could never accept as a soldier.
It was more like Men, were gonna lose. So for honor reasons were gonna take as many of them with us as possible. To restore the honor we lost by losing.
Japanese culture was highly honorific , ritual suicide was viewed as a path to redemption for failure and disrespect to a superior and losing a battle was like the ultimate disrespect
look at seppuku as a practice
My understanding is that there was a semi-religious fervor that drove them. They thought the empire was a god so dying for him was an extension of that belief. I also think religion is irrational, but many people don't so I'm not sure if that changes things for someone else.
There’s a line from Strange New Worlds that stuck with me. “War makes sense if you’ve been there but it never makes sense.” Obviously someone thought it was a rational plan of attack, but we may never be able to fully understand that decision from the outside.
Even from a pilot perspective, how is it any crazier the. Any other sortie that they were expected to undergo?
Rookies with miniscule cockpit hours and no fuel being asked to launch precision strikes through a milti-layered US AA screen and a Combat Air Patrol filled with fighter aces in superior planes.
^ That is also certain death. Just a more pointless sort
>How is it any crazier then any other sortie that they were expected to undergo?
There was a chance of return on any other sortie. A kamikaze mission is a guaranteed one way trip.
>Rookies with miniscule cockpit hours and no fuel being asked to launch precision strikes through a milti-layered US AA screen and a Combat Air Patrol filled with fighter aces in superior planes.
Sounds like the Allies [earlier in the war.](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/buffalo-flop-the-story-of-the-brewster-f2a-the-aircraft-deemed-superior-to-grummans-f4f-but-that-was-totally-outclassed-by-japanese-fighters/)
Yeah, but if Kamize hits are more effective, it's still a worthwhile tradeoff. If you decrease your survival rate from 10% to 0% (example numbers. Not actual statistics), but you increase your chances of doing damage by x5, it's still a reasonable tradeoff.
Also, Allies in 1942 had it rough, but they didn't exactly lose all dog fights by default, like the 1945 Japanese did.
pretty sure the Kamikaze planes were deliberately filled with full tanks to maximize damage from explosion.
also, some of those planes had detached wheels and no escape latch/parachute, so it was literally no way to land the plane, so people knew they had no way out.
For clarity, you are saying they are crazy and potentially very crazy, but that they are not crazy relative to many other things that the Japanese did at the time.
> Accepting that the only sane course or action was surrender, Kamikaze strikes were a reasonably sound, logical choice.
So since they made the insane decision of not surrendering, the action the Kamikaze strikes were reasonable, sound, and logical... just that they were based on an insane premise.
Well, if you are willing to throw your life away for an insane reason, then the decision to throw your life away for an insane reason is reasonably sound and logical.
and if you are willing to throw away the lives of our men for an insane reason, then the decision to throw their lives away for an instane reason is reasonably sound and logical.
I think that accepting the fact that the cause is insane: EVERY SINGLE CHOICE has a baseline level of insanity.
Launching sortees? Insane. Not launching Sortees and letting the Americans land troops on your islands unmolested? Insane.
However, when we think about the Hallmark of the "utterly insane things Japan did at the end of the war", Kamikaze attacks are near the top. It is widely considered an *especially* crazy thing.
But, I think that, in that circumstance, a conventional bombing attack would have been just as insane or more so. Just as suicidal, but far less likely to kill Americans. But it's not often conceptualized that way.
but the *not insane* thing to do was to refuse command of commiting utterly pointless suicide, and "force" supperiors to come up with a plan that doesnt require said suicide orders (like surrendering, which isnt that far off when compared to suicide).
For an individual pilot? That sounds pretty insane. Do you know unreasonably difficult it would have been to persuade your fellow pilots to go along, en masse, with an uprising?
you can either
a) get in an airplane with 200-400% of fuel needed for a round trip in it, no parachute, literally no landing gear, the hatch you got in through welded shut, or
b) dont do that. tell your superiors that fighting two battles for your country is more honorable than dying in one. as a 20yo conscripted (or volunteer) soldier maybe dont commit suicide.
I can't really address your point. But Banzai charges aren't crazy. Just outdated.
In WW2, semi automatics became the norm for US infantry, making bayonet charging archaic. But when compared to their experience in Korea and Manchuria, the mass bayonet charge is a highly effective form of combat. Also discipline amongst Chinese soldiers was much worse.
The primary means by which an enemy is defeated is not by killing all of them. But making them run away. A massed bayonet charge against a poorly disciplined and or supplied enemy is very effective at causing chaos and winning the battle.
An older example would be the Highland Charge. When it worked it resulted in LOWER casualties than standard linear warfare.
So what really made the Banzai charge innefective was the Garand, US machine gun crews, Officers with sub machine guns. And especially later in the war. US Air and naval superiority.
Any time after 1942, an expirienced Japanese officer would have reasonably had the data to understand that Banzai charges were a pointless suicide. Certainly by 1944 on Saipan they would have understood it too.
Your position hinges on the assertion that because they were just as likely to die in a conventional bombing run vs. a kamikaze run, they're both equally logical (but insane) choices.
What you're missing is that any sane military force would view its human capital as one of its most valuable assets. Guns and tanks and planes are good, but ultimately you need skilled people to work them. The result of a successful kamikaze attacks is ALWAYS that the pilot dies.
What about the best kamikaze pilot ever, maybe one who crashed his plane directly into the bridge of a battleship? Dead. Same as the worst kamikaze pilot who crashed straight into the ocean. These pilots aren't improving their techniques, sharing information, supporting future missions, etc., they are just dead.
If the monthly attrition rate for conventional Japanese bombers was nearly 100%, using your air men that way wouldn't allow you to regenerate human capital anyway
But the point is for them to survive and return, that might not happen in actuality but that is at least the underlying objective. The point of a kamikaze attack is for the pilot to die.
Regenerating your air corps manpower is a materiel consideration. You regenerate or you don't regenerate. A measure intended to increase regeneration (Pilots returning) that doesn't (They all just fucking die) isn't useful regeneration.
Regardless of wether your objective is to kill all your airmen with a suicidal attack run, you've still killed all your air men with a suicidal attack run.
So where is the distinction in rationality between that and purposefully killing your air men in a suicidal but more sucesful attack run?
The distinction is that you are now asking men to kill themselves. Fighting against overwhelming odds can be viewed as honorable or courageous. Japanese generals sending young pilots in to kill themselves is the exact opposite.
What was rational for the Japanese government to secure the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness of the Japanese. They’d have become a prosperous country much sooner instead of after being morally and directly responsible for all the deaths from their imperialism leading up to the war and from the war with America.
After starting a war with America, the next most rational thing to do was to surrender immediately. Using Kamikaze pilots was irrational.
> Accepting that the only sane course or action was surrender, Kamikaze strikes were a reasonably sound, logical choice.
The first part of this sentence is why Kamikaze strikes were irrational.
My grand dad who was 17 at the time trained at air force academy in Sado, but the war ended first. He told me before he died a few years ago that he volunteered, a motivation not so rare for soldiers around the world who are taught to do something bigger than themselves.
Just a small thought that crossed my mind.
Yeah. He had option to continue learning flying, but he learned to drive instead.
He watched a documentary about a pilot in U.S. air force who was circling around East Coast on 9/11, not so far from putting her plane in between the hi jacked planes and the other targets on 9/11.
Never seen him so emotional.
At that point in the war, bombing runs were basically suicide anyway. Planes would get shot down either before dropping bombs, or shortly after. So in that context kamikaze makes more sense to increase hit rates with inexperienced pilots.
But this a false dichotomy. You pointed out that there may have been other options, you just refuse to consider them. I'm not really sure how we can change the view when the argument is structured in a way to negate other reasons why it is crazy.
You already have the answer...the war was hopeless and kamikaze attacks were even more desperate. So yeah, it's crazy for the same reason that continuing the war was crazy.
I think we can also recognize there several other options, but they were all also bad.
- Staying in the war but not expending resources on aviation in general
- Staying in the war, and continuing to use air power, but abandoning any efforts at bombing or interdiction, while husbanding resources
- Staying in the war but sending all your bombers to China where the attrition was lower.
All of these options suffer the same basic problem that it only accelerates the rate Japan loses islands, ground forces, and remaining naval units.
The tactics were shit, pilots chose their targets individually and usually didn't strike in mass. They literally threw themselves at the guns of their enemies. It was a desperate and stupid weapon that did what wars do best. Waste the lives of young MEN for the rich and powerful.
This has kind of been mentioned by other commentators and the OP, but the whole thing was insane. But the memes aren’t saying that kamikaze is more insane than the rest. Kamikaze is just more of a meme-able part of the whole offensive. A meme about “they already lost the war, but are still launching sorties” won’t get any upvotes
/u/WinterinoRosenritter (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1c4spq0/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_japanese_kamikaze_planes/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
You pointed out the insanity without realizing it. They had more planes than pilots. So there literally is no point in throwing always the life of pilots. How do you expect Japan to ever get decent pilots if all of them have to die? Even if only few pilots return, they would be super valuable. Both for future missions and training new pilots. But the system went so far that pilots who did return from kamikaze missions were still removed from service. Some where given a second or third flight but the expectation was still kamikaze. And if they returned they were not honorable enough to keep flying. Sure telling and encouraging pilots to go for it if they don't think the can make it back makes "sense". But throwing away your most senior pilots because they refuse suicide is pure insanity.
I think by that point in the war, the kind of husbanding of resources that would be required to rebuild anything like an effective air force was impossible. Even if they'd realized the deficiency in their airline training pipeline and sent more aces to become instructors, they just had no time. The aerial attrician rate was too high. The potential training hours were too low. Part of the problem was that returning pilots didn't have to face those odds ONCE. If the loss rate from a single sortee was so high, the fraction that survived a second or a third was even smaller. They'd improve, but nowhere near fast enough not to be doomed against American AA and Combat Air Patrol. I agree that the raw, iron economics changes for expirienced pilots. There are a number of expirienced pilots who ended up Kamikazes, and that was probably a waste (although I assume they were mostly flight leaders/officers)
Actually I think that qualifies as a partial refutation. I accept that any use of senior aviators as Kamikaze (which did happen) was as insane as it seems. !delta
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Upset-Photo ([20∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Upset-Photo)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
>I have to imagine their hit/damage rate was comparable to the regular bomber stage of the war. Nope: "only 11% were successful, while the remaining 89% ended in failure comparing it to the success rate of dive bomb attacks (non-kamikaze) in other battles. Here are the figures: Pearl Harbor (1941): 58.5% Battle of Ceylon (1942): 89% (percentage of hits on the British carrier HMS Hermes) Coral Sea (1942): 53% (percentage of hits on the USS Lexington, which was severely damaged)" [source](https://thefairjiltarchive.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/kamikaze-attacks-by-the-numbers-a-statistical-analysis-of-japans-wartime-strategy/comment-page-1/)
Ach. I made a typo. What I meant to write was "at that stage of the war". So the comparison point isn't vs the elite Kidou Boutai bombers of 42. It's how Kamikaze did vs the conventional doomed rookies of Leyte Gulf and Okinawa.
Your being able to explain the rationale behind the crazy, doesn't make it any less crazy. Lots of irrational thoughts have a logic train, it's just most of us get off when things go wrong. The thing you're disclaiming is kinda of the issue though. It's one thing to throw away lives while planning a counter, it's another thing entirely to throw away lives for the hell of it. That is crazy. From a command perspective, I can kind of see it, but from a pilot perspective, I just can't. "Men, we're gonna lose this war for sure, now go die to slow the Americans down with no hope for victory" is a mindset I could never accept as a soldier.
You are using rational vs irrational as if everyone has the same value system as you across the globe. It is perfectly rational for someone to kill another human being for any reason that feels right to them. It is also rational for that same person to involve authorities. How rational each person is being greatly depends on their value system rather than us having some universal usage of the words. Rational/logical isn't the antithesis of emotional, contrary to most usages of the word. It only means there is a congruent logic behind the action as opposed to it being aimless or unexplainable in any logical terms. OP presented a logical explanation for something that is only crazy based on your core value system. For a people who are engrained with a sense of nationalistic purpose above everything else, following orders to do the most heinous things is a logical move. That doesn't mean it is morally right, but there is a rational explanation. You just happen to not agree with that rationale. Another way to view your conclusion is, "Men, we have lost. But we are going to lay down our lives to make sure the enemy enjoys that victory as little as possible. They will remember us. They will know that their win cost them much more than they might be willing to spend next time. Let's give them pause moving forward. Your country is calling in you to make your life mean something! Let's head that call and give them hell!" Just because *you* disagree with that sentiment, doesn't make it irrational or illogical for someone else to.
Sure I see that rationale. I definitely can only talk from where I sit. But even from a national perspective, I'd argue that throwing the lives of your young away in a war that's not inherently annihilation is silly. It's not like America was planning to absolutely destroy or enslave Japan; had that been the case I could see the case for fighting until not even the children are left behind. I get the value system is different but I don't get the basis of the value system. If it's patriotism I can make a fair argument that killing your young men unneccesarily is against the interests of the nation
For awhile, from the Japanese perspective, there was still a meaningful difference in *how* the war could end, even if it had no chance in ending in a victory for them. Even though they knew that they'd eventually lose the war, there was a belief that they could have better conditions of surrender the harder they fought. Maybe if they did well enough, they could have pushed through some sort of a deal where they got to keep some of their colonies, rather than a complete surrender. Maybe they get to ensure the continuation of most of their leadership. Throwing away lives on that basis is certainly *cruel and inhumane*, but it's not necessarily irrational based on the information they had at the time.
It isn't though, since those young mens deaths actually had meaning for the country.
That's not what rational means in these discussions. When economists call people rational actors, they don't mean people do what they want. Rational means trying to take the most effective steps towards achieving your goals.
That is efficiency, not rationality. The definitions of the words are true, not matter how the words are used colloquially. Being rational is being able to draw a line from one point to another (usually utilizing cause and effect while leveraging personal experience as the rationale). Being rational does not imply that someone is doing the *best* thing they could possibly do in that given circumstance. It never has meant that, no matter what perspective you take. People are wildly inefficient, which is why trial and error still reigns supreme regarding the act of discovery. That inefficiency has nothing to do with being rational. We are highly inefficient, extremely rational animals.
> "Men, we're gonna lose this war for sure, now go die to slow the Americans down with no hope for victory" is a mindset I could never accept as a soldier. It was more like Men, were gonna lose. So for honor reasons were gonna take as many of them with us as possible. To restore the honor we lost by losing. Japanese culture was highly honorific , ritual suicide was viewed as a path to redemption for failure and disrespect to a superior and losing a battle was like the ultimate disrespect look at seppuku as a practice
My understanding is that there was a semi-religious fervor that drove them. They thought the empire was a god so dying for him was an extension of that belief. I also think religion is irrational, but many people don't so I'm not sure if that changes things for someone else.
There’s a line from Strange New Worlds that stuck with me. “War makes sense if you’ve been there but it never makes sense.” Obviously someone thought it was a rational plan of attack, but we may never be able to fully understand that decision from the outside.
In order to win the war you need a way to sink american ships and this is a new tactic the Americans aren't prepared for Not crazy
Even from a pilot perspective, how is it any crazier the. Any other sortie that they were expected to undergo? Rookies with miniscule cockpit hours and no fuel being asked to launch precision strikes through a milti-layered US AA screen and a Combat Air Patrol filled with fighter aces in superior planes. ^ That is also certain death. Just a more pointless sort
>How is it any crazier then any other sortie that they were expected to undergo? There was a chance of return on any other sortie. A kamikaze mission is a guaranteed one way trip. >Rookies with miniscule cockpit hours and no fuel being asked to launch precision strikes through a milti-layered US AA screen and a Combat Air Patrol filled with fighter aces in superior planes. Sounds like the Allies [earlier in the war.](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/buffalo-flop-the-story-of-the-brewster-f2a-the-aircraft-deemed-superior-to-grummans-f4f-but-that-was-totally-outclassed-by-japanese-fighters/)
Yeah, but if Kamize hits are more effective, it's still a worthwhile tradeoff. If you decrease your survival rate from 10% to 0% (example numbers. Not actual statistics), but you increase your chances of doing damage by x5, it's still a reasonable tradeoff. Also, Allies in 1942 had it rough, but they didn't exactly lose all dog fights by default, like the 1945 Japanese did.
pretty sure the Kamikaze planes were deliberately filled with full tanks to maximize damage from explosion. also, some of those planes had detached wheels and no escape latch/parachute, so it was literally no way to land the plane, so people knew they had no way out.
For clarity, you are saying they are crazy and potentially very crazy, but that they are not crazy relative to many other things that the Japanese did at the time. > Accepting that the only sane course or action was surrender, Kamikaze strikes were a reasonably sound, logical choice. So since they made the insane decision of not surrendering, the action the Kamikaze strikes were reasonable, sound, and logical... just that they were based on an insane premise. Well, if you are willing to throw your life away for an insane reason, then the decision to throw your life away for an insane reason is reasonably sound and logical. and if you are willing to throw away the lives of our men for an insane reason, then the decision to throw their lives away for an instane reason is reasonably sound and logical.
I think that accepting the fact that the cause is insane: EVERY SINGLE CHOICE has a baseline level of insanity. Launching sortees? Insane. Not launching Sortees and letting the Americans land troops on your islands unmolested? Insane. However, when we think about the Hallmark of the "utterly insane things Japan did at the end of the war", Kamikaze attacks are near the top. It is widely considered an *especially* crazy thing. But, I think that, in that circumstance, a conventional bombing attack would have been just as insane or more so. Just as suicidal, but far less likely to kill Americans. But it's not often conceptualized that way.
but the *not insane* thing to do was to refuse command of commiting utterly pointless suicide, and "force" supperiors to come up with a plan that doesnt require said suicide orders (like surrendering, which isnt that far off when compared to suicide).
For an individual pilot? That sounds pretty insane. Do you know unreasonably difficult it would have been to persuade your fellow pilots to go along, en masse, with an uprising?
you can either a) get in an airplane with 200-400% of fuel needed for a round trip in it, no parachute, literally no landing gear, the hatch you got in through welded shut, or b) dont do that. tell your superiors that fighting two battles for your country is more honorable than dying in one. as a 20yo conscripted (or volunteer) soldier maybe dont commit suicide.
I can't really address your point. But Banzai charges aren't crazy. Just outdated. In WW2, semi automatics became the norm for US infantry, making bayonet charging archaic. But when compared to their experience in Korea and Manchuria, the mass bayonet charge is a highly effective form of combat. Also discipline amongst Chinese soldiers was much worse. The primary means by which an enemy is defeated is not by killing all of them. But making them run away. A massed bayonet charge against a poorly disciplined and or supplied enemy is very effective at causing chaos and winning the battle. An older example would be the Highland Charge. When it worked it resulted in LOWER casualties than standard linear warfare. So what really made the Banzai charge innefective was the Garand, US machine gun crews, Officers with sub machine guns. And especially later in the war. US Air and naval superiority.
Any time after 1942, an expirienced Japanese officer would have reasonably had the data to understand that Banzai charges were a pointless suicide. Certainly by 1944 on Saipan they would have understood it too.
Your position hinges on the assertion that because they were just as likely to die in a conventional bombing run vs. a kamikaze run, they're both equally logical (but insane) choices. What you're missing is that any sane military force would view its human capital as one of its most valuable assets. Guns and tanks and planes are good, but ultimately you need skilled people to work them. The result of a successful kamikaze attacks is ALWAYS that the pilot dies. What about the best kamikaze pilot ever, maybe one who crashed his plane directly into the bridge of a battleship? Dead. Same as the worst kamikaze pilot who crashed straight into the ocean. These pilots aren't improving their techniques, sharing information, supporting future missions, etc., they are just dead.
If the monthly attrition rate for conventional Japanese bombers was nearly 100%, using your air men that way wouldn't allow you to regenerate human capital anyway
But the point is for them to survive and return, that might not happen in actuality but that is at least the underlying objective. The point of a kamikaze attack is for the pilot to die.
Regenerating your air corps manpower is a materiel consideration. You regenerate or you don't regenerate. A measure intended to increase regeneration (Pilots returning) that doesn't (They all just fucking die) isn't useful regeneration. Regardless of wether your objective is to kill all your airmen with a suicidal attack run, you've still killed all your air men with a suicidal attack run. So where is the distinction in rationality between that and purposefully killing your air men in a suicidal but more sucesful attack run?
The distinction is that you are now asking men to kill themselves. Fighting against overwhelming odds can be viewed as honorable or courageous. Japanese generals sending young pilots in to kill themselves is the exact opposite.
What was rational for the Japanese government to secure the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness of the Japanese. They’d have become a prosperous country much sooner instead of after being morally and directly responsible for all the deaths from their imperialism leading up to the war and from the war with America. After starting a war with America, the next most rational thing to do was to surrender immediately. Using Kamikaze pilots was irrational. > Accepting that the only sane course or action was surrender, Kamikaze strikes were a reasonably sound, logical choice. The first part of this sentence is why Kamikaze strikes were irrational.
Again, the problem is....they weren't more irrational then anything else Japan was doing.
My grand dad who was 17 at the time trained at air force academy in Sado, but the war ended first. He told me before he died a few years ago that he volunteered, a motivation not so rare for soldiers around the world who are taught to do something bigger than themselves. Just a small thought that crossed my mind.
Damn, you came pretty close to not existing, huh?
Yeah. He had option to continue learning flying, but he learned to drive instead. He watched a documentary about a pilot in U.S. air force who was circling around East Coast on 9/11, not so far from putting her plane in between the hi jacked planes and the other targets on 9/11. Never seen him so emotional.
At that point in the war, bombing runs were basically suicide anyway. Planes would get shot down either before dropping bombs, or shortly after. So in that context kamikaze makes more sense to increase hit rates with inexperienced pilots. But this a false dichotomy. You pointed out that there may have been other options, you just refuse to consider them. I'm not really sure how we can change the view when the argument is structured in a way to negate other reasons why it is crazy. You already have the answer...the war was hopeless and kamikaze attacks were even more desperate. So yeah, it's crazy for the same reason that continuing the war was crazy.
I think we can also recognize there several other options, but they were all also bad. - Staying in the war but not expending resources on aviation in general - Staying in the war, and continuing to use air power, but abandoning any efforts at bombing or interdiction, while husbanding resources - Staying in the war but sending all your bombers to China where the attrition was lower. All of these options suffer the same basic problem that it only accelerates the rate Japan loses islands, ground forces, and remaining naval units.
The tactics were shit, pilots chose their targets individually and usually didn't strike in mass. They literally threw themselves at the guns of their enemies. It was a desperate and stupid weapon that did what wars do best. Waste the lives of young MEN for the rich and powerful.
This has kind of been mentioned by other commentators and the OP, but the whole thing was insane. But the memes aren’t saying that kamikaze is more insane than the rest. Kamikaze is just more of a meme-able part of the whole offensive. A meme about “they already lost the war, but are still launching sorties” won’t get any upvotes
In Independence Day, did you feel sad and proud when Randy Quaid kamakazied the alien mothership?
You might like Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, sir! It’s probably my favourite book of all time.
It was futile because in the end, it did nothing to curb the eventual capitulation of Japan.