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Army Special Attack
Corps Pilot
Osamu Shibata
(permission required from
Yuko Shirako for photo use)

 
Stories

I have translated thirteen pages for Stories of Bereaved Families, which are included on the Japanese web site Aozora no hateni (To the blue sky's end). These stories relate to families of kamikaze pilots who died in the war, and several of the stories include letters written by the pilots. The webmaster for this site is Senri Nagasue, a former kamikaze pilot who has written several books in Japanese on the Navy's kamikaze corps in addition to creating this large Japanese web site about his wartime experiences and the stories of men who served with him in the Japanese Navy.

The following web pages are a sample of these translated stories:

  • To Hometown Skies - Kamikaze pilot flies over home to drop final letter to his mother.
  • Final Duty to His Parents - Mothers worried about their sons' situation and searching for some news. Final letters of kamikaze pilot to his mother and to his home village.
  • Bravely - Son writes only a short letter to family prior to kamikaze attack probably due to military censorship of correspondence.
  • Connecting Threads - Woman finds out details of uncle's death more than fifty years after end of war.
  • I Do Not Yet Want to Die! - Son's final farewell to mother is very different than the words in his final letter to his family.

This web site on Kamikaze Images contains the following personal stories: