The Last Kamikaze
by M.E. Morris
Random House, 1990, 350 pages
Many trained kamikaze pilots stood ready to make suicide
attacks when the Emperor announced Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945. Saburo
Genda, a Zero fighter pilot in this novel, settles into the cockpit and starts
his engines in preparation for a kamikaze attack to avenge the death of his
parents caused by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. At the last moment his
flight is stopped. After Genda gets out of his plane and listens to the Emperor's
surrender message, he vows to someday strike back at the Americans in memory of
his parents.
M.E. Morris, the author of three previous thrillers and an
experienced U.S. Navy aviator, tells the story of Genda's attempted revenge in
1991, the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. During the American
occupation after the end of the war, two American soldiers rape his new wife,
who then commits suicide. Genda goes on to become a captain with the Japanese
Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), but he holds a continuing hatred toward
the American military for the rape of his wife and the bombing of his parents.
With the assistance of terrorists in the Japanese Red Army, Genda steals a
restored Zero fighter and flies across the Pacific to attack a military target
at Pearl Harbor. George Sakai, a nisei (second-generation Japanese
American) who works for the U.S. government as an antiterrorism expert, leads
the investigation to apprehend Genda and his Red Army associates, who commit
various acts of terrorism before Genda takes off for Hawaii.
The author depicts a very disturbing image of a kamikaze
pilot who will commit any act of terrorism or bloodshed to accomplish his final
goal of making some type of spectacular strike against the American military.
Before Genda departs in the restored Zero fighter for Hawaii, he and his
terrorist allies are involved in setting off a car bomb that results in several
casualties, shooting a Tokyo policeman in the head, shooting down a commercial
airliner that crashes into a business area and causes over 500 deaths,
murdering a graduate student to get a boat for an escape, killing two island
tourists, and murdering two Americans to get the Zero fighter. Genda sees
himself as a man of honor, a true patriot of Japan, and a samurai warrior whose
final act of vengeance will be one of great achievement and honor. Even George
Sakai, the antiterrorism expert, and one of Genda's Red Army associates seem to
grow to admire his unsettling code of honor focused on vengeance. After Genda
finally decides to plunge his plane into Pearl Harbor, Sakai is "very
proud of his Japanese heritage that placed such a high priority on the honor
and dignity of life—and death" (p. 349).
Genda's troubling code of ethics and sense of honor in this
fictional work have little connection to the beliefs and actions of the
kamikaze pilots who made attacks on Allied ships from October 1944 to August
1945. First, the kamikaze pilots made attacks against military targets during
war, and they did not indiscriminately murder innocent civilians. Although they
grieved deeply if family members were killed by American bombings, very few
were motivated by vengeance. Finally, those pilots who had joined kamikaze
units recovered after the end of the war and went on to lead normal lives.
The description of the kamikaze pilots' night before their
planned attacks is pure fantasy. Each of the four pilots in Genda's squad is
shown to a separate room in a sleeping hut on the perimeter of the airfield. A
geisha girl for each young man comes in to serve a feast and to sing songs.
Next, another young girl enters Genda's room to pour a "clear thin
liquid" over his naked body and then have sex with him. Although some
young kamikaze pilots may have visited brothels, the Japanese military did not
provide women to the kamikaze pilots prior to their departures. Morris states
on the Acknowledgments page that he is indebted to Hatsuho Naito, author of Thunder
Gods, for providing insight into the hearts and minds of the kamikaze
pilots. However, Naito's book has no mention of such a glamorous last night for
pilots.
The Last Kamikaze is an exciting thriller with
several memorable characters, but the novel's mixing of terrorism's tactics
with a kamikaze pilot's values makes it a very disconcerting book.
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