The Kamikaze Nightmare: Terror of the Lambs
by Bill Sholin
Mountain View Publishing, 2000, 479 pages
This final book written by Bill Sholin, who passed away in 2005, covers the
same ground and includes much of the same material from his two earlier, smaller books:
The Sacrificial Lambs (1994) and
Truman's Decision: Kamikazes the Unknown Factor
(1997). Sholin has strong opinions and emotions toward Japanese kamikaze since
he served aboard the destroyer Wren (DD-568), which battled attacks by
suicide boats and kamikaze aircraft during the Battle of Okinawa. The word "Lambs" in the title of this book, The Kamikaze Nightmare:
Terror of the Lambs, refers to American destroyers that bore the brunt of
the Japanese kamikaze onslaught as the destroyers served at picket stations that
surrounded Okinawa in order to protect larger ships and troop transports of
the main American fleet during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. Sholin succeeds in
his goal of showing the devastation wrought by Japanese kamikaze attacks on numerous
ships in the American fleet, especially the destroyers, but the book has some
significant shortcomings in presentation, organization, and tone.
The 22 chapters provide a chronological history of kamikaze attacks from their
beginnings in the Philippines in October 1944 to the end of the war in August
1945. The history gets told from the perspective of each ship that had damage or
casualties from a kamikaze attack. Each ship's history generally includes a
brief summary of action up to the time of the kamikaze attack and then a
description of what happened during the attack. The author used the U.S. Naval
Institute's Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships as a primary
source for these historical accounts, so some ship histories become just a brief
dry summary of ship name, accompanying ships, battle action, location on ship where plane
hit, casualties, damage, and what happened to the ship as a result of the
attack.
The real strength of this book lies in firsthand accounts provided by dozens
of veterans who served aboard ships hit by kamikaze aircraft. The ship histories
for Drexler (DD-741), Emmons (DD-457),
Gilligan (DE-508), Lindsey (DM-32), Morris (DD-417),
Tennessee (BB-43), Wadsworth (DD-516), Wilson (DD-408), and Wren
(DD-568)
run eight or more pages and include several veteran accounts. However, some ship
histories of significant kamikaze attacks get covered in just one short
paragraph such as the attack of May 11, 1945, on the aircraft carrier Bunker Hill
(CV-17) in which 389 men were killed and 264 wounded. This wide variation in
coverage seems to be based on the amount of material received from the author's
personal contacts.
Although Bill Sholin obviously made tremendous efforts to gather and
summarize material and photos for his three books, this culminating work of
almost 500 pages published in 2000 has quite a few limitations. The book's photos are blurry and too dark, a few to the point where hardly anything can
be made out. Sholin sometimes provides little supporting evidence and reasoning
for his statements. He also throws in quite a bit of material not directly
relevant to the main theme of his book. For example, he provides the following
explanation for the inclusion of the extraneous material in Chapter 6 about the
daytime bombardment of the Kurile Islands by the destroyer Wren, the author's ship, and 11
other ships in January 1945: "Oh well, just chalk up this
chapter up to the author's pride!" This privately published book also has a
number of minor errors, such as descriptions in the table of contents that do not agree with chapter titles and dates in several places.
Kamikaze pilots remain faceless and mysterious in this book with no attempt
to delve into the reasons for their attacks or to explore the personalities of
the pilots. The author uses the following phrases to describe
the kamikaze corps: "fanatical kamikazes," "brainwashing techniques," "death
pact with Admiral Ohnishi," and "suicidal madness." When
describing action during the Battle of Okinawa, he incorrectly refers to
the kamikaze pilots as "Admiral Ohnishi's suicide pilots" even though Vice Admiral Ugaki took over
responsibility in February 1945 for leading Japan's kamikaze attacks for the
remainder of the war. This book examines Japan's kamikazes strictly from the
viewpoint of American Navy personnel who only knew them when they appeared in
the sky or on radar and tried to attack American ships.
Sholin has a unique style in which he emphasizes certain points throughout
the book by putting selected sayings in all capital letters such as the
following:
- "REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR" & NEVER FORGET "THE KAMIKAZE NIGHTMARE"
- PACIFIC WAR VETERANS MUST SPEAK OUT AND STAND UP―WHILE WE CAN!
- IF YOU FOUND YOURSELF FACING THIS NIGHTMARE WOULD YOU THINK WE SHOULD
USE THE BOMB?
At the back of the book, Sholin includes four proclamations that he wrote. The Veterans of Foreign Wars published these proclamations, including
the following one that summarizes Sholin's beliefs, which he mentions throughout
the book:
VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS
PROCLAMATION
By Bill Sholin Cosponsored by Admiral Charles Stevens
KAMIKAZES―"A" BOMB―TRUTH
WHEREAS, AMERICA'S USE OF THE ATOMIC
BOMB TO END WW II HAS BEEN CALLED INTO QUESTION. TO DEBATE MORALITY OF USING
THE BOMBS AND IGNORE THE LAST YEAR OF THE WAR―IS
UN-AMERICAN―BUT TO NOT USE THE ATOMIC BOMBS WOULD HAVE BEEN UNCONSCIONABLE,
AND,
WHEREAS, MISINFORMATION AND LACK OF TRUE
INFORMATION HAVE TAINTED AMERICAN HISTORY REGARDING THE PACIFIC WAR.
"KAMIKAZE" GRAPHICALLY ILLUSTRATED THE JAPANESE MINDSET. THE DAMAGE AND
CASUALTIES THEY CAUSED AT OKINAWA ALONE―THE GREATEST LOSSES EVER SUFFERED
IN A SINGLE BATTLE BY THE U.S. NAVY―STANDS ALONE. THE IMPACT ON OUR PEOPLE
WHO HAVE RELIVED THEIR OWN DEATH―DAY AFTER DAY―WEEK AFTER WEEK―AND MONTH
AFTER MONTH―LIKE A RECURRING NIGHTMARE―IS UNPRECEDENTED. TO THIS DAY WE
CARRY THE SCARS, AND,
WHEREAS, SAID MISINFORMATION IS WIDE SPREAD IN
OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM AND DEEPLY ROOTED IN U.S. SOCIETY. THE MAGNITUDE OF
MISINFORMATION AND NATIONAL DEBATE BASED ON THE SUBSEQUENT REWRITING OF OUR
HISTORY―IS CREATING A MAJOR FAILURE IN AMERICANISM THROUGHOUT THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA. OUR VETERANS ARE MADE TO FEEL REMORSE FOR WINNING THE
PACIFIC WAR AND JAPAN IS EXONERATED FOR STARTING IT, AND,
WHEREAS, FREEDOM PROVIDED BY OUR FOREFATHERS IN
THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS IS BEING
SYSTEMATICALLY ERODED.
NOW THEREFORE, THE VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS
SHALL DO EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER TO REEDUCATE OUR CITIZENRY; TO CORRECT
MISINFORMATION BEING TAUGHT IN OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM; TEACH THE TRUE AND
FACTUAL EXTENT OF KAMIKAZES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE REGARDING AMERICA'S USE
OF THE ATOMIC BOMBS; AND RESTORE THE PACIFIC WAR TO THE TOP POSITION OF
TRUTH AND PROMINENCE IT DESERVES. THE VFW SHALL TAKE A FIRM STANCE AGAINST
ANY EROSION OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOM.
THIS IS THE TRUTH―"REMEMBER PEARL
HARBOR"
APPROVED, DEPARTMENT OF WASHINGTON, ON JANUARY 17, 1999.
Bill Sholin asserts in the book that Americans, especially the media, have
minimized and denied the truth of the kamikazes, but he presents almost no
evidence to support such a statement. He also speaks of "liberal revisionists"
who try to distort the truth of kamikaze attacks in order to denounce
America's dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He even hints
that Japan may be behind this as they buy the Hollywood motion picture industry,
buy or control US media outlets, and influence the U.S. educational system. The
book provides little support for these positions. He presents the following
New York Times article from June 30, 1945, as one piece of alleged support for the
attempt to distort the truth (pp. 456-7):
Okinawa Picket Line
Out over the horizon, hull down from the highest peak on Okinawa, was
fought during the eighty-two days of the land campaign the most bitter,
relentless sea-air battle of the Pacific war, the Navy now has revealed. It
was the battle of the destroyer squadrons against the "Kamikaze Corps," both
sea and air. It is a battle that is still going on.
Day after day, sometimes hour after hour, the Japanese send down from
Kyushu and northern Ryukyu bases their suicide planes and suicide boats.
Their prime targets are the fat transports, oilers and supply vessels lying
off the Okinawa beaches unloading men and supplies. To get to them they have
to pass the two picket lines of destroyers, destroyer escorts and other fast
escort craft deployed to meet them in two great arcs out in the East China
Sea, twenty-five miles and fifty miles respectively from the unloading area.
Some of the enemy get through, of course. Many of them do not. Part of the
story of the picket lines was told in the single ship releases on the U.S.S.
Laffey, worthy successor of the destroyer, lost in the Solomons on
Nov. 13, 1942, and Commander Al Parker's U.S.S. Mannert L. Abele,
which was sunk by a combination suicide plane and Baka bomb attack off
Okinawa. The Laffey withstood the crash of six suicide planes on her
decks and got back.
Nine destroyers were sunk, twenty-one were damaged [underline by
Bill Sholin]: one of every three. Almost a quarter of the naval losses of
4,907 men off Okinawa were suffered by these little warships. Their
antiaircraft battles took toll of 490 Japanese planes, and uncounted number
of suicide boats which attacked at night, and perhaps several suicide
submarines, small enemy undersea boats, were detected and attacked. The work
of the destroyer squadrons has been told before, but it cannot be told too
often. A list of Navy vessels lost from Dec. 7, 1941, to May 31, 1945, shows
60 destroyers, 8 destroyer escorts and 7 destroyer transports (which often
did destroyer escort and patrol duty) ― the largest
single class losses among the total of 302. The only comparable loss by
classes is that by submarines, of which forty-three have failed to return,
forty-two from combat assignments. By the accident of name, the destroyer
Aaron Ward leads the alphabetical list.
Sholin has the following note after the above article, "Please note the
underlined above. The lid was on, and it remains today!" He does not give the
actual numbers of destroyers sunk and damaged after the newspaper article above,
but elsewhere in the book (p. 447) he states that 122 destroyers of all types
[including most likely destroyer escorts, destroyer minelayers, and additional
ship types other than a regular destroyer] fell victim to Japanese kamikazes,
and 43 were either sunk, scuttled, or scrapped. Up to June 30, 1945, kamikaze aircraft sank ten
regular destroyers during
the Battle of Okinawa [1], but the destroyer
Twiggs (DD-591) sank only two weeks earlier, so this may account for the number of nine reported by the New York
Times. Although more than 21 destroyers received damage from kamikaze
aircraft during the Battle of Okinawa, Sholin does not explain why either the
media or others would have a motive to misstate these numbers. This understatement
may have been due to (a) different assumptions used by the source for the
newspaper article such as the date of the numbers or (b) Sholin's addition of destroyer types other than regular
destroyers in his total number. Even though Sholin criticizes the accuracy of
the numbers published in the New York Times, Sholin's list of "destroyers hit by kamikazes at
Okinawa" (pp. 474-5) includes a number of ships that do not belong such as the following
examples: Halligan (DD-584) that hit a mine; Badger (DD-657) hit by
a suicide boat; Ammen (DD-527) nearly hit by a bomb dropped by a Japanese
plane; and Hudson (DD-475) that was missed by a kamikaze plane and clipped
chief on head (p. 289). Even though the numbers of destroyers sunk and damaged
may be slightly incorrect in the New York Times article, the newspaper
presents an extremely positive portrayal of destroyers rather than any attempt
to hide the truth.
No book published to date other than Bill Sholin's The Kamikaze Nightmare
and his earlier, smaller work,
The Sacrificial Lambs (1994), have focused
on details and firsthand accounts about all of the individual American ships sunk
or damaged by Japanese kamikaze attacks. These personal accounts by WWII
veterans who survived kamikaze attacks provide a valuable historical record. The
inclusion of clearer photographs in The Kamikaze Nightmare and editing to
correct minor errors throughout the work would have greatly enhanced the
value of this privately published book. Although this book has some significant
limitations, it includes many excerpts of letters to Sholin from Pacific War
veterans who greatly appreciate his research and his attempts through his books
to publicize the devastation wrought by the Japanese kamikaze attacks on
American ships and men.
Note
1. See 47 Ships Sunk by Kamikaze Aircraft
for a listing of destroyers sunk between April 1, 1945, the start of the Battle of
Okinawa, and June 30, 1945, the date of the New York Times article.
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