Kamikaze Terror: Sailors Who Battled the Divine Wind
by Jeffrey R. Veesenmeyer
Jeffrey Marketing & Publishing, 2017, 278 pages
Louis Veesenmeyer, the author's great uncle, lost his life during the
kamikaze attack on the destroyer Hadley (DD-774) on May 11, 1945. Jeffrey Veesenmeyer's interest in his great uncle's story led him to contact many
Hadley
survivors and to write a book published in 2014 on the ship's history entitled
Kamikaze Destroyer: USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD774). His second book titled
Kamikaze
Terror: Sailors Who Battled the Divine Wind expands the scope of his first book
to include stories of veterans on several destroyers and other ships that faced
Japanese kamikazes during the Battle of Okinawa.
The book's 21 chapters generally flow chronologically from the beginning of
the Battle of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, to the end of World War II on August 15,
1945, but sometimes the stories jump forward or back. A typical chapter focuses
on the kamikaze attack made on a specific ship such as the chapters about the
destroyers Drexler (DD-721), which sank on May 28 with 158 killed and 51
wounded, and Callaghan (DD-792), which sank on July 29 with 47 killed and
73 wounded. Two survivors from each
of these two ships provide comments on the attack and aftermath. When writing
this history book, Veesenmeyer used 17 oral histories (many at National Museum
of the Pacific War) and personal interviews with 13 Hadley (DD-774) shipmates, 6
Bache (DD-470) veterans, and 7 other WWII veterans. Short quotations from these veterans are spread throughout the history. The
book includes over 30 photographs, an extensive bibliography, and several
appendixes with reference information. The lack of a key word index makes it
challenging to find specific topics quickly.
Kamikaze Terror's greatest strength lies in stories from veterans of certain
destroyers and other ships that have not been published elsewhere. For example,
several survivors of the sinking of the destroyer Bush (DD-529) with 94 killed
and 34 wounded on April 6, 1945, describe the three kamikaze planes that hit
their ship, the sinking, and the time in the water before being rescued. The
descriptions of kamikaze attacks against the destroyer Bache (DD-470), the high
speed transport Barry (APD-29), and the LST-534 (Landing Ship, Tank) also
include quotations from several veterans and have limited exposure in other
publications.
The kamikaze attack stories for some ships included in this book have been
covered in a much more comprehensive way in other books, which also include many
survivor stories. These ships that were sunk or severely damaged during the
Battle of Okinawa include the following (other books about the kamikaze
attacks on these ships listed in parentheses): Laffey (DD-724) (The
Ship That Would Not Die and Hell from
the Heavens), Aaron Ward (DM-34) (Brave
Ship Brave Men), Bunker Hill (CV-17) (Danger's
Hour), Mannert L. Abele (DD-733) (Three
Minutes Off Okinawa), and Hadley (DD-774) (Kamikaze
Destroyer).
Unfortunately, several destroyers sunk by kamikaze attacks at radar picket
stations during the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945 get very little or
no mention in the book, probably due to the lack of available oral histories or
survivors who are still living and well enough to be interviewed. These
destroyers include Pringle (DD-477) sunk on April 16 with 65 killed and 110
wounded, Little (DD-803) sunk on May 3 with 30 killed and 79 wounded, Luce
(DD-552) sunk on May 4 with 149 killed and 94 wounded, Morrison (DD-560) sunk on
May 4 with 152 killed, William D. Porter (DD-579) sunk on June 10 with no
casualties, and Twiggs (DD-591) sunk on June 16 with 152 killed. Some of these
destroyers such as Luce and Morrison receive a brief description of how they
sank after being hit by kamikaze planes and the bombs they carried, but the book
has no quotations from survivors of these ships.
Some stories stray from the book's stated purpose to present "the sailors who
faced kamikazes at Okinawa." Chapter 19 covers the service of Jeffrey
Veesenmeyer's father aboard the LSM(R)-411 (Landing Ship Medium (Rocket)), which never reached the area of
battle to confront any kamikazes as the ship was on her way to Hawaii from the
west coast when the war's end was announced. Chapter 18 talks about the
photograph of the sailor from the destroyer The Sullivans (DD-537) who kissed a
nurse at Times Square in New York City when the war's end was announced. The
destroyer The Sullivans gets a lot of coverage even though her role related to
Japan's kamikazes consisted of the rescue from the water of 166 sailors from the
aircraft carrier Bunker Hill sailors after the ship got hit and severely damaged
by two kamikaze aircraft carrying bombs. Chapter 21, Scuttlebutt and Salty
Tales, contains a variety of stories from sailors introduced earlier in the
book, but the topics of most of these have nothing to do with Japan's kamikazes.
The information presented about the Japanese side contains several errors.
Tameichi Hara did not serve as captain of battleship Yamato on her suicide
mission toward Okinawa on April 6-7, 1945. Instead, Hara was captain of the
light cruiser Yahagi as an escort ship for Yamato. In another inaccuracy, no
ōka rocket-powered glider attack took place on April 6, 1945, despite
the author's statement of this [1]. Also, ōka does not mean "exploding cherry
blossom" but rather simply "cherry blossom." Akita is not an island at the
northern tip of Japan but instead a prefecture at the northern tip of the main
island of Honshū. Vice Admiral Ugaki did not plan from the beginning that
Japan's Navy and Army air forces would carry out ten mass kamikaze attacks in
the Okinawa campaign. On
the contrary, he planned each subsequent attack based on an overall assessment
of the results of the prior attack and other factors such as available aircraft,
weather, and observations of reconnaissance planes. The book also has several
misspellings of Japanese names and mix-ups between the months of April and May
in 1945.
In the last paragraph of the Epilogue, Veesenmeyer summarizes the
effectiveness of Japan's kamikaze attacks (p. 227):
General George Patton once said, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his
country." The kamikazes couldn't win the war or even end it with their
sacrifice. But they did create terror. A much greater terror [dropping two
atomic bombs on Japan] was required to bring it to an end.
In the book's last paragraph, Veesenmeyer explains the significance of WWII
veteran stories, which make up a key component of Kamikaze Terror (p. 244):
It was decades later before some of the stories started to come out. Ship's
crews started to have reunions. They were meeting up with buddies they hadn't
seen in over 20 years. One guy would bring up a shocking memory and that would
lead to another. It felt okay to tell these stories with men who had shared the
same experience. They understood, because they were there. The reunions have
served as therapy for some. These men gather, not just to tell stories, but to
be with comrades. These are people who acted their best while suffering and
sacrificing together. Fortunately, WWII veterans are finally talking. Many
museums have started oral history collections. Through books, films and
historical projects, the worst event in human history is now being archived.
Hopefully the knowledge from these efforts will keep it from ever happening
again.
Even though the veteran stories included in this book are somewhat random at
times with a few of them not directly related to Japan's kamikaze, these
personal stories provide readers with thought-provoking eyewitness accounts
about what really happened during WWII.
Note
1. Katō 2009, 490-9.
Source Cited
Katō, Hiroshi. 2009. Jinrai butai shimatsu ki: Ningen
bakudan "ōka" tokkō zen kiroku (Thunder gods unit record of events:
Complete history of "ōka" human bomb special attacks). Tōkyō: Gakken
Publishing.
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