Tokkō: The Spirit of Kamikaze
by Kazuhiro Iga, Seihō Takisawa, Takeshi Kobayashi, Makoto Ueda,
Minoru Nonaka, Taishū Matsuda, and Seiichi Yamakami
Nihon Shuppansha, 2001, 232 pages
Combat Comics (Konbatto Komikku) first published the seven stories in
this manga magazine between 1994 and 2001. The title of Tokkou means special
attack forces, which made suicide attacks near the end of World War II. The
subtitle contains the word "kamikaze," which historically refers only
to the Japanese Navy's aerial suicide attacks on Allied ships. The book's title
seems to consider the two terms synonymously, which people outside Japan typically
do. However, most Japanese authors use only the term tokkou when
referring to special attack forces.
This manga book contains the following stories about different types of
special attack forces (listed in order of appearance in book):
1 - ōka (piloted rocket-powered glider)
2 - Army plane's ramming attack on enemy plane
3 - Army plane's ramming attack on enemy plane and typical crash attack on
ship
4 - plane launched from submarine
5 - battleship Yamato
6 - kaiten (manned torpedo)
7 - Army's Giretsu airborne troop unit
As seen from the above listing, only part of one story deals with a typical
kamikaze attack made against ships.
The seven stories contain varying degrees of historical realism. The back of
the book has the following statement, "All of the published stories are
fiction, and there is no connection with actual people, groups, or events"
(p. 232). Despite this warning, the historical facts in some stories are quite
accurate, such as the story about the sinking of the battleship Yamato after
being sent on a desperate suicide mission to Okinawa to assist in defense of the
island. In contrast, the story entitled "Special Attack Target
Panama" gives an imaginary account of planes being launched from submarines in a
successful suicide attack to block the Panama Canal in early August 1945. The
Japanese Navy actually developed and produced the Seiran, an attack plane
with folding wings. The I-400 submarine, the largest built in World War II,
carried three Seiran planes in a tube on top of the submarine, but the
war ended prior to the planes ever being put into operation.
The first story about two ōka pilots, Ippei Fujimura and Tatsuharu Mikami,
has the most character development. Fujimura returns home for a visit before his
kamikaze mission, and his wife recognizes that he has something that
concerns him deeply. As he gets on the train to return to Kanoya Naval Air Base,
she gives him a small amulet in a cloth bag. He realizes later that his wife
is pregnant when he reads the message on the amulet, "prayer for safe
birth." Fujimura temporarily loses his sight when American planes bomb the
base, so his friend Mikami volunteers to take his place in the planned kamikaze
attack, but his ōka weapon just misses an aircraft carrier when
antiaircraft fire tears the right wing off his ōka. After Fujimura recovers his sight, he makes an
ōka
attack that hits an American ship. He calls out his wife's name just before he
crashes into the ship, and the story ends with his wife in tears in front of a
household shrine that has her husband's photo.
The ōka story has some distinct features and a few historical inaccuracies.
This manga story highlights the relationship of the ōka pilot Fujimura and his
wife. The other mange stories focus on the soldiers' heroism and daring without
mentioning any relationships with women, except for the story about the kaiten
pilot who briefly meets a woman to whom he mentions marriage if the war would
end soon. In history, Japan's special attack
forces consisted primarily of young men in their teens and early twenties, so
very few were married. The manga on the ōka pilots has the best drawings, with
many detailed and realistic images of planes and the air base. However, the
drawing of the ōka weapons lined up in an open hangar does not reflect
historical reality, since actually the weapons were hidden in underground shelters
around the base to avoid destruction from enemy bombing.
The third story in the book gives a fictional account of the extreme bravery of
First Lieutenant Motomiya, who participated in two types of special attacks, a
ramming attack against an American B-29 Superfortress and a regular crash attack into
a ship. The Japanese military designated special attack units for planes
intended to ram B-29s or other American planes, even though these pilots had a
chance to survive after hitting another plane if they could use a parachute
or could land their damaged plane. Motomiya shuts his eyes when he first tries
to ram an enemy plane. After encouragement and advice by his division commander,
Motomiya joins a special attack squad that will try to ram B-29s. He
successfully brings down a B-29 in a ramming attack and then barely lands his
plane with the end of one of its wings sheared off. Next he gets assigned to a kamikaze
unit to make an attack on American ships off Okinawa, but he gets shot down on
the way there after departing from Chiran Air Base.
The stories in this manga book give many perspectives on different types of
suicide attacks carried out by the Japanese Navy and Army. Although most stories
emphasize the bravery and sacrifice of the young men who died, a few stories
also deal with the uncertainty and fear of the men and with the grief of family
members and friends.
|
