Okinawa: The Last Ordeal
by Irving Werstein
Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968, 179 pages
Irving Werstein, who passed away in 1971, wrote over 50 books about American
history for children. His four other books on the Pacific War include ones on
Midway, Guadalcanal, Wake, and Tarawa. Okinawa: The Last Ordeal presents the
last major battle of WWII, fought from April to June 1945, in an easy-to-read
fashion with several maps. However, the information on Japan's kamikaze attacks
contains several inaccuracies, which makes one wonder whether the author tried
to sensationalize certain aspects of the Special Attack Corps that carried out
suicide attacks.
Chapter 1 provides an error-filled background to the Kamikaze Corps organized
in October 1944 by Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi in the Philippines. The book
claims that "Admiral Onishi threw 600 suicide aircraft into the fray" during the
Battle of Leyte Gulf from October 23 to 26, 1944 (p. 8). Actually, this number
of aircraft carried out suicide attacks over a period of three months from
October 1944 to January 1945 [1]. This beginning
chapter incorrectly states that "Onishi was relegated to minor posts for the
rest of the war" after Japan's defeat in the Philippines (p. 10). However,
in fact one supposedly
"minor post" he took included Vice Chief of the Naval General Staff to command
Japan's naval operations [2].
Werstein alleges that Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki, who took over command of the
Navy's 5th Air Fleet in February 1945, "wrote a manual on kamikaze tactics" (p.
10), but no such manual by Ugaki ever existed. The author inaccurately describes
Vice Admiral Ugaki in comparison to Vice Admiral Ōnishi in the following excerpt
(p. 10):
He was an indefatigable and dynamic organizer, far more effective than
Onishi had been. Ugaki so glamorized kamikaze that it reached the status of
a cult. The slipshod methods used in the Philippines were to be tolerated no
longer.
Both men rose to rank of Vice Admiral as effective organizers, and statistics
of kamikaze attack results do not support the above statements that Ugaki was
far more effective and that Ōnishi used "slipshod methods" in the Philippines.
The percentage of successful hits or near hits by special attack aircraft
decreased from 27.1% in the Philippines under Ōnishi to 13.4% in the Battle of
Okinawa under Ugaki [3]. Ugaki's diary also does not
give any indication that he "glamorized kamikaze" but rather that he was
striving to use all methods under his command, both special (suicide) attacks
and conventional attacks, to stop the Americans from taking Okinawa [4].
The author's first example of Ugaki's superior kamikaze attack methods is the
attack on American ships off Iwo Jima on February 21, 1945 (pp. 10-1), but Ugaki
did not even command this suicide attack since it was carried out by aircraft from the
3rd Air Fleet rather the 5th Air Fleet [5].
Dates also get mixed up. Werstein explains that the first kamikaze (divine
wind) rose up as a typhoon to destroy a Mongolian fleet invading Japan, but he
mistakenly gives the year as 1570 (p. 5) rather than the actual years of 1274
and 1281. The book opens with the following quotation from instructions to
pilots of the Japanese Special Attack Forces known as Kamikaze: "It is
absolutely out of the question for you to return alive . . . . Choose a death
which brings about the maximum result . . . ." The date for this quotation is
given as August 1944, two months before Vice Admiral Ōnishi even formed the
Kamikaze Special Attack Corps. On March 21, 1945, Vice Admiral Ugaki first used
ōka
rocket-powered glider bombs against the American fleet, and all of the mother planes
and ōka
bombs were shot down by American fighters [6],
but Werstein gives the wrong date of March 20 for this battle action (pp. 40-1).
Some inaccurate statements by the author embellish the history of Japan's
Special Attack Forces. In his history of the use of kamikaze pilots during the
Battle of Leyte Gulf, he describes the pilots' wearing "white silk scarves
lettered with the initials of the Special Attack Force" (p. 7), but this did not
happen with the pilots' volunteering for attacks only a few days earlier. He
wrongly describes the aircraft used by kamikaze pilots during the Battle of
Leyte Gulf, "Nor would kamikazes be assigned first-class planes—only aircraft no
longer fit for usual combat flying were allowed the suicide squadrons" (p. 7).
The aircraft used in the first kamikaze attacks in the Philippines were fit for
combat flying, although the Japanese military much later during the Battle of
Okinawa used aircraft such as trainers and seaplanes in suicide attacks. The
author also states that kamikaze pilots climbed into their cockpits "often on
legs made wobbly from too much sake" (p. 12), but this assertion just
seems like an attempt to sensationalize their history rather than present facts.
The book's 19 chapters do a passable job of telling the story of the furious
land and sea battles at Okinawa that lasted from April 1 to June 21, 1945.
Several chapters present the Japanese perspective of troops on land led by
General Ushijima. The first half of the book covers background and events prior to
the invasion of Okinawa. Although the book includes various quotes from Battle
of Okinawa participants, there is no attempt to follow the actions of any one
individual or unit. The author effectively mixes quotes and historical facts to
make the book interesting for children. However, kamikaze attacks during the
Battle of Okinawa get summarized often with little more than ship names and
number of casualties of major ships hit with no attempt to capture the feelings
and opinions of American and Japanese participants.
Notes
1. Ozawa 1983, 78; Yasunobu 1972, 171.
2. Inoguchi 1958, 170.
3. Yasunobu 1972, 171.
4. Ugaki 1991, 536-664.
5. Ugaki 1991, 541.
6. Ugaki 1991, 558-9.
Sources Cited
Inoguchi, Rikihei, and Tadashi Nakajima, with Roger Pineau.
1958. The Divine Wind: Japan's Kamikaze Force in World War II.
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
Ozawa, Ikurō. 1983. Tsurai shinjitsu: kyokō no tokkō shinwa
(Hard truths: Fictitious special attack myths). Tōkyō: Dohsei Publishing Co.
Ugaki, Matome. 1991. Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome
Ugaki, 1941-1945. Translated by Masataka Chihaya. Edited by Donald M. Goldstein
and Katherine V. Dillon. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Yasunobu, Takeo. 1972.
Kamikaze tokkōtai (Kamikaze
special attack corps). Edited by Kengo Tominaga. Tōkyō: Akita Shoten.
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