Kamikaze in Color
Produced and written by Ron Marans
Kralyevich Productions, 2002, 82 min., DVD
Although this DVD advertises "color," the real
strength of this documentary lies in its well-written script and its quotes
from American and Japanese participants in the kamikaze operations. The little
color added to black-and-white film clips adds almost nothing for viewers, and
the color can be distracting in a few places such as where the red and white
Japanese flag is shown behind planes in black-and-white.
Kamikaze in Color provides a balanced presentation of
the ten-month history of kamikaze operations starting in the Philippines in
October 1944. The documentary has eight chapters that cover topics such as the
battles at Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. In addition, the DVD has about
two hours of special features divided into four sections: U.S. newsreels,
Japanese newsreels, color bonus footage, and excerpts from Japanese movies.
These special features have no introduction or commentary, and most have little
or no connection to kamikaze operations. The two highlights of these special
features are a Japanese newsreel
showing the farewell of the five pilots in the Shikishima Unit, who made the
first official kamikaze attacks, and a 90-second wartime American newsreel
about kamikaze attacks on the carrier Ticonderoga and the battleship Nevada.
The DVD suffers from production flaws typical with this type of
historical documentary. The images at times do not match up with the narration,
and some images are repeated several times. The DVD misleadingly
includes several clips filmed after the end of the war, possibly so the producer
could obtain additional color footage. The most annoying and historically
inaccurate aspect of the film is the repeated appearances of four men dressed as
pilots who enact two scenes: (1) walking on a path away from a shrine and then
bowing and (2) a kamikaze farewell ceremony. This footage does not show real
kamikaze pilots. Instead, these clips were part a reenactment filmed at Chōfu
Air Base and a nearby Shintō shrine in December 1945.
The DVD narrative includes many short quotes from both
Americans and Japanese who fought during the war. These quotes help viewers
understand the feelings and thoughts of the men on each side. For example, the
person on the DVD who reads all of the quotes from Americans introduces the
following statement by John Thach, operations officer to Admiral McCain:
Every time one country gets something, another soon has it.
One country gets radar, but soon all have it. One gets a new type of engine or
plane, then another gets it. But the Japs have got the kamikaze boys,
and nobody else is going to get that, because nobody else is built that way.
A Japanese man, who on the DVD gives all quotes from
Japanese participants, reads the following excerpt of a kamikaze pilot's letter
written to his parents on the evening before his attack [1]:
Please congratulate me. I have been given a splendid
opportunity to die. . . . How I wish I could be born seven times, each time to
smite the enemy. . . . I shall return in spirit and look forward to your visit
at the Yasukuni Shrine.
The excerpts of several letters from kamikaze pilots provide
insights into their thinking before the attacks, although one may question
their candor since their letters were subjected to military censorship and
since the young men had intense social pressure from peers and others in Japanese
society to conform to the prevailing militaristic ideology.
Although generally the documentary accurately reflects the history of
Japanese kamikaze operations, a few mistakes appear in the narration. The film
states that over 2,500 kamikaze pilots forfeited their lives [2],
but this figure includes only Navy pilots. The total number of kamikaze airmen
who died was nearly 4,000 if one includes Army kamikaze deaths in the figure.
The narration confuses kaiten weapons (human torpedoes launched from a mother
submarine) and midget submarines [3]. The narrator
incorrectly explains that midget submarines were called kaiten and included the
5-man kairyū and the 2-man kōyrū. Although kaiten had only one pilot, the film
mistakenly refers to a kaiten's two-man crew. The documentary incorrectly
explains that Takijirō Ōnishi called on the 201st Air Group for volunteers who
were not family men [4], but the first kamikaze
unit's leader, Yukio Seki, was a married man. In the description by Inoguchi and
Nakajima (1958) of the formation of the first kamikaze squadrons, they do not
mention that family men were excluded when volunteers were sought.
This documentary's evenhanded presentation
provides much information about
kamikaze, but the inclusion of postwar film clips and a few mistakes in
historical facts somewhat lessen the film's value.
Note
1. The ellipses in the quotation have been determined based
on the full letter printed in Inoguchi and Nakajima 1958, 200-1.
2. At 1:45 in DVD.
3. From 1:03:45 to 1:05:20 in DVD.
4. At 13:40 in DVD.
Source Cited
Inoguchi, Rikihei, Tadashi Nakajima, with Roger Pineau.
1958. The Divine Wind: Japan's Kamikaze Force in World War II.
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
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