Kamikaze
   Images


Only search Kamikaze Images

Last letters, poems, and
writings of Navy Preparatory
Flight Trainees (2)
(2006)

 
Last Letter of Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Mitsuo Iyanaga to His Mother and Older Sister

At 1535 on April 28, 1945, Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Mitsuo Iyanaga took off from Kushira Air Base as radio operator/gunner in a Type 97 Carrier Attack Bomber (Allied code name of Kate) carrying an 800-kg bomb and died in a special (suicide) attack off Okinawa at the age of 19. He was a member of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps 1st Seiki Squadron from Hyakurihara Naval Air Group in Ibaraki Prefecture. He was from Fukuoka Prefecture and was a member of the 12th Kō Class of the Navy's Yokaren (Preparatory Flight Training Program).

He wrote the following final letter:

Dear Mother and Older Sister,

Mother, you have taken care of me in many ways for a long time.

I am going to crash dive bravely into an enemy aircraft carrier.

Everyone, I pray that you pay sufficient attention to your health.

Morning of sortie


Letter translated by Bill Gordon
November 2018

The letter comes from Unabarakai Henshū Iinkai (2006, 27). The biographical information in the first paragraph comes from Osuo (2005, 224) and Unabarakai Henshū Iinkai (2006, 27).

Sources Cited

Osuo, Kazuhiko. 2005. Tokubetsu kōgekitai no kiroku (kaigun hen) (Record of special attack corps (Navy)). Tōkyō: Kōjinsha.

Unabarakai Henshū Iinkai (Unabarakai Editing Committee). 2006. Kaigun hikō yoka renshūsei isho • iei • ikōshū (2) (Last letters, poems, and writings of Navy Preparatory Flight Trainees (2)). Tōkyō: Unabarakai.