http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda
Japanese soldier who kept 'fighting' WWII and refused to surrender until almost 30yrs after it ended.

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I really don't want this to come across in the typical snooty, "What are you, stupid or something?" tone so typical in OOT, so I ask with all respect due to a poster like Oski:

Pearl Harbor wasn't a kamikaze mission? Or do you mean it was the last one until 10/44?

Um no, pearl harbor wasn't a kamikaze mission... Japanese planes bombed, they didn't suicide crash

No problem. Yes, kamakazi missions were specific type of missions where the pilots went through suicide bombing training; were given special ceremonies before they left; and then they purposefully flew their planes into ships.

Prior to that, the Japanese employed traditional tactics of dive/torpedo bombing where the return of the pilot and his craft was part of the goal.

As far as Banzai missions, those were when the Japanese would attack en masse shrieking and wielding swords. This was first encountered at Guadalcanal. After the first few battles, the Japanese abandoned this tactic completely (it was supposed to act as a last-ditch rallying attack which could perhaps turn the tide of battle) as it saw Japanese getting wiped out wholesale. Instead, the Japanese resorted to a pure-war of attrition. They were disciplined at this to the point where they would often hold their fire until they were sure of maximum damage. In other words, they would often pass up sure targets if they were only single.

Anyhow, the Kamakazi attack is often confused with Banzai and as you can see, they are competely different. By the end of the war, the most feared thing among the Navy was the Kamakazi attacks which were almost impossible to prevent and defend. The Kamakazi attack was born of necessity as the Japanese fleet was almost completely anihilated by mid 1944. The Japanese had no effective means of attacking the Navy as the American's current fighters were also superior to the Japanese Zero and thus dive bombers could not effectively be protected. Instead, the singular goal was to attack by surprise and evade until the plane could be steered into the target ship.

Final point: Pearl Harbor is considered a traditional attack in that dive bombers escorted by fighters were launched from carriers with the expectation that most of them would return after inflicting as much damage as possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

I found this pretty interesting. Highlights political warfare tactics used by the Russian Security services during the cold war. Makes for a good read for anyone interested in espionage.

I would never have thought that the info contained in this article would be available to the public.

Wow, I always thought it was a kamakazi mission. This part was a huge surprise to me.

Japan would lose 29 out of the 350 aircraft they attacked with.

Talk about an ass kicking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_harbor

You really thought that? Wow

I think amongst, even amongst fairly well educated people, the majority will assume Pearl Harbor was a kamikaze mission, especially after the comparisons made between 9/11 and the Pearl Harbor attack over the last decade.

weird always knew they bombed never thought it was kamikaze mission at all

This can't possibly be true. The idea that anyone would think it was a kamikaze attack is stunning to me.

Yeah, kamikaze is a desperation plan even if it is effective, because it robs you of a trained pilot. Japan only turned to kamikaze attacks when the war was clearly lost. Would make no sense to start off a major war by killing some of your best pilots on purpose when you could simply use bombs.

I thought the 9/11 comparisons were because thats the only comparable time where America was surprise attacked on its own soil, not because both were suicide attacks.

Yes, and since most people learn history from watching movies, I suppose those who saw "Animal House" assume the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.

Anyhow, I guess its a good time for this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

I took 4 years of History in HS, the only thing we ever studied about WW2 was D-Day and the Holocaust. If Pearl Harbor was discussed at all, it was on Dec 7th in passing. We talked about the Arizona but that's about it as far as Pearl Harbor is concerned. We spent less than a week on WW1 and 2 combined.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...elopment_Group

Maybe this has been posted but I had a great time reading it. These guys are so badass.

Never thought about it but I would've assumed that Pearl Harbor included both conventional and Kamikazee attacks.

I had never heard of people thinking that pearl harbor was kamikaze, but it doesn't really surprise me. it's the kind of thing you make associations of when you're little (i.e. you learn the japanese did kamikaze and you learned that the japanese attacked pearl harbor, and make the connection in your head), and then once you're smart enough to realize it wasn't kamikaze, you don't revisit it until you post something stupid on 2+2 without thinking about it

there's a this american life episode about this kind of thing but I can't remember the name of it

I am genuinely surprised by this. After seeing many make similar posts about believing or assuming Pearl Harbor involved Kamakazi attacks, I notice that most of you are from the East Coast. One poster made mention that Pearl Habor and the PTO were not really taught in history class.

I grew up (and stll reside) in Los Angeles. We covered a lot about the PTO in high school history as well as the Japanese internment.* I suppose it may have been more of a focus because the West Coast was quite involved in that aspect of the war and that we also have large concentrations of Japanese/Japanese-Americans in California.

As a general question: did you guys have ideas as to what Kamakazi attacks were, or did you just assume it was a general term for Japanese bombing attack?

* My recollection of this may be a bit off since as far back as I can recall, I have been an avid reader of WWII history books and I watched many, many war movies and documentaries, even as a kid. I have always been pretty well-versed in the Pearl Harbor attack, so I am not sure what the general public would know, or have been taught, about it.

Organized, planned kamikaze missions did not start until October 1944, but there were numerous incidents before that of Japanese pilots crashing their planes into US ships of their own volition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

Yeah, upon close reading, you will see that there were merely a handful: etc.

Of course, there are documented instances of a pilot stating that in the event his primary mission were to fail, he would look to crash his plane into a target.

Kamikaze is a specific type of attack and requires that the attacking plane be prepared as a bomb and a ceremony for the pilots. The easiest way to draw the line is where an attack is based on hope of victory as opposed to an acknowledgement of defeat. Up until the Kamikaze strategy was officially adopted and prepared, all other missions involved the goal of having the pilot return with his plane. The resources in pilots and planes were far too valuable when the war was still in doubt.

As the summer of 1944 came to a close, it was clear that Japan was going to lose and they switched to a complete war of attrition where their only goal was to trade one of their lives or assets for multiple lives or assets. By their code, if you could not win, the only other honorable action was to go out with your guns blazing, taking out as many of the enemy as possible.

Since I'm the one who started all of this:

I was brought up to believe that the pilots who attacked Pearl Harbor weren't given enough fuel to return, that they were to use their planes as weapons when they were out of ammo, or if shot down to try to steer into a target (isn't there footage of this happening at Pearl Harbor?). That "kamikaze" meant "divine wind". We used to joke, "Why were they given helmets?"

I don't recall if that was school who taught me that, or family. It may have even been some misguided television show. You can probably add it to the list of "Lies My Teacher Told Me". But I was shocked to read in this thread a guy (who again, I respect) says there were no kamikaze attacks before Oct44.

Yup, East Coast, baby. Never laid eyes on an Asian person until a Korean doctor stitched me up in the ER when I was 10.

Many of them were minimally trained. Kind of like the 9/11 terrorists, they learned just enough to do the job. Being able to land the plane was not a skill they worked on.

Not the first few sqaudrons.

Also, the orginal comment about wasting a pilot and plane refers to exactly why this type of attack did not happen at Pearl Harbor (Japan intended to win the war and at that time believed they could).

Your teacher was probably talking about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid

As for Kamikaze's, they were expected to return to base if they did not find a target. The fuel was part of the weapon, by the way, so they would not have purposefully shorted the fuel tanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Island