Wings of Defeat

I recently watched a very moving documentary called "Wings of Defeat" about Kamikaze pilots in WWII told through historical footage and interviews with 4 surviving kamikazes, all in their 70's and 80's. Despite their advanced age they're quite sprightly and remember vividly the harsh training and desperate political climate of those days.

The movie was made by Risa Morimoto and inspired by a part of family history unknown to her until recently. After the funeral of her favorite uncle, she found out that as a young man he had trained to be a kamikaze. Her difficulty in reconciling the individual she knew with the picture she had of kamikazes as fanatical suicide bombers led her to make this movie and to meet these four gentlemen.

All of the men are evocative in describing the fear and anxiety of heading for certain death, the relief at surviving another mission, only to realize that the future holds only more of the same. They also speak of their relationship with others in their group and the desire to not let down their comrades who had sacrificed their lives.

For me it reflected how totalitarian regimes can warp social values like group cohesion and self sacrifice while undermining the idealism of young men seeking to serve their country and defend their homeland.

The documentary airs next week on PBS on Tuesday May 5.

On a historical note, the kamikaze or "divine wind" were named for typhoons that saved Japan from conquest by the huge Mongol armada in 1274 and 1281 CE (an interesting study of scrolls preserved from that time is available here).



In Kamakura, the beautiful Zen Temple Engaku-ji was built in 1282 to pray for the souls of warriors on both sides of this conflict who had fallen in battle. The Chinese Zen Master Wu-hsueh Tsu-yuan called Bokyu Kokushi(Teacher of the Nation) in Japan, himself a refugee from Mongol persecution, became the founding abbot of this temple. For me this peaceful temple seems a fitting end to this story.