A kamikazes story

[BFMF]

2nd time around.....I had already typed this up, but explorer crashed and I had to re-type this. This time around, I typed this up in Notepad, saving it every couple minutes....

I was thinking about this topic, and since my grandfather was almost killed by a suicide japanese pilot during WW2, I wanted find and look through a book that my grandfather had given me so I didn't get anything wrong. The book is about the story of a ship my grandfather served on during WW2. The author of the book was the ship's commanding officer. The ship was the USS England, a destroyer escort. What is amazing about this ship is that it sank six Japanese submarines in twelve days, more than any other US ship.

On 9 May 1945, while patrolling northwest of Okinawa, the group of ships came under attack by Japanese fighters/light bombers, and the ship went to general quarters. My grandfather, who was one of several radio operators, went to his battle station to help with the ammuntion, or something like that. During the attack, a damaged Japanese Val flew into the ship, above mid deck, and killing 37 sailors, and wounding 40 others.

It isn't clear if the aircraft was originally a kamikaze or if it was simply trying to bomb them and the pilot decided to crash into the ship because of the damages his aircraft had sustained. But whatever the case was, he was scuicidal at the end.... :-/

The Japanese aircraft destroyed the radio/communications compartment on the ship, killing every radio operator on the ship, that is, all except my grandfather. I don't know why my grandfather was the only radio operator who was assigned a battle station away from the radios, and it's terrible that the other operators, and his friends were killed, but I am glad he survived.

As a result of being hit by the Japanese aircraft on May 9 1945, the USS England was taken out of the war.

Here's a link to the book on Amazon.

Antisubmarine Warrior in the Pacific : Six Subs Sunk in Twelve Days

[Scorpiоn]

A foolish statement....perhaps.  But the truth is that the sacrifice of what may have been Japan's bravest young men did not stem the Allied onslought or rescue their nation from defeat.  Even if Japan fought a conventional war, and not turned to suicide attacks, chances are those men would have died by the guns of roving Hellcats and Corsairs.  Its said that a Fast Attack Carrier Task Force could put up as many as 100 aircraft at a time.  How many could the Japanese muster?  Outnumbered, under trained, lacking experance and flying infreior aircraft what were thier chances of survival?  Either way their deaths can be traced to a goverment that misread U.S. resolve to defend herself.

Of course.  Japan was doomed from the start. (The start being the war with the West, and not of that with Asia)

I say the quote is foolish not because of its denotation but its connotation.  Of course in any war the point is to make your 100 neutralize their 100, but it's just that attitude of "our lives are more valuable than theirs" that gets me.

[dcunning30]

Esselback,

cool story!    :)

This is what Kamikaze's did to the Aaron Ward off Okanawa

[dcunning30]

Of course in any war the point is to make your 100 neutralize their 100, but it's just that attitude of "our lives are more valuable than theirs" that gets me.

I don't think that was the point of the quote at all.  I think there's was/is a sense of sacrifice and duty that is manefested in a notion as illustrated by Nathan Hale's famous statement: "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country"

But in a practical sense, it's ineffective to achive your military goals by giving your life for your country.  But you make sure your enemy gives his life for his country, that's how you win a war.

[Scorpiоn]

All valid points.  I suppose connotations are very subject to interpretation.