The Kamikazes (1944-1945)

"Mother, your son is about to carry out an attack [...] but rather than as your son, it is as a son of the homeland that I shall consider myself then."

In October 1944, with Japan's war already lost since the previous year, the tokubetsu-kōgeki-tai, or "special attack corps," were formed: the pilots who made them up were trained to dive their aircraft, loaded with a bomb, into American warships. Because the Imperial Army knew how essential correspondence was to sustaining the fighting spirit of its men, it encouraged them to write farewell letters and urged them to make them personal — by including, for example, calligraphed characters, sometimes even written in their own blood.

After a historical overview of their creation, Christian Kessler presents here nearly 100 previously unpublished letters, poems and testaments from kamikaze pilots, translated with the assistance of Émilie Champmont — exceptional and particularly moving documents from very young men, most of them educated, written just before their departure on their final mission. Sometimes accompanied by phanera (hair, nail clippings) as relics, they were intended first and foremost for their families — after screening and heavy censorship by the authorities. But for the kamikazes, the letters were also and above all the tangible expression of the painful renunciation of life they had to undertake. Whether or not they agreed with the orders handed down from above, they had to depart at peace with themselves and with their loved ones. A unique, poignant and exceptional collection.