** World War II Pacific War air campaign Kamikaze Nadeshiko








Pacific Air War: Kamikaze Nadeshiko

Kamikazes
Figure 1.-- Men and planes were positioned in Kyhshu to attack the American invasion of the Home Islands itself. Schoolgirls were assigned to the bases with orders to care for the polots and to give them an ethusiastic sendoff--waved handkerchiefs and branches of pink cherry blossoms. We are not sure what they were told about the mission, but they seem to have unbderstood that the young men were not coming back.

The Kamikaze attcks were mostly flown from the Philippines and Okinawa. There were few Japanese civilians in the Philippines to give the pilots an emotional send off. We are not sure about Okinawa. We do not yet have information. We suspect it was not possible because of intense American air attacks on the airfields. As Kamikazee/Tokko. flights began from Japan it was different (April 1945). Kamikaze missions were prepared from airfields in Kyushu in the last months of the War. The first Kamikaze missions were to attack American naval operations off Okinawa. Men and planes were positioned in Kyhshu to attack the American invasion of the Home Islands itself. Schoolgirls were assigned to the bases with orders to care for the polots and to give them an ethusiastic sendoff--waved handkerchiefs and branches of pink cherry blossoms. We are not sure what they were told about the mission, but they seem to have unbderstood that the young men were not coming back. This transpired at air bases in southern Kyushu. One of these bases was Chiran. One of the girls at Chiran, Chino Kuwashir, recalls, "Remembering that still makes me tremble. We waved and waved until we couldn't see them anymore. Why did we have to endure such sorrow?" The girls were called Nadeshiko after a beautiful, butbfragile pink flower. Nadeshiko is also a term for the perfect Japanese woman. The girls were assigned to care for the pilots. They did the cleaning, laundry, sewing, errands, amnd other favors and finally said goodbye. The young pilots were stoic, but the gitls found that when they went to pick up the pillow cases to wash, they found they were drenched in tears. The girls became very attched to the pilots. There were some 100 girls at the base for about a month while the Okinawa campaign was fought (spring 1945). There were 439 Kamikazes launched from Chiran, many like the gurls, still teenagers. Reiko Akabane, another Nadeshiko, reported in a the video that she went up to one of the pilots before his departure, to return change from the money he had given her to mail a final letter to his parents. Instead of taking the coins, pilot Shinji Sakaguchi took out his wallet and handed it to her as a keepsake. [Kageyama and Toda]

Sources

Yuri, Kageyama and and Miki Toda. "Japanese girl's WWII job: waving goodbye to kamikaze pilots," Seattle Times AP story (July 31, 2015).






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Created: 11:50 AM 3/5/2021
Last updated: 11:50 AM 3/5/2021