Figure 1.--Pacific island campaigns commonly ended with Japanese suisidal Banzai charges, never a surrender. Even the wounded would participate. The commanders would often commit Seppuku. This practice began at Aligator Creek on Guadalcanal and continued throughout the War, although on Iwo and Okinawa, senior commanders began seeing suiside charges as futile gestures. The largest Banzai charge of the Pacifc War was staged on Saipan (July 1944). There are few actualm images of a Banzai charge because they were mostlu launched ast night and cameramen were more likely to grab a rifle than a camera.

"Our eneny seemed to be a savage animal a beast, a devil not a human at all and their only thought is to kill kill kill because it was against their heritage, their training, their belief. They would not surrender. All was left to a final charge, a pouring in of all their troops into one concentrated place with their pledge to take as many of us with them as possible.

--Cpt. J.C. Chapin, U.S. Marine Corps on Saipan (July 1944)

Pacific island campaigns commonly ended with Japanese suicidal Banzai charges, never a surrender. At first these were mass wave attacks with bayonets to take important positions and part of Japanese Army doctrine. They were used extensively in China. And with a poorly disciplined army without heavy weapons, the Banzai charge often worked. With the outbreak of the Pacific war, the Japanese attempted this tactic on Guadalcanal. A primary example was the Battle of the Tenaru/Alligator Creek on Guadalcanal (August 1942). It was a blood bath. Some 1,000 Japanese soldiers charged Marine Corps prepared positions supported by machine guns and light artillery. Very few survived including the veteran commander, Col Kiyonao Ichiki. (He was to have led the Midway invasion force. And fired up by his recall, he was determined to teach the Americans a real lesson at the point of the bayonet.) Col. Ichiki doubted the fighting spirit of the Marines and his men paid the price. Learning nothing from the slaughter another Japanese unit charging with bayonets was devastated on Edson's (Bloody) Ridge a month later (September 1942). These assaults proved a disaster and were the primary reason that the Japanese despite naval and air superiority failed to retake Guadalcanal. Until Guadalcanal, the Japanese largely based on Hollywood movies saw the Americans as a fun-loving, woman dominated men that would not have the stomach to fight the bayonet wielding Japanese warrior. (The Japanese knew little about America, but Japanese men, women, and children had seen Hollywood films in the movie theaters.) After Guadalcanal the Japanese no longer doubted the fighting spirit of the Americans. The Japanese officers on Guadalcanal began telling their men that the Marines they faced were not normal Americans, but an elite force recruited from prisons and mental asylums. As American forces went on the offensive this began to change. The Bazai charge was not at first a desperate suicidal charge. It was an infantry tactic launched to achieve victory before the tide had turned against Japan and was often successful in China. On Guadalcanal, the Banzai charges were mass wave attacks to achieve victory. The Japanese in the final stage of the various island campaigns continued to stage frenzied Banzai charges. The nature of the attacks, however, had changed fundamentally. they became more commonly what we now see as the Banzai charge--a despeate attack let by bayonets and swords by a largely defeated force determined not to accept the humiliation of surrender. Soldiers including the walking wounded and men without rifels charged headlong into American positions. This had worked in China against poorly armed soldiers, but not against the more disciplined Americans armed with modern automatic weapons, tanks, and artillery. Tarawa was an exception because the Japanese commander was killed at an early point (November 1943). It was the one island invasion where a Banzai charge might have worked that first night because the initial landing went so poorly. Japanese commanders after Tarawa (November 1943) no longer expected to survive an American invasion and openly told their men that they would not survive and their duty was to take as many Americans with them as possible. After 2 years of war, the Japanese continued the practice. A massive Banzai Attack occurred on Saipan--the largest Banzai charge of the War (July 1944). It was called 'Gyokusai' or breaking the jewel, meaning destroying what was left of the Japanese unit. 【Oda】 Actually these charges resulted in such heavy Japanese losses that they probably saved many American lives. It would have been more difficult and costly to dislodge Japanese soldiers one by one from well-entrenched positions. American tactics, including infantry, naval and air tactics constantly evolved during the War along with fire power. Japanese tactics were much slower to evolve. We suspect that a factor was that so many commanders did not survive to conduct important after battle evaluations. Even so, given the deeply rooted Japanese code of Bushido, it probably would not have made a difference. The air services shifted to Banzai tactics beginning at Leyte Gulf--Kamikazes (October 1944). And the Kamikaze was to be the centerpiece of resistance to the planned American invasion of Kyushu. And Notice that the Navy, essentially shamed by the Army's continued fighting spirit, sent what was left iof their fleet--namely the Yamato into a Banzai charge of its own--the Surface Special Attack Force (April 1945). The Japanese firmly believed that the only way to prevent an American victory was to kill as many Americans as possible and the heavy toll would dissuade the Americans from invading the Home Islands. In a sense, they were correct, only they had not including the atomic bomb in their calculation. Those who castigate America for dropping the bombs, do not understand the deeply rooted Japanese devotion to Bushido until the bombs were dropped.

Sources

Oda, Makoto. The Breaking Jewel: A Novel (2003). We do not normally cite novels, but this book is useful in understanding the Japanese fighting spirit and the ingrained power of Bushido. The book is a rare depiction of the Pacific War from the Japanese side translated in to English. It gets to the essence of Japan's doomed imperial aims even at the end of the War. .

Created: 2:01 AM 6/26/2016
Last updated: 5:41 PM 6/17/2024