Marine

The Divine Wind: Japan’s Kamikaze Force in World War II. Foreword by Vice-Admiral C. R. Brown United States Navy.

61031bd — Hutchinson of London 1959. Octavo black cloth hardcover gilt letters xxii 224 pp. Very Good with edgewear; in a Very Good mylar protected dust jacket. From duat jacket: Japan’s aerial suicide offensive unique in the annals of warfare was launched in desperation. For the first time men were asked to go into battle with death as an objective without even that comfort they have always had in any battle no matter how bloody that vestigal hope “It won’t be me -- I’ll be all right.†That the pilots of this failing Empire responded with patriotic devotion is attested by the thousands of names inscribed at the Yasukuni Shrine. What sort of men were they who could with equanimity face the awful finality of an order prescribing voluntary death on a specific day What manner of life prepared them for such a death The tactical or strategic results of the Kamikaze concept are of little importance when weighed against the moral implications of suicide under orders; and the question must be -- even in time of national crisis are such demands defensible The authors present the facts and so far as possible the convictions which lay behind them. For the rest you must draw your own conclusions. hardcover books