"With the Divine Spirit of Asahi Hanasaki."

Title:  Beyond the Sky: The Young Souls of the Kamikaze and Their Final Letters In my previous post, I wrote about the young trainees of "Yokaren" (Preparatory Flight Experience), boys aged 14 to 17 who entered training with the almost certain expectation of joining the Kamikaze special attack corps. Today, I would like to write about what happened after they graduated from Yokaren, joined the special attack units, and finally made their sorting flights. While many Yokaren graduates ended up joining the special attack corps, the units were fully organized in October 1944. Triggered by the U.S. military's landing operations on Leyte Island, the Imperial General Headquarters issued the "Sho-Go" (Victory) Operation. At the Mabalacat airfield in the Philippines, 13 pilots, centered around the 10th graduating class, volunteered themselves. They formed four units as the first official Kamikaze Special Attack Corps. Those four units were named Shikishima , Yamato , Asa...

Exhibited at the Chiran Peace Museum.   Artist: Katsuyoshi Nakaya 【Title】 The Teenage Kamikaze Pilots: Remembering the "Yokaren" and the Bond with Their Mothers ■ Introduction Hello. The other day, I visited Makata Shrine in Narita City, Chiba Prefecture. This is the place where the famous "Hifumi Shinji" (revelations) were received. On my way back, as I was driving to neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture for work and passing through a town called Ami, a certain memory came back to me. It was about the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps, which I have been researching since around 2008. Ami Town in Ibaraki was once the site of the "Yokaren" (Naval Aviator Preparatory Course), where young boys aged 14 to 17 were trained with the expectation of joining the special attack units. My own great-uncle was one of these trainees, entering the corps and facing the end of the war just days before his scheduled sortie. Today, I want to write about these pure-hearted trainees who ...