"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...