![]() American and Allied pilots and Sailors met the Japanese challenge with courage and steely determination. ![]() Japan’s defeat in the Okinawa campaign and its eventual surrender has somewhat obscured the desperate character of the battle between the Navy and the kamikazes. ![]() If the plane is not shot down or so severely damaged that its control is impaired, it almost inevitably will hit its target. The psychological value of AA, which in the past has driven away a large percentage of potential attackers, is inoperative against the suicide plane. The suicide attack represents by far the most difficult antiaircraft problem yet faced by the fleet. As the Headquarters of the Commander in Chief of the U.S. The Navy’s robust fleet air defense capability proved overwhelmingly effective against conventional Japanese air attacks but struggled to cope fully with kamikaze strikes. This guaranteed the greater use of kamikazes going forward. While these results did not prevent Japan’s defeat in the Philippines, they exceeded considerably what the Japanese achieved with orthodox air tactics alone. and Allied combat vessels during the campaign, sinking 20, and killing at least 1,400 Sailors. The fanatical resolve of Japanese pilots turned their aircraft into human guided missiles, which struck or damaged 130 U.S. Although hints about adopting suicide tactics had been picked up before then, their use on a wide scale came as a surprise. ![]() Japan initiated kamikaze attacks in response to the invasion of the Philippine Islands by U.S. Despite the precipitous decline of its remaining airpower relative to increasing American aerial advantages in skill, technology, and numbers, however, Japan’s desperate resort to kamikaze (“divine wind”) aerial suicide tactics proved grimly effective. Navy had decisively defeated Japanese naval airpower and seapower in the battles of the Philippine Sea (June 1944) and Leyte Gulf (October 1944). Fifth Fleet naval and amphibious forces, under the command of Admiral Raymond Spruance, prepared to execute Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa, in early 1945, the land-based air forces of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJAAF) and Navy (IJNAF) posed the primary threat they faced. ![]()
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