American Aces against the Kamikaze

The clashes over between the US Navy, Marine Corps and US Army Air Force fighters against the hastily created Kamikaze units of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy Air Forces were some of the last large scale aerial engagements of the Pacific War. Kamikaze attacks came to the fore during the Okinawa campaign in April-May 1945, when mass attacks were made. Japanese Special Attack Units had first been introduced during the retaking of Philippines in late 1944. Overall, Japanese Army and Navy Special Attack Units flew some 1900 suicide sorties, losing some 900 aircraft in the process.

The Japanese High Command realised that the loss of Okinawa would give the Americans a base for the invasion of Japan. In the air battles leading up to the invasion of Okinawa, the Japanese lost more than 7000 aircraft. In the course of the fighting, 67 Navy, 21 Marine, and three USAAF pilots became aces.The Japanese High Command realised that the loss of Okinawa would give the Americans a base for the invasion of Japan. Its desperate response was to unleash the full force of the Special Attack Units, known in the west as the Kamikaze ('Divine Wind'). In a series of mass attacks in between April and June 1945, more than 900 Kamikaze aeroplanes were shot down. Conventional fighters and bombers accompanied the Special Attack Units as escorts, and to add their own weight to the attacks on the US fleet. In the air battles leading up to the invasion of Okinawa, as well as those that raged over the island in the three months that followed, the Japanese lost more than 7,000 aircraft both in the air and on the ground. In the course of the fighting, 67 Navy, 21 Marine, and three USAAF pilots became aces. In many ways it was an uneven combat and on numerous occasions following these uneven contests, American fighter pilots would return from combat having shot down up to six Japanese aeroplanes during a single mission.