Examples Of Self-Sacrifice In The Japanese Military

For example, one of the many strategies used by the Japanese military was Kamikaze suicide pilots. These pilots would intentionally fly their planes into targets such as ships and buildings. This tactic shows that the Japanese were willing, even eager, to give their lives for their country. Before going to their last battles the Japanese were told “You are already gods without earthly desires” This statement, told to pilots before flying to their deaths shows the true mindset and beliefs of the Japanese. Despite fighting a losing battle, Japanese culture dictated that it was better to die honorably defending the Emperor, viewed as a living god, than surrender. In a letter home before a Kamikaze mission, “the twenty-three-year-old Kamikaze pilot Isao Masuo echoed the feelings of thousands of his fellows when he said: `I shall be a shield for His Majesty and die cleanly along with my squadron leader and other friends’.” Later in his paper Axel also states that after research American intelligence, “Reported that self-sacrifice in Japan was seen as an act of courage, not of cowardice, that it was regarded as a patriotic act.” These two quotes show the true Kamikaze mindset and the force than the United States …show more content…
A perfect example of this is the battle of Iwo Jima, the last island on the way to the Japanese home islands. Iwo Jima ended with over fifty thousand casualties over one month’s fighting between the Americans and Japanese. twenty two thousand Japanese inflicted twenty six thousand casualties on Americans on an island eight square miles in size. The Japanese strategy was simply to “kill ten Americans before you die.” Their defensive fortifications and tunnels were so elaborate that one U.S. Soldier said the Japanese “weren’t on Iwo Jima, they were in it.” In the end, nearly all 22,000 Japanese fought to the