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Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers
“We tried to live with 120 percent intensity, rather than waiting for death. We read and read, trying to understand why we had to die in our early twenties. We felt the clock ticking away towards our death, every sound of the clock shortening our lives.” So wrote Irokawa Daikichi, one of the many kamikaze pilots, or tokkotai , who faced almost certain death in the futile military operations conducted by Japan at the end of World War II.
This moving history presents diaries and correspondence left by members of the tokkotai and other Japanese student soldiers who perished during the war. Outside of Japan, these kamikaze pilots were considered unbridled fanatics and chauvinists who willingly sacrificed their lives for the emperor. But the writings explored here by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney clearly and eloquently speak otherwise. A significant number of the kamikaze were university students who were drafted and forced to volunteer for this desperate military operation. Such young men were the intellectual elite of modern steeped in the classics and major works of philosophy, they took Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” as their motto. And in their diaries and correspondence, as Ohnuki-Tierney shows, these student soldiers wrote long and often heartbreaking soliloquies in which they poured out their anguish and fear, expressed profound ambivalence toward the war, and articulated thoughtful opposition to their nation’s imperialism.
A salutary correction to the many caricatures of the kamikaze, this poignant work will be essential to anyone interested in the history of Japan and World War II.
This moving history presents diaries and correspondence left by members of the tokkotai and other Japanese student soldiers who perished during the war. Outside of Japan, these kamikaze pilots were considered unbridled fanatics and chauvinists who willingly sacrificed their lives for the emperor. But the writings explored here by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney clearly and eloquently speak otherwise. A significant number of the kamikaze were university students who were drafted and forced to volunteer for this desperate military operation. Such young men were the intellectual elite of modern steeped in the classics and major works of philosophy, they took Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” as their motto. And in their diaries and correspondence, as Ohnuki-Tierney shows, these student soldiers wrote long and often heartbreaking soliloquies in which they poured out their anguish and fear, expressed profound ambivalence toward the war, and articulated thoughtful opposition to their nation’s imperialism.
A salutary correction to the many caricatures of the kamikaze, this poignant work will be essential to anyone interested in the history of Japan and World War II.
227 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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About the author
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
20 books15 followersEmiko Ohnuki-Tierney (Japanese: 大貫恵美子 1934 - ) is a noted anthropologist and the William F. Vilas Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is the author of fourteen single-authored books in English and in Japanese, in addition to numerous articles. Her books have been translated into many other languages, including Italian, Korean, Polish and Russian. Ohnuki-Tierney was appointed the Distinguished Chair of Modern Culture at the Library of Congress in DC in 2009 and then in 2010 Fellow of Institut d’Études Avancées-Paris. She is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, its mid-west council member, and a recipient of John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship among other prestigious awards.
Description taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emiko_O....
Description taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emiko_O....
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 4, 2020
More academic than I thought, but very fascinating. The author does a great job of explaining elements of Japanese culture and history without sounding condescending.
September 2, 2007
I heard about this book on NPR -- first an interview with the author, and then an interview with Clint Eastwood who read the book while he was working on his Letters from Iwo Jima/Flags of our Fathers films.
The book is very scholarly, and not very emotionally engaging. The book summarizes what's in the letters of the young pilots, but it's not a direct translation. It's more of a critical synthesis of what the young men wrote. There were poignant passages, but these were very few. I expected the author to be an editor, who would write the foreward and then let the boys speak in their own words, but this is unfortunately not how the book was organized. The author spends a lot of time on the rigorous schooling these exceptional young men endured, but the tone of the book remains somewhat aloof and academic.
Given that this is the first English translation of any of these diaries, I'm glad to have been able to read the scraps of the diary the author quotes. And the book humanizes those who I used to assume were brainwashed kamikaze idiots.
The truth is, the tokkotai pilots were far far from brainwashed and were the intellectual elite of their generation. Their integrity, innocence and sense of duty could not prevail over a maniacal regime who systematically manipulated them into believing that it was shameful for them not to die. These men so desperately wanted their lives and early deaths to mean something, and the government refused them even that.
The book is very scholarly, and not very emotionally engaging. The book summarizes what's in the letters of the young pilots, but it's not a direct translation. It's more of a critical synthesis of what the young men wrote. There were poignant passages, but these were very few. I expected the author to be an editor, who would write the foreward and then let the boys speak in their own words, but this is unfortunately not how the book was organized. The author spends a lot of time on the rigorous schooling these exceptional young men endured, but the tone of the book remains somewhat aloof and academic.
Given that this is the first English translation of any of these diaries, I'm glad to have been able to read the scraps of the diary the author quotes. And the book humanizes those who I used to assume were brainwashed kamikaze idiots.
The truth is, the tokkotai pilots were far far from brainwashed and were the intellectual elite of their generation. Their integrity, innocence and sense of duty could not prevail over a maniacal regime who systematically manipulated them into believing that it was shameful for them not to die. These men so desperately wanted their lives and early deaths to mean something, and the government refused them even that.
August 24, 2007
This is an incredible book--
as shatters many myths held outside of Japan about the Kamikaze pilots
those in the book are students who were in midst of education, knew several languages, studying philosphy, art, literature Western and Asian--
drafted into the kamikaze units as late in the war and in desperation the need for such attacks--from the governments point of view--
yet the young writers in this book were not supporters many of them of the government or the war--they wanted to live--as just at the threshold of life--so are faced, along with al their studies, by the prospect of their imminent deaths and with the goal to kill as many others as possible along with themselves--
the book is made up of journals, poetry, letters, reflections--
the Japanese Red Army originally brought the suicide bomber to the Palestinians, in 1969--
again, the mythology of the West regarding the kamikaze and many aspects of suicide bombers--
demonization rather than wanting to understand the other's thoughts or lives leading into the actions--
i highly recommend this from what read so far
as shatters many myths held outside of Japan about the Kamikaze pilots
those in the book are students who were in midst of education, knew several languages, studying philosphy, art, literature Western and Asian--
drafted into the kamikaze units as late in the war and in desperation the need for such attacks--from the governments point of view--
yet the young writers in this book were not supporters many of them of the government or the war--they wanted to live--as just at the threshold of life--so are faced, along with al their studies, by the prospect of their imminent deaths and with the goal to kill as many others as possible along with themselves--
the book is made up of journals, poetry, letters, reflections--
the Japanese Red Army originally brought the suicide bomber to the Palestinians, in 1969--
again, the mythology of the West regarding the kamikaze and many aspects of suicide bombers--
demonization rather than wanting to understand the other's thoughts or lives leading into the actions--
i highly recommend this from what read so far
March 22, 2022
It's defenitely not a MUST for those looking for "war diaries" of japanese soldiers, too much of this book is focused on ideological and philosophical issues of the young soldiers (some of them not soldiers yet), and the author tries to interpret a lot of this. In my personal point of view, all of these extract were written by young (some very young) folks in a disastrous world environment, trying to establish a precise interpretation is meaningless.
June 28, 2025
Between 2 and 3 stars, rounded up.
Dusk, that most beautiful moment...
With no pattern
Appear and disappear
Millions of images
Beloved people.
How unbearable to die in the sky.
The above is a poem written by Hayashi Tadao on July 27th, 1945, the night before his plane was shot down while on a scouting mission.
Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers is not so much a collection of diaries written by the young soldiers assigned to the attack force best known in the West as "kamikaze," as it is the author's retelling and personal interpretation of these diaries with small snippets of translations scattered throughout.
The diaries are reduced to a relatively small amount of translated snippets from extensive published works (the published works are often a compilation of diaries, letters and poems), giving readers of this book only a fraction glimpse into the texts in question. One chapter did contain more extensive entries, but this was unfortunately not repeated for most of them.
Instead, in this work, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney often tells us what the various diary-authors wrote without letting us see most of it for ourselves. Or, at best, we get a few sentences on each theme the author discusses.
In some cases, this doesn't seem to matter too terribly to the subject matter--such as when Ohnuki-Tierney recounts the soldiers' pre-war or early diaries without offering quotes--but when it comes what they wrote after they were drafted or enlisted; what they wrote regarding their sentiments regarding the war, their assignment, and the state of Japan, it becomes very frustrating.
In one chapter, for instance, she says that a particular soldier expressed negative thoughts about the treatment of Chinese civilians. But we don't see this expressed in any of the translated snippets. What did he write, exactly? I don't doubt he wrote something--the book offers a glimpse of another soldier lamenting the loss of civilians in Singapore, and others even writing about the poor treatment of Jewish people in Germany--but I want to know what he wrote, not the author simply recalling that it happened.
Ohnuki-Tierney's primary thesis is that the soldiers of the tokkōtai units who were (and are) commonly depicted as eagerly volunteering to commit suicide "for the Emperor" were primarily forced volunteers and, by and large, did not believe in the state ideology and deeply agonized over their upcoming deaths.
As she notes in her introduction, she is not attempting to lessen or justify Japanese war atrocities. Instead, she seeks to shake off the stereotype of the intensely devoted "kamikaze" and instead humanize the who were depicted in media (Japanese and otherwise) through a propaganda lens.
We do see in these brief snippets that some of the soldiers flat out admit that they do not want to die for the emperor, that they question the trajectory of Japan, that they point out the vicious treatment they receive at the hands of superiors, that they do not wish to die.
There is also a strong emphasis on how educated the soldiers were; the diaries are filled with references to French, English, German, Russian and Japanese literature, with occasional references to increased censorship regarding certain types of literature. At one point, books are banned altogether. There was a strong thread of Romanticism for many of the soldiers, who had been high school and/or university students before they were volunteered for these units.
I think the book suffered from the fact that it's not actually meant to be a collection of translated diaries of Japanese soldiers, but an academic analysis of them from an author who has clearly read the originals and studied the units in a broader sense. Yet without being able to read the full diaries or full letters in question, the analysis is not engaging and feels lacking.
Personally, given how few Japanese memoirs related to WW2 get translated into English, I wish that the publisher had advocated for full translations instead. Even though I know that this is incredibly unrealistic to wish for.
I would recommend this book if you are looking to flesh out your understanding of Axis Powers soldiers, but I can't say that I'd buy a copy for my shelves, if only because the material that I want to read--the actual diaries and letters--is not present significantly in this book.
Dusk, that most beautiful moment...
With no pattern
Appear and disappear
Millions of images
Beloved people.
How unbearable to die in the sky.
The above is a poem written by Hayashi Tadao on July 27th, 1945, the night before his plane was shot down while on a scouting mission.
Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers is not so much a collection of diaries written by the young soldiers assigned to the attack force best known in the West as "kamikaze," as it is the author's retelling and personal interpretation of these diaries with small snippets of translations scattered throughout.
The diaries are reduced to a relatively small amount of translated snippets from extensive published works (the published works are often a compilation of diaries, letters and poems), giving readers of this book only a fraction glimpse into the texts in question. One chapter did contain more extensive entries, but this was unfortunately not repeated for most of them.
Instead, in this work, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney often tells us what the various diary-authors wrote without letting us see most of it for ourselves. Or, at best, we get a few sentences on each theme the author discusses.
In some cases, this doesn't seem to matter too terribly to the subject matter--such as when Ohnuki-Tierney recounts the soldiers' pre-war or early diaries without offering quotes--but when it comes what they wrote after they were drafted or enlisted; what they wrote regarding their sentiments regarding the war, their assignment, and the state of Japan, it becomes very frustrating.
In one chapter, for instance, she says that a particular soldier expressed negative thoughts about the treatment of Chinese civilians. But we don't see this expressed in any of the translated snippets. What did he write, exactly? I don't doubt he wrote something--the book offers a glimpse of another soldier lamenting the loss of civilians in Singapore, and others even writing about the poor treatment of Jewish people in Germany--but I want to know what he wrote, not the author simply recalling that it happened.
Ohnuki-Tierney's primary thesis is that the soldiers of the tokkōtai units who were (and are) commonly depicted as eagerly volunteering to commit suicide "for the Emperor" were primarily forced volunteers and, by and large, did not believe in the state ideology and deeply agonized over their upcoming deaths.
As she notes in her introduction, she is not attempting to lessen or justify Japanese war atrocities. Instead, she seeks to shake off the stereotype of the intensely devoted "kamikaze" and instead humanize the who were depicted in media (Japanese and otherwise) through a propaganda lens.
We do see in these brief snippets that some of the soldiers flat out admit that they do not want to die for the emperor, that they question the trajectory of Japan, that they point out the vicious treatment they receive at the hands of superiors, that they do not wish to die.
There is also a strong emphasis on how educated the soldiers were; the diaries are filled with references to French, English, German, Russian and Japanese literature, with occasional references to increased censorship regarding certain types of literature. At one point, books are banned altogether. There was a strong thread of Romanticism for many of the soldiers, who had been high school and/or university students before they were volunteered for these units.
I think the book suffered from the fact that it's not actually meant to be a collection of translated diaries of Japanese soldiers, but an academic analysis of them from an author who has clearly read the originals and studied the units in a broader sense. Yet without being able to read the full diaries or full letters in question, the analysis is not engaging and feels lacking.
Personally, given how few Japanese memoirs related to WW2 get translated into English, I wish that the publisher had advocated for full translations instead. Even though I know that this is incredibly unrealistic to wish for.
I would recommend this book if you are looking to flesh out your understanding of Axis Powers soldiers, but I can't say that I'd buy a copy for my shelves, if only because the material that I want to read--the actual diaries and letters--is not present significantly in this book.
August 7, 2025
This is an emotionally heavy documentation of kamikaze pilot diaries in the run up to their final flight. It details their lives and relationships before being drafted into the military and their internal struggles with their impending, inevitable death. It goes against what most people think, that these men voluntarily gave up their lives for the emperor, instead they were forced and pressured. Also something I didn't realise, often they were highly educated university students who had extensive knowledge of literary, art etc. The only downside of this book is that it details what they were reading and studying a bit too much.
Overall, it's a very tough read but important to gain a better understanding of these brave young men's mindset during this difficult time.
Overall, it's a very tough read but important to gain a better understanding of these brave young men's mindset during this difficult time.
January 6, 2022
This was frustrating. Wasted potential. This book has a 5/5 premise. It explores the letters and stories and poetry written by kamikaze pilots shortly before their missions. Many of these young men were incredibly well educated and reluctant to carry out their duties. Their writing is exquisite and an incredible glimpse into daily life in Japan during WW2. BUT... the book is only like 50% actual kamikaze diaries! The other 50% is just dry academic analysis. IDK. The analysis is fine. It's fine. I haven't read it in over a year so I don't remember much but I just felt robbed. Definitely still worth reading. It just could've been so much more than this.
August 15, 2023
Very interesting subject matter. The diary entries from the student soldiers recruited to be tokkotai pilots provide invaluable insight into how it feels to have your life trajectory suddenly altered and be essentially given a death sentence. Morbid and melancholy, the reflections are wonderful glimpses into the politics, personal conflicts, dreams, and regrets of these individuals.
At times, though, the analysis gets in the way of what would be more interesting with additional or expanded diary entries.
At times, though, the analysis gets in the way of what would be more interesting with additional or expanded diary entries.
January 10, 2018
This book humanizes the kamikaze pilots by showing that they were not simply naive or nationalistic young men, but among the brightest of their generation. As the other reviews note, this book is not a simple translation of several diaries but a scholarly examination of selected portions. As such, Ohnuki-Tierney accomplishes her goal of making the complicated thoughts and feelings of this selection of young men accessible to current readers.
July 26, 2023
One of the hardest books to read, it took me a while actually to process what these student pilots actually went through. It felt so agitating to learn how these brilliant thinkers be empirical or rational sacrifice their lives that easily in service of something they cannot fully comprehend is far more bitter of an idea to accept.
April 3, 2025
I had very little prior knowledge of kamikaze pilots and absolutely no idea that so many of them were so young.
As I am in my last semester at a university, I cannot imagine being propelled into my demise with all the knowledge that there is no hope of escaping it.
The diary entries included contain some of the most profound thoughts of existentialism.
Very powerful read.
As I am in my last semester at a university, I cannot imagine being propelled into my demise with all the knowledge that there is no hope of escaping it.
The diary entries included contain some of the most profound thoughts of existentialism.
Very powerful read.
February 5, 2018
2½. This is an academic review of a few diaries kept by students who ended up as kamikaze/tokkotai pilots (and one who simply died in battle). It contains far more scholarly analysis than diary, but it is interesting enough, though often repetitive.
June 14, 2018
What a brilliant book. It gives such an insight into the boys who were required to become Kamikaze pilots. They were the best and the brightest, they were loved, their families heartbroken, their lives lost. Incredible book.
February 11, 2018
A good insight to what these student soldiers went through.
April 24, 2018
Gives a new angle for understanding imperial Japan before and during WWII...
Not a must read but a good one somehow
Not a must read but a good one somehow
May 9, 2019
Incredible book. These boys were the best and brightest of Japan. A devastating loss for Japan.
December 6, 2015
Throughout the various history classes I have taken over the years, the role of the Kamikaze during WWII was largely explained in the same way: Japanese culture dictated that soldiers should give their lives for their empire and that is why pilots were so willing to give their lives to bring down enemy planes and ships. However, in Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers, the author, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, seeks to deconstruct this belief. By first pointing out that the majority of soldiers, particularly the student soldiers, did not willingly become Kamikaze pilots, Ohnuki-Tierney provides a fresh perspective into the minds of Kamikaze pilots. Drawing on their personal diaries and correspondence with family members, she provides a haunting look into the way these young men struggled to remain loyal to their country and accept their fate.
I think one of the most important details to note in regards to this text is that the soldiers whose lives and thoughts the author examines are student soldiers. This means that they were all students at prestigious universities before being drafted into the war. This is something I constantly had to keep remembering because it's easy to fall into the habit of simply taking the experiences of some and applying it to all. Therefore, although the accounts of the student soldiers presented in this book provide a voice and a face for kamikaze pilots as tormented youths, the reader cannot assume that this was the case with all pilots. Doing so would perpetuate the same cycle of misunderstanding that kamikaze pilots have suffered for over 50 years; the stigma that they were all crazy and that everything could be blamed on Japan's "supposed" cultural fear of failure.
Overall, I found the book to be well written and analyzed. The author's notes that explained the symbolism used in the student's writings were helpful and added an extra layer of depth and understanding to the text. Because the pilots were all former students of prestigious universities, they quite often refer to philosophical works or classic novels in their diaries, using them to analyze the dilemma they face. These parts can be difficult to understand unless the reader has studied these same philosophers before. However, I noticed that while the first student soldier continually referenced philosophical texts, it wasn't as prominent in the stories that followed his. By the end of the book, I felt that the author had done an excellent job of giving the student soldiers a voice and on dispelling many of the misunderstandings that surround the kamikaze pilots.
I think one of the most important details to note in regards to this text is that the soldiers whose lives and thoughts the author examines are student soldiers. This means that they were all students at prestigious universities before being drafted into the war. This is something I constantly had to keep remembering because it's easy to fall into the habit of simply taking the experiences of some and applying it to all. Therefore, although the accounts of the student soldiers presented in this book provide a voice and a face for kamikaze pilots as tormented youths, the reader cannot assume that this was the case with all pilots. Doing so would perpetuate the same cycle of misunderstanding that kamikaze pilots have suffered for over 50 years; the stigma that they were all crazy and that everything could be blamed on Japan's "supposed" cultural fear of failure.
Overall, I found the book to be well written and analyzed. The author's notes that explained the symbolism used in the student's writings were helpful and added an extra layer of depth and understanding to the text. Because the pilots were all former students of prestigious universities, they quite often refer to philosophical works or classic novels in their diaries, using them to analyze the dilemma they face. These parts can be difficult to understand unless the reader has studied these same philosophers before. However, I noticed that while the first student soldier continually referenced philosophical texts, it wasn't as prominent in the stories that followed his. By the end of the book, I felt that the author had done an excellent job of giving the student soldiers a voice and on dispelling many of the misunderstandings that surround the kamikaze pilots.
January 28, 2016
The book is basically about the history of some of the Japanese kamikaze. The entires are based on diaries or other writings of the students who became kamikaze. It is not an actual collection of long diary entries, though. It's more a summation of the individual histories and thoughts of those who died.
The introduction goes into how students were recruited into the war effort. An interesting quote from this section is: 'The Japanese military tradition had a distinctive, almost unique element. Whereas German soldiers were told to kill, Japanese soldiers were told to die.' That is, they were to fight to the death and never to be taken prisoner.
Some Japanese soldiers were subject to being shot by their own troops if they tried to escape or surrender to the Americans.
Various forms of coercion to get students to become kamikaze are examined, including peer pressure, and punishment for not volunteering by being sent to the front lines in some really bad area. There was also the old standby that if a particular higher-up didn't like you for some reason, you could end up a kamikaze whether you liked it or not.
One of the impressions you get when looking at the diary entries and writings of these student soldiers is that the Japanese lost an terrible amount of great potential in these young men. Many of them were quite intellectual and could have ended up making very valuable contributions in society; instead, they ended up in planes, boats, subs, and rocket-propelled craft to try to die on purpose and take as many Americans with them as they could.
Another interesting thing is how the students saw the emphasis of the students as their identity as men, and the stereotyped image that they adhered to of what the proper manly man does.
There were at least some of the kamikaze that didn't really believe in the war, and didn't believe in dying in the way they would, but out of loyalty to the Emperor or their family or their peer group they still went and did what they were ordered to do.
The introduction goes into how students were recruited into the war effort. An interesting quote from this section is: 'The Japanese military tradition had a distinctive, almost unique element. Whereas German soldiers were told to kill, Japanese soldiers were told to die.' That is, they were to fight to the death and never to be taken prisoner.
Some Japanese soldiers were subject to being shot by their own troops if they tried to escape or surrender to the Americans.
Various forms of coercion to get students to become kamikaze are examined, including peer pressure, and punishment for not volunteering by being sent to the front lines in some really bad area. There was also the old standby that if a particular higher-up didn't like you for some reason, you could end up a kamikaze whether you liked it or not.
One of the impressions you get when looking at the diary entries and writings of these student soldiers is that the Japanese lost an terrible amount of great potential in these young men. Many of them were quite intellectual and could have ended up making very valuable contributions in society; instead, they ended up in planes, boats, subs, and rocket-propelled craft to try to die on purpose and take as many Americans with them as they could.
Another interesting thing is how the students saw the emphasis of the students as their identity as men, and the stereotyped image that they adhered to of what the proper manly man does.
There were at least some of the kamikaze that didn't really believe in the war, and didn't believe in dying in the way they would, but out of loyalty to the Emperor or their family or their peer group they still went and did what they were ordered to do.
October 9, 2015
I had heard an interview with the author on NPR. I should have left it at that. This book could have been accomplished in a Vanity Fair article and that would have sufficed. Very interesting topic and the life of Kamikaze pilots is very misunderstood, but there weren't enough of their particular poems, letters, diaries in the book. And on top of that is was boring.
I think the biggest misunderstanding is that they were suicide bombers similar to our present day terrorist bombers. These were highly intelligent - the intellectual elite of Japan - who did not want to die for the war that most of them didn't even believe in, and the closer they came to having to donate their lives for the Emperor, the more anti-war they became. This was being born at the wrong time in history.
Another thing this book made me think about is when we ask our soldiers to put their lives on the line, in almost sure death situations - is it murder by politics?
Great topic, boring book.
I think the biggest misunderstanding is that they were suicide bombers similar to our present day terrorist bombers. These were highly intelligent - the intellectual elite of Japan - who did not want to die for the war that most of them didn't even believe in, and the closer they came to having to donate their lives for the Emperor, the more anti-war they became. This was being born at the wrong time in history.
Another thing this book made me think about is when we ask our soldiers to put their lives on the line, in almost sure death situations - is it murder by politics?
Great topic, boring book.
April 2, 2008
Your enemies aren't always who you think they are. This book brings us the rarely translated thoughts and doomed hopes of the tokotai, Imperial Japan's kamikaze pilots. The author shows us that these soldiers weren't all the rabid fanatics they're often painted as. In their diaries and letters home, we glimpse an often reluctant warrior class who serve out of duty and a desire not to shame their families. We see a sampling of highly educated men in the fullness of their youth forced to embrace death when they want life. The insights into the rituals approaching a mission and the last words sent home to mothers, sisters and girlfriends are heartbreaking.
February 1, 2017
This is different take on the Japanese Kamikazes, form the men's side. To find out that the Japanese High Command knew the war was lost, and still draft their best and brightest out of their colleges and upper tier schools to go out and purposely kill themselves, as t5here were very few volunteers among the regular military. This against extremely long odds of accomplishing anything of note against the Allied advance toward Japan, is a very depressing thing. Ms Ohnuki-Tierney has assembled the writings, poems and letters of a number of these young men. She gives us a look into the minds of some very well educated and worldly young men as they move from college to their fate.
August 31, 2007
Boring academically, interesting intellectually and psychologically. Who knew there were so many fighter poets. The author gets a little too obsessed with cherry blossoms though, due to her previous book (about the symbolism of cherry blossoms during war in Japan). I really like the light shed on the soldiers though, that they were not cold automatons, but feeling thinking emotional people who didn't want to do and were conflicted about it.
November 7, 2008
This book was alright but I found the title misleading. It's actually Tierney's writings about the diaries of the Kamikaze pilots. There are brief paragraphs from the diaries but mostly its just Tierney writing what she thought. That made me wonder just how much of the book was true and how much the author just added to make it sound good. I wouldn't really recommend the book.
July 21, 2012
A amazing lesson is history, showing us that the kamikaze pilots where simple bright students lovers of life.
Really loved the diaries on their own, but didn't like at the way to extensive introduction and comments of the author to the diaries, think it would be a 5 star book if she choosed to comment less and used the space to add more diaries because they are amazing on their own.
Really loved the diaries on their own, but didn't like at the way to extensive introduction and comments of the author to the diaries, think it would be a 5 star book if she choosed to comment less and used the space to add more diaries because they are amazing on their own.
February 21, 2013
This book reveals the mindset of the Japanese college students who were forced to enlist during WW2 as kamikaze pilots. These young men left behind diaries full of grief over the devastation of the war and their impending death. Three stars because parts of the book were very analytic and clunky.
February 2, 2013
Depressing as hell... but not really as insightful as I had hoped. The biggest revelation was that a good number of kamikaze were not volunteers but were volunteered by their commanding officers and that a larger number than you would think were not into the idea of suicide for their country- but weren't left with much choice.
May 10, 2013
Shocking, yet sad to find out most of the Tokkotai Airmen were really University students conscripted by force by their own Country. Sad to read all they had to endure, knowing their lives would be ending very soon, all for the Emperor's benefit. A very eye-opening book and well written.
February 11, 2016
This book showed bitter stories from the Kamikaze pilots, giving us a different view of their life before and after joining the Kamikaze troops. Although I'd like to read the longer and more complete version of their diaries, but Ohnuki-Tierny summed it up pretty well in this book.
August 25, 2013
I've read some disturbing stuff in my day, this tops them all. One of the best books I've ever read.
March 13, 2015
A myth-dispelling read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews