Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto

Banzai charges were occurring with greater frequency across battlegrounds throughout Asia. On July 9, 1944, this concept of gyokusai (shattered jewels)—or sacrifice for the sake of the Empire—metamorphosed to include civilians. Allied forces advancing in Saipan watched in horror as hundreds of Japanese residents killed themselves en masse—exploding hand grenades or jumping from rocky cliffs to the whitecap-tossed ocean far below, a phenomenon that would be repeated elsewhere. Three months later, on October 25, 1944, six Zero fighters loaded with 551-pound bombs, so-called kamikaze—named after the “divine wind” typhoons that had rescued Japan in 1274 and 1281 from Kublai Khan’s convoys—crash-dived into carriers in the Leyte Gulf. The decimated Japanese navy had few other weapons at its disposal. Like the banzai charges, the element of terror exceeded military effectiveness.