Nor had suicidal tactics played an important role in previous eras of Japanese warfare. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), the Japanese army had implemented sweeping changes in its culture and doctrine. The infantry manuals were rewritten to emphasize the importance of “fighting spirit” over such factors as technology and mechanical power, and the massed fixed-bayonet banzai charge was adopted as a preferred tactic in close combat. The “no surrender” ethos was codified after the First World War, and later amplified into an absolute injunction in the Japanese army’s revised field manual of
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