Teenaged girls of the local labor service corps looked after their laundry, cooking, and housekeeping. These “labor service maidens” became emotionally bonded to the kamikaze pilots—in a chaste sense, it seems—revering them as “the older brothers,” and calling themselves “the younger sisters.” Before a mission, the maidens worked all night to decorate the kamikaze planes with cherry blossoms, and left cloth dolls and origami figures in the cockpits. They attended the send-off ceremonies on the flight line, tearfully waving cherry blossom boughs or Rising Sun flags to the departing aircraft.
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