Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

By the fall of 1944, an arsenal of purpose-built suicide weapons was in advanced production. These included a manned rocket, the Oka (“cherry blossom”), which was dropped from a larger aircraft and dove on enemy ships at velocities approaching the speed of sound. A one-man suicide submarine called the Kaiten (“heaven shaker”) was released by a larger “mother” submarine; its pilot would drive it into an enemy hull like a torpedo. A small wooden speedboat called the Shinyo (“ocean shaker”) carried a two-ton warhead, and could charge into the midst of an enemy fleet at 50 knots. Fukuryus, “crawling dragons,” were scuba divers who would carry mines underwater and attach them directly to the hulls of American ships. There were others as well, including gliders that could be launched from mountain peaks, and explosive vests redolent of a more recent era. Some such weapons and vehicles would prove more effective than others in combat. But the time and resources dedicated to these programs belied the myth that the kamikaze era began as a spontaneous, grassroots movement in October 1944.