Among officers and crewmen of the American fleet, the kamikazes inspired dread, horror, loathing, and (not least) fascination. They seemed to confirm a prior suspicion that the Japanese were fundamentally different from other “races”—that they were weirdly fanatical and not quite human in their zeal for guaranteed death. This impression of exotic, dehumanizing “otherness” inspired fanciful rumors about the kamikazes—that they wore green and white religious robes, or black hoods, or were manacled into their cockpits. Some called them “green hornets.” They inspired a new kind of terror. A
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