By
Scott Schwartz
Such
was the dilemma facing Petty Officer Motoji Ichikawa on a hot August day in
1944. A flight instructor at the
Aonagahara training base, Ichikawa had seen combat during the battle of the
Coral Sea and could hardly be described as a coward. To him, dying during
combat was one thing; but planning to
die was quite another. Nevertheless,
Ichikawa was a product of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He wrote “yes” on his card.
At
this point in the war, most of Japan’s experienced combat pilots were
dead. Fuel shortages made it impossible
to give new pilots decent training.
Attempting to penetrate the wall of anti-aircraft fire and the swarms of
defending Hellcats made attacking American ships nearly a suicidal prospect
anyway. Plus America’s territorial gains
convinced Japan’s leaders that an invasion of the home islands was a very real
possibility. Whether Japan’s military
leaders wanted to somehow reverse the course of the war or merely force America
to the bargaining table (and thus avoid the unconditional surrender that was
being demanded by the Allies), it is clear that the Japanese wanted to inflict
as much damage to U.S. forces as possible.
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