What were the tactics of kamikaze missions?

by OrchestralOrKestrel

G'day,

First time poster. I'm in the process of creating an animated short film whose protagonist is a kamikaze pilot, ever since I read and was inspired by this. Thought some historical accuracy would help so here I am.

  • Did kamikaze travel/attack in squadrons?
  • Were these squadrons escorted or supplement other elements of the regular air force, or were they independent?
  • Did they have radios?
  • Did they carry katanas? If so where in the cockpit did they placed?
  • Rising Sun bandanas – for real or just a trope?
  • What was the ideal angle of attack they were trained to target ships at? High from above, almost vertical, or a lower shallower angle?
  • Were they instructed to target any particular part of the ship for maximum damage?
  • In an engagement like the Battle of Okinawa, which planes were deployed as kamikaze?

That's it for now. If you have any pointers to texts on this subject or a subreddit better suited for this post it'd be much appreciated.

Cheers buddies!

ParkSungJun
  1. Usually. Lone kamikaze would be shot down instantly by the Combat Air Patrol (CAP) or extremely deadly American flak. The only way for kamikaze attacks to succeed would be to overwhelm the defending fighters and penetrate the enemy curtain of anti-air fire. There were circumstances where only one or two planes would attack a destroyer, for instance.

2). Sometimes. Occasionally fighters were sent in to defend the kamikazes from the Allied CAP. However, fighters were also jealously hoarded to defend against the heavy bomber raids striking the Japanese mainland, so it was ultimately based on whatever could be spared. At this stage in the war, Japan was throwing literally everything it had.

  1. Some of them did. The Japanese were utilizing any airframe they could, in varying stages of usefulness and obsolescence. Sometimes they would strip the radios from planes to improve their range or to use them in other circumstances. At the very least the leader of the kamikaze raid would have a radio to report his attack's progress.

  2. Katanas were not usually brought onto the aircraft, although personal effects were often brought with the pilot-for instance, pictures of loved ones, letters, good-luck charms, and so forth.

  3. Rising Sun bandanas-also known as hachimaki, they were commonly worn (but not always) by kamikaze and other pilots.

  4. Ideal angle of attack: Any angle-the idea was to overwhelm the enemy defenses. Concentrating all the planes on the same vector would make for an easy target for proximity fuzes and Allied aircraft.

  5. Targeting a particular part of the ship-priority was given to attack aircraft carriers and large warships, but not specific parts. That would require lots of training, and the whole point of utilizing kamikaze pilots was that they did not require much training.

  6. Any and all planes were deployed as kamikaze. Even planes that were not in a specific kamikaze squadron would occasionally launch a suicide attack. Both Army and Navy planes (such as the A6M Zero/Zeke fighter, the G4M "Betty" twin-engined bomber, the Ki-61 "Tony") would be utilized, although newer more modern aircraft were typically not used. There were also several aircraft specifically designed for kamikaze like the Ohka jet-glider which was launched from a Betty.