I lived in Okinawa, Japan, for a few years, and I knew an Okinawan man who had been conscripted out of middle school and trained to be one of those guided torpedo pilots. (I don't know which type.) He said the Japanese were running out of equipment, and they trained in wood "torpedos." Japan surrendered just before his training ended, so he lived to tell about it.
I am very glad to hear of someone outliving destined sacrifice. It's a shame this world creates these circumstances to exist. Are our differences really so vast? Heck, even now, it seems brothers within the same countries are being pushed toward a war with each other. For the silliest of reasons, might I add.
@@frigyou1078 You are out of your GD mind if this is a real comment. There will never be a civil war in the USA, it will just be brainwashed conservatives committing terrorism while everyone else wonders wtf is going on. This has already been happening since the OK City bombing. The news is complicit and calls it "lone wolf" attacks.
My dad was on board the mine sweeper, USS Swallow. It was hit and sunk within minutes. He was one of a few that survived. He was in shark infested water for a long time. He wouldn't talk about his time in the navy for a long time. He was in his late 70's before he would say anything. RIP Dad. Love ya, miss ya, proud of you. Bob
Rest him, dear Lord. The....insanity of war. We have dedicated brilliant people, and we send them into actions mostly designed not aa....aroun d their best interests, I shouldn't say this. I'm sorry Robert. I'm a McDonald as well, our family iis in south Ohio now, we're descended from North Carolina folk who had fled the aftermath of the Rebellion. Please forgive my words. Your Father is a hero. Dedicated, sincere, and absolute. We wwwilll hopefully devote and dedicate our will alongside his mmemory with sincerity, and action. *deep breaths later* I'm sorry, Robert. I'm not in a good state of mind. Your Father is a hero, and you are blessed to mmaintain the sincerity of his memory. It's ann honor to meet you. And again please forgive me.
My father was a veteran of WWII Pacific Theater, He was an officer in the US Army Amphibious Engineers (the Army's Navy). HE fought from the Dutch East Indies, and through the Philippines. In one battle, The Battle of Zamboanga he had to ferry troops from ship to shore in his LCM, several round trips while under fire from Japanese shore batteries. One thing that was very noteworthy to him was the Japanese use of Kamikaze speed boats designed to ram allied ships. From what I gather they weren't very successful due to Allied ships being too well defended. Interesting note: My father found out after the war that his Japanese brother-in-law was at that battle fighting on the Japanese side. My uncle was a very quiet & humble man who after the war became an English teacher. Dad and Uncle became close friends. Correction: My foggy memory (Iʻm 64, and fading. The older I get, the better I was) . My uncle was not at the Battle of Zamboanga, he was at the later Invasion of Lingayen Gulf, a later battle my dad was also a part of. Everything else still accurate to my memory of events.
My comment has disappeared. I'll try rewording it and see what happens. I said it's really good that humans can overcome the corporate war mongers and get along. I'm so glad they are friends 💜
@@bunyipdragon9499 They were friends. My dad passed away in 2007, and my uncle a couple years earlier. My mom was a nurse at a Tokyo hospital 1944-45 during the US fire-bombing. She was a teenager treating napalm burns, and saw a lot of death and destruction. Iʻm surprised she would even marry an American. Good thing dad was an extremely sweet guy.
Before WW2 in 1937 Kamikaze was a Mitsubishi Ki-15 that won long distance flight speed records. The pilot Masaaki Iinuma was a pacifist and spoke out about using aviation in the war in China r and Japan's militaristic expansion. Because he was so famous they couldn't really do anything so they shipped him off to South East Asia to train pilots. When he heard the news about the attacks on Pearl Harbour and Malaya he was so distraught that he walked into the propellor of an aircraft that he was about to train a pilot in.
Kamikaze is a title meanijg "divine winds" used to name the storms that destroyed the attacking Mongolian navys. They used this title for the pilot that beat the long distance flight record as a sign of respect and then they used the title "kamikaze" for suicide soldiers and the title was ruined for the rest of history
It always boggles the mind just how much senseless death, destruction, and suffering are caused by the ambitions of just a relatively few psychopathic megalomaniacs. And that's not limited to wars by any means.
Through history millions and maybe billions of young people died in fighting wars they didn't started and never wanted to be a part of and unfortunately continue to do so.
Fun fact for language nerds: "Kamikaze" wasn't the general Japanese term for suicide attacks in WWII. The characters that can be read "kamikaze" are "神風" and they only refer to the air suicide attacks of the navy, but even then the characters were much more commonly read as "shinpu". In full it's 神風特別攻撃隊 "shinpu tokubetsu kogeki tai". The name for suicide attacks generally, not just the ones from the air was 特別攻撃隊 "tokubetsu kogeki tai" and usually abbreviated to just 特攻隊 "tokkotai". If you try to look up "kamikaze" in a Japanese dictionary what you'll find is 神風タクシー "kamikaze taxi", Japanese slang for a taxi that ignores traffic rules!
Bro! Your smile in the advertisement was so wholesome. Honestly just seeing that smile made me so happy. Thoughty2 is a legend. He is the reason I decided to go to university. This dude literally changed my life. I dropped out of school and got into bad things and than when i was on probation stuck at home I would sit and watch thoughty2 all day and than I realized I like learning I just didn’t like the school system I was in. I decided to start saving money for school, I start my first semester of psychology next year. Thanks thoughty :)
8:29 Accurately dropping bombs on enemy ships from the air with WW2 era equipment...... "is like trying to drop a marble from eye level on a scared mouse" ( Lt. Cmdr. Maxwell F. Leslie, USS Yorktown, commander of flight VB-3).
Except a scared mouse is moving more rapidly relative to you than a ship can relative to the plane that is bombing it. Add that virtually all carrier based Naval bombers in WW2 were dive bombers not high altitude bombers and the delay would be virtually non-existent. What he described (dropping a marble on a mouse) was vastly more difficult from a skill perspective, not as dangerous as armed resistance like AA fire added difficulty but that is not part of the comparison.
"the mongolians fought the japanese and then died in a tornado, then they came back, enjoyed fighting the japanese a bit more, then died in a tornado" - Bill Wurtz
That's one thing that could truly be said regardless of Nation. It is so ironic that leaders can convince young men can go to the battlefield under the guise of "patriotism". Denounce everyone else that does not want to fight as being weak. Yet The politicians/leaders and their families remain safe, thousands of miles away from the battlefield.
@@SeanPat1001 most definitely on historic times the king/leader was on the battlefield but that position got moved further and further away, as time when on. Now leaders go into bunkers, every time they hear a bump. But they'll be shouting on the intercoms how young men need to go and risk their lives
@@edd2184 I think that’s a myth perpetuated by Hollywood. It was definitely not true during World War II. I haven’t been involved in military planning since 2000, but at that time the situation was that military commanders routinely were in the battlefield with their troops.
There are different sides to leaders. Even in modern times, some of us lead from the front, commanding troops on ground. The higher up one goes in the chain, though, the more the job is set in planning and coordination on a larger scale. For that type, they don't exactly need to be on site in dangerous areas because of modern communication technology (plus, the more responsibility they have, the less you want an inexperienced person having to jump into their place when they go down). Politicians, on the other hand, are not military leaders at all. At best, they are cheerleaders. At worst, they are active impediments.
The Japanese would not stop fighting. The Emperor and Generals refused to consider surrender. The Japanese were training their citizens to fight in the streets for if / when US soldiers landed. The Japanese were training young school boys and school girls to fight with sharpened bamboo spears, so they could hide and spring out and attack US soldiers if / when they invaded Japan. Imagine the horrible blood bath. Possibly many 100,000's of civilians - and many of those children - dead. And all to stop the Japanese from fighting. They refused to stop.
Well done! I taught a former Tokotai pilot, and did a lot of research on the defense plans for the home islands. Your video presents a balanced view. Your inclusion of the Japanese point of view makes this a really good introduction to the subject!! 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
I met a kamikaze trainee some decades ago. Poor eyesight disqualified him from actually participating on any mission. Very nice, gentle guy. His grief had always been that he couldn’t die with his comrades. After the war he took an east-west bus ride across the US. He struggled to understand how the Japanese ever expected to been the US, given its size. Yamamoto similarly didn’t want to fight the US since he was trained at West Point. He knew the formidable opponent he was facing.
The Japs made the same mistake that Lee and Hitler made. They wanted to fight the USA and then declare a truce or sign a non-aggression pact. The Japs, the South and Hitler wanted to keep their lifestyle without surrendering to USA. They did not realize that the only solution was to not start the war in the first place and to not expect anything but total, unconditional surrender to end the war.
The Japanese government knew from the beginning that it could not defeat the USA. The plan was simply to make the war so costly that America would withdraw from the south west Pacific. Japan miscalculated.
My Dad and his best friend/first cousin enlisted in WWII at 17! They were Amphibious LCM. My Dad was in sick bay, his cousin went out on a ship. The ship was hit by a kamakze pilot. Dad's cousin was an excellent swimmer. He dove in to save lives, after saving a few men, he didn't resurface. I was supposed to be a boy. Apparently I kicked the crap out of Mom. So, I would be named for my Dad's cousin. His name was Adelbert, my name is Adell. He went through a typhoon in the Pacific Theatre tied to a mast! He said 'His ship would drop low in the ocean, he could see the bottom of ships, above the waves, he saw ships below. Some broke like toothpicks". Scary stuff. He never talked about the War much, that generation never did. He told me about the typhoon and 1 other story.
There was one other suicide tactic used in the Battle of Okinawa; log riders. A log with a torpedo strapped to the bottom, a small outboard motor, and the pilot. The U.S. Navy, offshore, used landing barges to continually patrol around the fleet, deliberately dumping oil on their engines to create a smoke screen. The barges 2nd duty was to listen for the sound of the outboard motors and intercept if possible. My fathers best friend was one of the barge drivers that died from intercepting a log rider. **You won't find reference to the log riders - this was one of the stories my father told me from his time in the navy - pacific theater. Others included the Kamikaze attacks ( and having to mop up his fellow ship mates), the small sub attacks, and strangely the ultimate awe/horror - typhoons/waves that nearly rolled his ship. He mostly avoided graphic details of the battles but went on & on about the unexpected brutality of the ocean and the battering of the waves. Last bit - I'm always amazed at how far we've fallen. My father, only 18, off to battle in the South Pacific. A farmers son who never saw the ocean, dealing with the horrors of war and the elements. Today, you only have to mis-pronoun someone in their 20-30's to have them break down or rage, need a comfort animal, and/or find a safe space.
Most Americans in the 1940s would lose their minds if someone darker than them tried to drink out of the same water fountain as them, or swim in the same pool as them. But sure, the worst thing to happen to America is people demanding respect for how they identify. Way to turn an amazing anecdote about your father into worthless political nonsense.
I see you don't honor the freedom your family fought for. It's their right to be sensitive little bitches. Disrespecting them is disrespecting your father and his fallen friends sacrifice.
You do my people dirty! It isn't us 30 year olds that are so sensitive! Millennials have tougher skin than we are given credit for, and we don't adhere to the whole pronoun thing... That's new to us too. And frankly, apart from the men who want to become women, and then world class athletes, I don't get it. I don't understand why. I don't understand wanting to be called "they," it's all a huge clown-fest to me.
I dunno if that implies to me but I’m from the last generation that grew up without technology, we will tell you how it is. Nothing about being sensitive.
An important detail of the War's turning point around the time of the Battle of Midway is the coeval Battle of the Aleutian Islands, where the allies captured an intact Japanese Zero and were subsequently able to discover its limitations.
and after re-engineering it into a new US plane they finally stood a chance, the older planes they were using were way too slow and couldnt maneuver as well, it was the true turning point for many reasons and that plane is often times forgotten about
@@johnkeck The Hellcat if memory serves, they were already in the process of creating it before they found the zero but the info they learned from it helped create the "better" Hellcat which went on to dominate the sky's and the zero in the following years!
@@MaggieGraceWebbI was told the same kamikaze stories in Japan by a Japanese historian. They topped it off by saying how the powers that be could use an inspirational historical story to dupe patriotic young men to sacrifice their lives for people who only cared about themselves. Tragic.
My grandfather was a Sherman tank commander who served in the Iwo Jima invasion. After that, he was scheduled to be part of the force that was to invade Japan itself. Fortunately, that never came to pass, but he did go ashore as part of the occupation force. He told me that, when they sailed into Tokyo harbor, there were hundreds and hundreds of small, fast Kamikaze boats tied up there, ready to attack any amphibious invasion force.
I am from Okinawa specifically and feel this on a personal level. Even many natives of Okinawa have completely forgotten they technically aren't Japanese.
The Japanese also had suicide speed boats, and perhaps most disturbing of all, were training old men, women, and children to charge at the Amercian forces with bamboo spears in mass Banzai charges.
My uncle was a cryptologist that was whisked out of the Philippines as the Japanese invaded. So, yes! His team did a true service in steaming/winning the war against Japan. However, the Battle of Midway also had the factor of luck and timely leadership. The U.S. Navy had inexperience with battles, faulty torpedoes, and horrible tactics. Sending slow torpedo bombers with defective torpedoes unaccompanied by fighters (that were inferior to the Zero - it took two U.S. Wildcat fighters to protect each other [the Thatcher's Weave] while leaving the bombers on their own. The U.S. Admiral immediately called for an attack once the Japanese fleet was located although it was not in an ideal position to attack. Being 'first' paid dividends. The Japanese also were busy switching out land bombs for torpedoes once the Japanese knew where the US Fleet's location. The 'lost' U.S. dive bombers that stumbled across the Japanese fleet right as its fighters were preoccupied with the straggling Wildcats in the distance, right as the Japanese fleet was refueling its planes, switching out unsecure bombs/torpedoes and for the US dive bombers to suddenly switch targets in a middle of their dive to maximize hits led for most of Japanese aircraft carriers to be placed out of action in one swoop. Otherwise, under 'normal' conditions, the damage from the dive bomb run would have been nominal and the battle could have been very different. As baseball fame, Lefty Gomez, once said, "I would rather be lucky than good."
@mericanignoranc3551 Yes, there are 30 million reasons to support your argument. Even in the Eastern Front (i.e. Japan), although 'late to the party' it was when the Soviets (yeah, Russia) liberated the Korean Península/Manchurian regions and nabbed the northern islands did the pressure from two nuclear blasts on civilian populations (say, isn't that a war crime?) did the Imperial Japanese decide to throw in the towel after a 'split' decision. At that time, Japan had cracked the American code and knew the details about the allies' invasion. It would have been a bloodbath. So, yes. Russia played a big part right at the end. The US cryptologists did play a major role in the beginning (as well as throughout the war), but it took a team and lot of luck to make progress in the early stages of the war.
@smackallor The argument is mostly moot. During and after the war Soviet leadership had admitted that without the insane aid from the United States that they would have most definitely lost the war against Germany. Stalin said it best at the Tehran Conference in Dec 1943., Stalin added: “The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.” Russia's most overrated general, Zhukov, had similar beliefs. But the tankies hate when you mention this lol "Liberated" is a funny term to use in the context of Soviet invasions. What is not popularly known (probably because of anti-axis bias), is that in the Manchurian invasion alone there were several instances of the Soviet army exclusively graping and murdering Japanese/Manchurian women and children. The Gegenmiao massacre is one of the more famous. This is swept under the rug for obvious reasons. To add insult to injury, the Soviets had signed and agreed to the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, which was set to expire in August 13, 1946. As we all know, the invasion started a year later... Japan's mistake for every negotiating with Bolsheviks, they are typically ashkenazi in blood and will of course lie at any chance they can get. Indeed, practically no one except Truman and his Talmudic advisors at the time (and after) agreed that the atomic bombs were necessary. I would highly suggest looking up what top US military brass at the time had to say about them. Eisenhower, MacArthur, Nimitz, Leahy, to name a few... Practically all saw the atomic bombs as unnecessary and barbaric in their own words. For one, they all knew Japan tried to surrender in May 1945, but this was declined by Truman with the excuse that they conceded they keep the emperor, and as we all know they did. Secondly, Japan already lost in their eyes, and this had happened as early as Midway. Thirdly, this shouldn't be a surprise considering that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets. The latter was chosen as a last minute decision by Truman in which the Nagasaki Cathedral would be ground zero, the largest Catholic population in all of East Asia at the time. If you know the beef between Freemasonry and Catholicism you could see why this was the choice. Both bombs destroyed zero military targets, and only a few soldiers died.
I met a former tokkotai (the official name for kamikaze, literally 特攻隊 special attack unit) who had become a woodblock artist. He said the training and mental torture was inhuman, and no one wanted to go.
Friend of mine’s dad was a navy veteran from that war, & survived being on a destroyer hit by a kamikaze, & would get a far away stare, whenever people talked about that war, or certain Japanese things…(we never bugged him about it, out of respect)
And remember kids! Whatever you do, if you manage to survive being selected for a kamikaze mission due to engine failure, don’t offer to cut a grapefruit for your white friend!
My dad was a Naval Lt Commander during WWII. One day, he called us all into the living room to watch a newsreel of a kamikaze hitting his ship. He survived😀.
My stepfather was also a Lt. Commander in the US Navy. He was a bomber pilot in the Pacific Theater twice for more than 3 years. A true hero and gentleman was Robert Weeks.
It's unfortunate that the Mongols were not able to teach the Japanese some humility. It took our atomic bombs to remind them they are but human. In the centuries in between, the Japanese brought incalculable pain, suffering and death to all their neighbors. More like a 'Devil Wind' than anything divine.
Emperor Hirohito who should have held responsibilty for war escaped so easily. He just denounce himself from "living god" to just human and nothing happened to him.
There’s literally a shrine to all these war criminals in Tokyo. Tojo (who was arguably the mastermind behind all these horrible things) is honored there…
he wasnt responsible for the war, Tojo was. He may not have been openly against it but Japan was ruled by the military, not the Emperor. Hirohito, especially as the war went on, had less and less power and was just a glorified PR man
Mate that was an awesome one. Thankyou. I had no knowledge of the scuba kamikazes. Or that the Kaiten,s depth limits so hindered the carrier submarines. And at the end, many soldiers from all nations have chosen this final act. For various reasons.
Ghost of Tsushima! 15 hours death though... I imagine he felt bad about all these deaths, especially considering Japan still lost in the end, but damn. It's not like his suffering was going to bring anyone back. The man must have been at least partially insane.
The Japanese take honor very seriously. Not to mention they are as religious as anyone else, he likely thought he would have to face the ghosts of those pilots and to do so without any penance would be shameful
Reminds me of Göering's daughter. Sterilised herself so his genes would not propagate. Nice thought I guess, but boy, ain't that just another expression of Nazi ideas about blood debts and eugenics?
It doesn't surprise me that the "locals" finished off the 2nd invasion. The Katana isn't exclusive to Bushido Samurai. However, the 2nd Wakizashi is, and due to ancient customs, it was the mother's that taught their young to fight till they were ready to join a Dojo, and at all times, even at home, they carried a Tanto or Kaiken. Essentially, it's a case in which well over 50% of the population is armed. Their class system typically went as follows 1st class: Samurai (which includes government officials), 2nd class: farmers, 3rd class: artisans, and the lowest 4th class: merchants.
@@bradchambers5886 Yeah, it was particularly because they dealt with money. Samurai were intentionally not taught basic math and the value of each coin to prevent them from becoming corrupt, and instead were educated in despising the gathering of wealth.
@@bradchambers5886 wrong. Bad take merchants create wealth. Wealth and education should be the primary deciding factors when it comes to classes. Artisans shouldnt even be below farmers either. I understand yall want to live in a fairy land but honour or glory doesnt wont feed your starving family and japan was quite poor back then. I wonder why
What you're missing is that most Japanese pilots weren't returning from attacks on the USN anyway by this point in the war so the likelihood of returning from a mission was only slightly better for a strike pilot vs. a Kamikaze.
42, I've been binge watching all your videos from the oldest to the newest. Damn its been a long way, and the changes on how you deliver the story from then. Thank you for making all this videos! Keep it up 🤙💪
My dad was at Midway as a storekeeper. He was transferred there from Pearl Harbor. He told us of the night they all lay on the sand until morning (on Midway) and were told to shoot anything that came from the water. It’s the only story he ever said about his time in the Navy. Miss you dad. 💕🐝💕🇺🇸
any one else notice he never even mentions what they "tried to hide"? everything mentioned in this video is highly common knowledge that they have been teaching in high school history classes since the war.
In the summer of 1974 I was taking a class called "History of the Far East." I had taken a class called "History of the Middle and Near East" with the same professor in the spring of 1973. He had been stationed after the war in Occupied Japan. He made friends with a Japanese businessman. He was invited over one night and they were getting ready to drink when he said as a bit of a toast: Banzai! This was one of the few words he knew in Japanese. This friend suddenly stopped, and left the room. He put down his own drink, realized he had somehow offended this man and was getting ready to leave, when the man came back. It was explained that he had been trained as one of the Kamikaze pilots, but had not committed suicide - obviously. So, yes, he had been upset, but also understood the American couldn't have understood why he had been upset. They did remain friends the rest of the time my prof was in Japan. It was after my prof had returned to the States he got his Ph.D in History. This was the final class he was giving. He told us as he handed out the finals that these would be the last finals he was ever going to grade. I had quite a few professors in college, but I think he was absolutely the BEST one.
@@joelellis7035 as an American airman in 1945-46 in a country that is culturally so different from his own, is it any wonder he made a big blunder? It is why the business man understood that my prof hadn't meant to cause harm. When I took this class at 20, I was already understanding things like this. Taking classes like this helped me understand that there were many worldviews that many people in the Western world don't understand. I had many classes with many professors during my time in university, but Dr. Hahn was one of my favorites. I had another History professor at the same university that I would go and talk to, something I would not have felt comfortable doing with him. If I needed to talk to him, I would've been careful to make an appointment. While I made Cs in both of his classes, I recognized that I worked hard to earn those Cs. I had a different prof at a different university I was in awe of, but after finals I wasn't afraid to go by his office to find out my grades. I made a B in the first one and an A in the second one, but I didn't find him as awesome in the same way I did Dr. Hahn. In fact, he wrote the book in the class I took, Recent American History, and I learned a lot in his class, but since he basically read from the book, it hardly was my favorite class. If skipping class and reading the textbook would've passed me I might've done it. I graduated with 30 hours of History as my minor, if I could've learned a foreign language I would've had a double major.
When I lived on Lamma Island in Hong Kong, I was fascinated by the Kamikaze caves where the Japanese kept some of their one and two man Explosive Motorboats (EMB's) under the Shinyo (Sea Quake) program. Navy EMB's had explosive charges attached to the bow of the motorboat and were expected to ram enemy ships, whilst Army EMB's carried 2 depth charges for dropping beside enemy ships before turning and heading away (not suicide boats). They were used in the defense of the Philippines and in Okinawa and by the end of the war over 9,000 of these boats had been built with many waiting in coves around Japan waiting for the invasion fleets. At least 8 ships (gunboats and landing craft) were sunk and the American Destroyer USS Hutchins was badly damaged at Okinawa.
At 12:21, the shallow depth restriction of subs carrying kaiten suicide subs is not as bad of an issue as you make it out to be. In WWII, most subs spent most of their time on the surface. The problem is that the kaiten carrying sub must surface near the target to transfer the pilot to the kaiten and prepare it for launch.
@@muzammilhasan1119 She was alive, Japanese, and probably in school at the time. The attitude of the leadership was that all Japanese should resist to the death.
@kranzonguam we often view that level of resistance by the japanese as crazy, but allied nations also had similar levels of resistance. Japan gets painted in a certain light and it's certainly true, but Britian had plans for every British subject to resist down to the last woman and child as well.
Kamikaze tactics was not unusual, even ships do it - british destroyers against Admiral Hipper or Jervis Bay against Admiral Scheer. Not to talk about Eastern front, where whole soviet units fought to the last man. Logic is simple - if you are going to die kill as much enemies you can.
I think it's safe to say their own brand of *Magic Mind" came in the form of amphetamines. With Germany doing the same you can't help but wonder if things would've turned out different had there not been widespread use of the stimulant.
@@poindextertunes You saying they actually needed them amphetamines where the US was just old guts N' glory? I can respect that to the fullest if that's your implication.
As a former meth abuser and lifelong history buff, I can safely say that much of World War 2 made sense only once I experienced what it was like to be on meth. For instance, Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States simply *MUST* have been made after a solid shot of meth into the veins. What I can say is that your focus intensely narrows, you experience heightened anxieties after a while (often descending into paranoia) and your moral compass significantly degrades. I have no doubt that much of the brutality was influenced by meth. But what gets me is that when I was a meth abuser, I had no idea that amphetamines was used in WW2 until I speculated it, and then searched it online to confirm. At the time, the use of Pervitin by the Wermacht and the use of IV meth by Hitler, was not widely known to the public. Nowadays I consider that WW2 history cannot be properly taught without reference to the drugs used.
I saw those kamikaze torpedoes at the Kure Museum. Never knew about them till I saw it, but was overwhelmed with how disturbing it was. Otherwise, the Kure Museum was a very insightful experience.
When you talk about an enemy willing to die in order to kill you being terrifying, I find it reminiscent of something a British POW wrote about the Japanese (I forget the exact quote but I'll stay true to the essence): when a single life weighs less than a feather what value is a life (possibly ...feather when will the killing stop)? I believe his name was Ernest. I'll try and find the quote. Edit. Captain Ernest Gordon. "Through the Valley of the Kwai" is the name of his book however I can't find the quote (thanks Google) but I did find a quote from the movie based on a retitled version of the book "To End All Wars"- What is the consequence of a single life weighing less than a feather? What is the final destination of hatred? When you look in the eyes of the enemy and you see yourself. At what price mercy? Who is my neighbor? How many times shall I forgive my brother? What does it mean to love ones enemies? What can a man give in exchange for ones soul? These are the questions that I faced in my prison camp; the answers changed my life forever.
The Japanese worked British and American POWs to death (along with other civilian POWs and conscripted locals to build a railroad through jungle mountains in NW Thailand to Burma. It is unbelievable how much rock a man was expected to move by hand, and was fed a handful of rice to eat.
@@sterling557 very true. It's a testament to the human spirit how many of these people survived and many made something of themselves after, in one way or another. At least the POW's.
We usually say here in the States that a fallen soldier 'gave' their life to the country, but in reality, their lives were taken involuntarily. It's a whole other level of devotion to your country to knowingly give your life up in service.
They made it into Sydney harbour here in Australia using mini subs. From memory we caught 3 of em. The did a little bit of damage but nothing really noteworthy. One of the mini subs is on display at the war memorial in Canberra.
3 to 1 odds whe you are defending in fortified positions is actually pretty even. In fact, I'd say the Japanese had a slight advantage. The Mongols were not exactly siege experts either. Sure, they could do sieges if they needed to but they were primarily horsemen. It's why the Golden horde eventually ran outta steam near hungary. Too many highly fortified castles.
My Dad was in the pacific during WW2. He was on a PC and spent the war patrolling the Hawaiian islands. So far as I know he was there through the end of the war. He never talked much about the war. I think he felt that he'd had an easy time of it and felt bad that so many hadn't. But luck of the draw, we had no friends in high places to pull strings.
My grandfather told me everything about his service in the Pacific in WW2. Fear wasn't always making allies trigger-happy, but a lot more accurate as well. It may have took till 1944 to authorize kamikaze attacks, but was a self sacrifice attack from the beginning of the war with Japan. Basically attacking for a honorable end when they could not make it back. Admirable devotion.
My father was on a ship during WW2 that was hit by a kamikaze. He fell and hit his head on a stairwell leading down into the engine room and it cut his scalp straight across so that his face literally fell off. It slipped down off of his head and had to be sewn back on. Refused to go home or stop fighting.
That was grim. In part it may add a layer of explanation to the use of the atomic bombs…. it is not too difficult to see that when in America, we value every human life those making the decisions to drop the bombs could see that the entire nation of Japan needed massive social reorganization, and the disruption of the bombs would create an unavoidable necessity to do that. when they talk about, dropping the bombs to save more lives, if one would take a very long view, moving through the years up until today perhaps many more lives were saved than were lost in the atomic bombings, devastating and horrific as they were. Life is not easy or fair, something we forget at our own peril. This was not easy to listen to but thank you for doing it.
dmn some westerner justifying genocide, classic, like in the recent conflict. almost every country in the world have dark past, we the people of today need to learn from it, not justify it in the names of racial/national superiority.
My dad a WWII veteran. Told me the Japanese used Guinea Pigs to fly aeroplanes down the funnel of enemy war ships. The years have passed and Dad is long dead: Staring at my son's caged Guinea Pig I am still scratching my head to this day how Guinea Pigs produced such actions of heroism...
My late father in law served on HMS Belfast in the Pacific in WW2. He said that the kamikaze had more effect on the US ships, as they had wooden decks, but the British ships had metal decks, and they "swept the burning remains off the side of the ship". Can a naval historian verify if this was true?
Anyone maintaining that the two atom bombs were unnecessary because Japan was about to surrender should watch this video. Japan was preparing to fight till the last man in every street and every home.
@@Mike-LitorisSoBig Murder is a legal technical term but yes, I agree that killing civilians is in principle something to be avoided. If the choice is between killing the enemy's civilians or your own soldiers, it becomes an entirely different equation. This is why killing civilians became so popular in WW2.
My wife is Japanese. She said some of the troops that agreed to a suicide mission for the Emperor, did volunteer for the honor of it. But the truth is, most had little to no choice. So, technically they all "volunteered," however, that was because their choices were 1: Die as a loyal subject to the Emperor by agreeing to this madness. This suicide mission with no chance of survival. In fact you are swearing, to a living God (as they saw the Emperor) to go out and definitely die as part of your mission, in the hopes you take as many of the enemy as you possibly can. But you are certain to die. Yours is the only death that's guaranteed in this mission and in doing so, you bring honor to your family. Or refuse, and disgrace yourself and your family, which will mean he probably can never return home after refusing anyways, he will live as a coward who saved his own skin while the Emperor and his countryman died with honor. He will forever be remembered in shame, his family will never speak of him again. It's like he never existed. So, what kind of choice is that? It's still technically his choice, but with one hell of an ultimatum attached to it. My wife said most families would gladly take their son, brother and father back with open arms, especially the mothers, Honor be damned, but how is a young man, so torturously brain washed by the military at the time, supposed to believe he would be forgiven for not accepting the mission? Yes, avoidance was your best bet (my wife said), but sometimes avoidance was impossible. My wife also told me, Japanese troops who returned home AFTER the EMPEROR surrendered, were treated as cowards and failures in their communities up into the late 60s. The took their uniforms off and never, ever spoke of the war again. Going through a war like WWII is DEFINITELY going to leave you with some scars. Physical and emotional. PTSD up the arse. But unlike here in the US, where at least they were hailed as heroes, the Japanese soldiers defeat was a subject avoided at all cost. Must have been horrible. Japanese culture can be beautiful, but it has it's very dark parts as well. This is one of them.
It is known that the Japanese copy and generally improve other people's ideas. Keeping that in mind. The British used barrage balloons during WW2. Their purpose was to force enemy bombers to bomb from higher altitudes too make bombing less accurate. Inclement weather caused some of these to break free. With the prevailing wind being from the west. These balloons traveled across occupied Europe causing all sorts of power outages and general damage. So, having being informed of this. They were released on purpose. The Japanese used balloon bombs made of paper against the USA and Canada. The German Luftwaffe used Ram raiders against the USAAF bomber streams. The FW190 and ME109's into heavily armoured noses and wing leading edges. Armament being reduced to usually one 13mm MG131. The Japanese may have been influenced by this, too. Anna Reich tried to turn unit of the Luftwaffe into suicide Squadrons. Also making manned V1. She was a notable German test pilot herself. Communication between Germany and Japan went on throughout the war. So, each side would be aware of these developments.
Some thought that Emperor Hirohito should have faced trial for the huge part the Emperor played in the Japanese-USA war, after the trial the Japanese emperor would have been executed. But MacArthur considered it essential to protect him so that the changes the Americans were introducing in Japan would have had the imperial blessing. With hindsight, he was surely right, but at the time the decision was distinctly controversial.
I dont think people realize the favor the Allies did the world by crippling Imperical Japan. The amount of crimes against humanity they committed in 50 years is looked past quite often.
Actually, very few pilots went down with the ships! All aircrew were ordered to leave the damaged carriers well before they sank. They weren't members of the ship's crew so couldn't contribute to fighting the fires raging on the ships. The ship's captains were well aware of the value of their aircrews and did their best to protect and save them.
I was in Japan and Korea back in the 1950s when I remember reading that the majority of Kamikaze pilots survived. Somehow, that didn't compute back then and still doesn't. I think there was an explaination but I can't recall it. Age might be a factor.
The historian David Bergamini hypothesized that the Emperor and the hierarchy knew the war was lost after Midway but calculated that if at least 3+million of their citizens died, the people would feel loyalty and fight against unconditional surrender. The leaders had little to no concern for their citizens. They themselves estimated over 3 million Japanese would die in the loss of Honshu. The Americans estimated 10 million Japanese, 1 million Americans would die. No wonder the American government used the bomb.
Also : the bombs were dropped on Military Targets. The first one was dropped on the Army Southern Headquarters and Staging Center (one of two Army HQ in Japan) that WAS IN Hiroshima. Japan didn't surrender. Three DAYS LATER... The second one was to be Dropped on the Military target of the Yokohama Shipyards, but it was clouded over that day and the Shipyards were hidden, so they changed to the alternate Military target of Nagasaki which made Torpedoes, ship parts, and was also a center of Munitions storage. The bomb was dropped between the two factory areas. Japan still didn't surrender for another week, and that was only at the urging of the Emperor on the radio to the whole country. The Generals wanted to fight on, and had even armed women and children with Spears to fight to the last man.
Technically it wasn't scuba as it was only introduced in the early 50s. This would have been a diving suit. No details on how or if compressed air was brought on, but it may have been pretty close to scuba.
Japan, like Germany, suffered profoundly for its aggression in the war. But unlike Germany, Japan has not seriously come to terms with the appalling suffering it visited on millions of people across Asia, and on its POWs. Until Japan follows the admirable lead of Germany in bravely, authentically apologizing and assuming deep responsibility for the intolerable inhumanity it displayed throughout the conflict, especially in the Rape of Nanking and other brutalities against China and Korea, its international, historical reputation will remain "the society that sacrificed its sons to suicide."
My father was on HMAS Australia which was hit by FIVE kamikazes over, I think 2weeks, at Leyte/Lingayen Gulf your comment about Allied warships shooting down friendly aircraft is true. Dad said that Allied aircraft were ordered not to overfly the Fleet below a certain height. Dad said one day he saw three US fighters returning from an attack, and they came barreling over the Fleet at about 1,000 feet. Unable to recognise them, every warship in range opened up. All three were shot down.
I was pretty sure that there were 5 of the 2 man Japanese subs used at Pearl Harbor. They have found 4 of them. One was hit by the guns of the USS Ward in the pre-dawn hours of Dec. 7th, with the very first actions off of Pearl Harbor.
The Kamikaze attacks were very effective against the US Navy ships and the U.S. government downplayed the damage of the suicide attackers. After WW2 the US Navy working with scientists and engineers developed a better defense. The US Navy now has Close In Weapon Systems (CIWS) called C Wiss that will take out incoming missiles, suicide aircraft, or small boat attackers. It uses a rapid fire multi barreled Cannon that is radar guided to blast to pieces the attacking aircraft or boat. So the Japanese taught the United States Navy a hard lesson.
A TV show I loved (Space: Above and Beyond) told a story about the Kamikazes, saying that the night before their mission, they would clip their nails and/ or cut their hair, depositing these remains in a small wooden box, for burial, as they knew that their actual remains would be irrecoverable, assuming there were any. This way, at least, their family would have some tangible remains which they could bury. I'd like to think that this story was true, but I've never been able to verify it...
I read Zero pilots would remove everything possible -- armor, seats, even thier radios just to squeeze in another liter of fuel to get to thier designated target area. They would navigate entirely by compass and eyeballs. Getting in the fight was everything but getting back to base not so important
... thus showing that you can, indeed, say that certain cultures (certainly in certain aspects) are superior to others. 0:00-3:13 was extremely interesting. 3:50-20:09 was horrifying.
My Grandpa was a gunner on the USS Fuller in the Pacific. He told me stories about shooting down Kamikaze planes aiming directly at them. He said there were some who got so close he could see the pilots faces.
When I lived in rural Japan as an English teacher, I would often go out to sing karaoke. One time an old man came in and sang an enki song which memorialized the kamikaze pilots. It was an interesting moment for me.
I was told that the reason they used a 2nd person to remove their head after disemboweling themselves, was to prevent them from doing something dishonorable (like making noises due to the pain) which would remove the honor regained from taking their own life.
Okay, when you took that second shot out of the spinach juice your sponsor sent, carefully, I seen your eyes water. You slightly squinted your eyes as to hid your inner dialog saying gad damn that taste like leprechaun balls. I have watched your channel since the beginning. And on the 3rd day, a hero was born.
I lived in Okinawa, Japan, for a few years, and I knew an Okinawan man who had been conscripted out of middle school and trained to be one of those guided torpedo pilots. (I don't know which type.) He said the Japanese were running out of equipment, and they trained in wood "torpedos." Japan surrendered just before his training ended, so he lived to tell about it.
I am very glad to hear of someone outliving destined sacrifice. It's a shame this world creates these circumstances to exist. Are our differences really so vast? Heck, even now, it seems brothers within the same countries are being pushed toward a war with each other. For the silliest of reasons, might I add.
@@frigyou1078 You are out of your GD mind if this is a real comment. There will never be a civil war in the USA, it will just be brainwashed conservatives committing terrorism while everyone else wonders wtf is going on. This has already been happening since the OK City bombing. The news is complicit and calls it "lone wolf" attacks.
@@frigyou1078It’s not going to take 25 years, 5 at the outside
@@frigyou1078you're seriously whining about being too broken to kill your fellow countrymen? Jesus christ.
You need help, dude.
I forgot it's name but the flying version was the oka or cherry blossom...think V1 but manned. An those torpedoes had the pilot welding in!!
My dad was on board the mine sweeper, USS Swallow. It was hit and sunk within minutes. He was one of a few that survived. He was in shark infested water for a long time. He wouldn't talk about his time in the navy for a long time. He was in his late 70's before he would say anything. RIP Dad.
Love ya, miss ya, proud of you.
Bob
Rest him, dear Lord.
The....insanity of war. We have dedicated brilliant people, and we send them into actions mostly designed not aa....aroun d their best interests, I shouldn't say this. I'm sorry Robert. I'm a McDonald as well, our family iis in south Ohio now, we're descended from North Carolina folk who had fled the aftermath of the Rebellion. Please forgive my words.
Your Father is a hero. Dedicated, sincere, and absolute. We wwwilll hopefully devote and dedicate our will alongside his mmemory with sincerity, and action.
*deep breaths later* I'm sorry, Robert. I'm not in a good state of mind. Your Father is a hero, and you are blessed to mmaintain the sincerity of his memory.
It's ann honor to meet you.
And again please forgive me.
God bless you @@wren7195
@@wren7195 I cannot speak for Robert, but I do not understand why you are asking for his forgiveness? I say that you honor his father with your words.
@@musicloverme3993 I was in a bad state when I wrote that, just wanted to be certain I was kind and sincere. Be safe my friend, thank you
Rip. 🙏
My father was a veteran of WWII Pacific Theater, He was an officer in the US Army Amphibious Engineers (the Army's Navy). HE fought from the Dutch East Indies, and through the Philippines. In one battle, The Battle of Zamboanga he had to ferry troops from ship to shore in his LCM, several round trips while under fire from Japanese shore batteries. One thing that was very noteworthy to him was the Japanese use of Kamikaze speed boats designed to ram allied ships. From what I gather they weren't very successful due to Allied ships being too well defended. Interesting note: My father found out after the war that his Japanese brother-in-law was at that battle fighting on the Japanese side. My uncle was a very quiet & humble man who after the war became an English teacher. Dad and Uncle became close friends.
Correction: My foggy memory (Iʻm 64, and fading. The older I get, the better I was) . My uncle was not at the Battle of Zamboanga, he was at the later Invasion of Lingayen Gulf, a later battle my dad was also a part of. Everything else still accurate to my memory of events.
Amazing
Glad to see another case of humans proving that humans can win out over the corporate war mongers. I'm happy they became friends 💜
What a story...
My comment has disappeared. I'll try rewording it and see what happens. I said it's really good that humans can overcome the corporate war mongers and get along. I'm so glad they are friends 💜
@@bunyipdragon9499 They were friends. My dad passed away in 2007, and my uncle a couple years earlier. My mom was a nurse at a Tokyo hospital 1944-45 during the US fire-bombing. She was a teenager treating napalm burns, and saw a lot of death and destruction. Iʻm surprised she would even marry an American. Good thing dad was an extremely sweet guy.
Before WW2 in 1937 Kamikaze was a Mitsubishi Ki-15 that won long distance flight speed records. The pilot Masaaki Iinuma was a pacifist and spoke out about using aviation in the war in China r and Japan's militaristic expansion. Because he was so famous they couldn't really do anything so they shipped him off to South East Asia to train pilots. When he heard the news about the attacks on Pearl Harbour and Malaya he was so distraught that he walked into the propellor of an aircraft that he was about to train a pilot in.
Jesus h
OMG! That's just horrifying.
Based on the Japanese version of Wikipedia via Google Lens, the incident happened 3 days after the attack, on Dec 11, 1941.
you’re saying Kamikaze is a person not a thing wtf I don’t get it ? And how was kamikaze a plane ?
Kamikaze is a title meanijg "divine winds" used to name the storms that destroyed the attacking Mongolian navys. They used this title for the pilot that beat the long distance flight record as a sign of respect and then they used the title "kamikaze" for suicide soldiers and the title was ruined for the rest of history
Kamikazi instructor to his students, "Watch carefully, I'll only do this once".
Underrated 🤣
"Only once"
Boy, do I miss the old thumbnails... Those AI generated ones are just beyond cursed...
Yea they're really bad
Yeah, they're terrible.
yes lol
Lazy producer
It's super unfortunate.
It always boggles the mind just how much senseless death, destruction, and suffering are caused by the ambitions of just a relatively few psychopathic megalomaniacs. And that's not limited to wars by any means.
I feel that deeply, dude.. life is too valuable..
@@melissapyle7879it's sht
Through history millions and maybe billions of young people died in fighting wars they didn't started and never wanted to be a part of and unfortunately continue to do so.
It’s typical of the US
Unfortunately, lately it doesn't boggle the mind - it's something we have to deal with on a daily basis here in the USA.
Fun fact for language nerds: "Kamikaze" wasn't the general Japanese term for suicide attacks in WWII. The characters that can be read "kamikaze" are "神風" and they only refer to the air suicide attacks of the navy, but even then the characters were much more commonly read as "shinpu". In full it's 神風特別攻撃隊 "shinpu tokubetsu kogeki tai". The name for suicide attacks generally, not just the ones from the air was 特別攻撃隊 "tokubetsu kogeki tai" and usually abbreviated to just 特攻隊 "tokkotai". If you try to look up "kamikaze" in a Japanese dictionary what you'll find is 神風タクシー "kamikaze taxi", Japanese slang for a taxi that ignores traffic rules!
kamikaze being slang for a taxi that ingores traffic rules is the best thing i've heard
Thanks , that is interesting.
@@cburgess7 it's never meant that 😅
I use to actually play a game called Kamikaze Taxi so makes sense
Can’t imagine what it would take to get me to care
Bro! Your smile in the advertisement was so wholesome. Honestly just seeing that smile made me so happy. Thoughty2 is a legend. He is the reason I decided to go to university. This dude literally changed my life. I dropped out of school and got into bad things and than when i was on probation stuck at home I would sit and watch thoughty2 all day and than I realized I like learning I just didn’t like the school system I was in. I decided to start saving money for school, I start my first semester of psychology next year. Thanks thoughty :)
Nice
That’s Freaking Awesome!! Congrats! & yeah, i also learned I enjoy Learning just didn’t like the school soup the us govt has set in place.
This is wonderful. Make some videos of your own and share what you've learned! Just be careful about this herbal medicine bullshit.
That's wonderful. If only schools could use different learning techniques to maximise students' ability😀
Love this for you! Hope all goes well for you ❤
Japan: “we’ve built the world’s most horrific weapon”
Uncle Sam: “Hold my beer”
8:29 Accurately dropping bombs on enemy ships from the air with WW2 era equipment...... "is like trying to drop a marble from eye level on a scared mouse" ( Lt. Cmdr. Maxwell F. Leslie, USS Yorktown, commander of flight VB-3).
Too cool. Thank you for the info. I had absolutely no idea. Never even considered it. Makes perfect sense.
It doesn't work like that, the actual delay between dropping the bomb and it's impact on the surface makes it even more difficult.
Except a scared mouse is moving more rapidly relative to you than a ship can relative to the plane that is bombing it. Add that virtually all carrier based Naval bombers in WW2 were dive bombers not high altitude bombers and the delay would be virtually non-existent. What he described (dropping a marble on a mouse) was vastly more difficult from a skill perspective, not as dangerous as armed resistance like AA fire added difficulty but that is not part of the comparison.
Then dive bombing's more like sticking a shiv into a porcupine armed with machine guns. 😂
Like pigeon droppings on a Armani suite?
Like eating a bowl of cereal in the dark?
"the mongolians fought the japanese and then died in a tornado, then they came back, enjoyed fighting the japanese a bit more, then died in a tornado" - Bill Wurtz
*actually a typhoon
@@mayuri4184 the almighty bill wurtz said it's a tornado, so that's what I'll stand by when quoting him
@ixia He annotated the "actually a typhoon" part. That was meant to be an auxiliary, rather than a correction.
@@Sylvprixialmfao 🤣🤣🤣🤣
A typhoon and a tornado are nothing at all the same. Typhoon is basically a hurricane and a tornado is a small whirlwind on the land
Please don’t ever stop making these historical vids we love you thoughty2
Don't worry, as long as he's being paid to peddle pseudoscience herbal medicine you're in luck.
That's one thing that could truly be said regardless of Nation. It is so ironic that leaders can convince young men can go to the battlefield under the guise of "patriotism". Denounce everyone else that does not want to fight as being weak.
Yet The politicians/leaders and their families remain safe, thousands of miles away from the battlefield.
Some of them, anyhow. Many of the military leaders died in battle.
@@SeanPat1001 most definitely on historic times the king/leader was on the battlefield but that position got moved further and further away, as time when on.
Now leaders go into bunkers, every time they hear a bump. But they'll be shouting on the intercoms how young men need to go and risk their lives
@@edd2184 I think that’s a myth perpetuated by Hollywood. It was definitely not true during World War II. I haven’t been involved in military planning since 2000, but at that time the situation was that military commanders routinely were in the battlefield with their troops.
There are different sides to leaders. Even in modern times, some of us lead from the front, commanding troops on ground. The higher up one goes in the chain, though, the more the job is set in planning and coordination on a larger scale. For that type, they don't exactly need to be on site in dangerous areas because of modern communication technology (plus, the more responsibility they have, the less you want an inexperienced person having to jump into their place when they go down).
Politicians, on the other hand, are not military leaders at all. At best, they are cheerleaders. At worst, they are active impediments.
@@SgtSupaman In theory, but usually not in practice. The whole military infrastructure is designed to support commanders anywhere in the battle space.
The Japanese would not stop fighting. The Emperor and Generals refused to consider surrender. The Japanese were training their citizens to fight in the streets for if / when US soldiers landed. The Japanese were training young school boys and school girls to fight with sharpened bamboo spears, so they could hide and spring out and attack US soldiers if / when they invaded Japan. Imagine the horrible blood bath. Possibly many 100,000's of civilians - and many of those children - dead. And all to stop the Japanese from fighting. They refused to stop.
Well done!
I taught a former Tokotai pilot, and did a lot of research on the defense plans for the home islands. Your video presents a balanced view. Your inclusion of the Japanese point of view makes this a really good introduction to the subject!!
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Putting 48 stars on the flag is the kind of detail that makes me appreciate your quality work
I was just scrolling through the comments to see if anyone else noticed or cared to comment about exactly this.
Isn’t Hawaii and Alaska the last two stars?
Then again... angled flight decks are anachronistic, right?
@@nalini7186 But they weren't states till 1959.
@@xmacleodUs non Sceptic Tanks couldn't give a flying fook,counting them is lame but your time your flag I suppose
I met a kamikaze trainee some decades ago. Poor eyesight disqualified him from actually participating on any mission. Very nice, gentle guy. His grief had always been that he couldn’t die with his comrades. After the war he took an east-west bus ride across the US. He struggled to understand how the Japanese ever expected to been the US, given its size. Yamamoto similarly didn’t want to fight the US since he was trained at West Point. He knew the formidable opponent he was facing.
The Japs made the same mistake that Lee and Hitler made. They wanted to fight the USA and then declare a truce or sign a non-aggression pact. The Japs, the South and Hitler wanted to keep their lifestyle without surrendering to USA. They did not realize that the only solution was to not start the war in the first place and to not expect anything but total, unconditional surrender to end the war.
The Japanese government knew from the beginning that it could not defeat the USA. The plan was simply to make the war so costly that America would withdraw from the south west Pacific. Japan miscalculated.
@@jsmith498 That is one awful game of chicken. Let's hope nobody miscalculates with nukes.
My Dad and his best friend/first cousin enlisted in WWII at 17! They were Amphibious LCM. My Dad was in sick bay, his cousin went out on a ship. The ship was hit by a kamakze pilot. Dad's cousin was an excellent swimmer. He dove in to save lives, after saving a few men, he didn't resurface. I was supposed to be a boy. Apparently I kicked the crap out of Mom. So, I would be named for my Dad's cousin. His name was Adelbert, my name is Adell. He went through a typhoon in the Pacific Theatre tied to a mast! He said 'His ship would drop low in the ocean, he could see the bottom of ships, above the waves, he saw ships below. Some broke like toothpicks". Scary stuff. He never talked about the War much, that generation never did. He told me about the typhoon and 1 other story.
There was one other suicide tactic used in the Battle of Okinawa; log riders. A log with a torpedo strapped to the bottom, a small outboard motor, and the pilot. The U.S. Navy, offshore, used landing barges to continually patrol around the fleet, deliberately dumping oil on their engines to create a smoke screen. The barges 2nd duty was to listen for the sound of the outboard motors and intercept if possible. My fathers best friend was one of the barge drivers that died from intercepting a log rider.
**You won't find reference to the log riders - this was one of the stories my father told me from his time in the navy - pacific theater. Others included the Kamikaze attacks ( and having to mop up his fellow ship mates), the small sub attacks, and strangely the ultimate awe/horror - typhoons/waves that nearly rolled his ship. He mostly avoided graphic details of the battles but went on & on about the unexpected brutality of the ocean and the battering of the waves.
Last bit - I'm always amazed at how far we've fallen. My father, only 18, off to battle in the South Pacific. A farmers son who never saw the ocean, dealing with the horrors of war and the elements. Today, you only have to mis-pronoun someone in their 20-30's to have them break down or rage, need a comfort animal, and/or find a safe space.
Most Americans in the 1940s would lose their minds if someone darker than them tried to drink out of the same water fountain as them, or swim in the same pool as them. But sure, the worst thing to happen to America is people demanding respect for how they identify. Way to turn an amazing anecdote about your father into worthless political nonsense.
I see you don't honor the freedom your family fought for. It's their right to be sensitive little bitches. Disrespecting them is disrespecting your father and his fallen friends sacrifice.
You do my people dirty! It isn't us 30 year olds that are so sensitive! Millennials have tougher skin than we are given credit for, and we don't adhere to the whole pronoun thing... That's new to us too. And frankly, apart from the men who want to become women, and then world class athletes, I don't get it. I don't understand why. I don't understand wanting to be called "they," it's all a huge clown-fest to me.
I dunno if that implies to me but I’m from the last generation that grew up without technology, we will tell you how it is. Nothing about being sensitive.
An important detail of the War's turning point around the time of the Battle of Midway is the coeval Battle of the Aleutian Islands, where the allies captured an intact Japanese Zero and were subsequently able to discover its limitations.
and after re-engineering it into a new US plane they finally stood a chance, the older planes they were using were way too slow and couldnt maneuver as well, it was the true turning point for many reasons and that plane is often times forgotten about
@@The_Harleqn thanks! Which US plane was that?
@@johnkeck The Hellcat if memory serves, they were already in the process of creating it before they found the zero but the info they learned from it helped create the "better" Hellcat which went on to dominate the sky's and the zero in the following years!
I think that's the one where the Japs technically invaded US soil but blew it landing in fog, getting lost, shooting each other.
The Mongols needed a good weather man ☁️🌡️
That happens when attack in taifun season.
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”
- Bob Dylan
Spends seven years building a massive fleet and doesn't consider the optimal season to strike😅
@@myscreen2urs 🤣
It’s always a glorious day when there is a new Thoughty2 video
That intro to bring us to the key word (no spoilers) was outstanding
Right? I literally went "whoaaaaa"
@@MaggieGraceWebbI was told the same kamikaze stories in Japan by a Japanese historian. They topped it off by saying how the powers that be could use an inspirational historical story to dupe patriotic young men to sacrifice their lives for people who only cared about themselves. Tragic.
And here I was, hoping they had some sort of weather machine
My grandfather was a Sherman tank commander who served in the Iwo Jima invasion. After that, he was scheduled to be part of the force that was to invade Japan itself. Fortunately, that never came to pass, but he did go ashore as part of the occupation force. He told me that, when they sailed into Tokyo harbor, there were hundreds and hundreds of small, fast Kamikaze boats tied up there, ready to attack any amphibious invasion force.
It's absolutely crazy to me how the Japanese completely shifted the way the world views them by using anime and flashy lights
they were pretty funny people all along though have you seen their game shows ?
@@eastonadkins9568they're MENTAL 😅😂🎉
I am from Okinawa specifically and feel this on a personal level. Even many natives of Okinawa have completely forgotten they technically aren't Japanese.
Shhh this is a secret between you, me and the fellow Japanese.
That's called soft power.
The Japanese also had suicide speed boats, and perhaps most disturbing of all, were training old men, women, and children to charge at the Amercian forces with bamboo spears in mass Banzai charges.
the serious wink at the end shows how serious he is when telling something. love this man
My uncle was a cryptologist that was whisked out of the Philippines as the Japanese invaded. So, yes! His team did a true service in steaming/winning the war against Japan. However, the Battle of Midway also had the factor of luck and timely leadership. The U.S. Navy had inexperience with battles, faulty torpedoes, and horrible tactics. Sending slow torpedo bombers with defective torpedoes unaccompanied by fighters (that were inferior to the Zero - it took two U.S. Wildcat fighters to protect each other [the Thatcher's Weave] while leaving the bombers on their own. The U.S. Admiral immediately called for an attack once the Japanese fleet was located although it was not in an ideal position to attack. Being 'first' paid dividends. The Japanese also were busy switching out land bombs for torpedoes once the Japanese knew where the US Fleet's location. The 'lost' U.S. dive bombers that stumbled across the Japanese fleet right as its fighters were preoccupied with the straggling Wildcats in the distance, right as the Japanese fleet was refueling its planes, switching out unsecure bombs/torpedoes and for the US dive bombers to suddenly switch targets in a middle of their dive to maximize hits led for most of Japanese aircraft carriers to be placed out of action in one swoop. Otherwise, under 'normal' conditions, the damage from the dive bomb run would have been nominal and the battle could have been very different. As baseball fame, Lefty Gomez, once said, "I would rather be lucky than good."
Looking at 'merica (or the world for that matter) today, I'm not sure if the outcome of ww2 was a good thing.
Russia won WWII we helped a little
@@Schmorgus Agreed. But, that might change this November.
@mericanignoranc3551 Yes, there are 30 million reasons to support your argument. Even in the Eastern Front (i.e. Japan), although 'late to the party' it was when the Soviets (yeah, Russia) liberated the Korean Península/Manchurian regions and nabbed the northern islands did the pressure from two nuclear blasts on civilian populations (say, isn't that a war crime?) did the Imperial Japanese decide to throw in the towel after a 'split' decision. At that time, Japan had cracked the American code and knew the details about the allies' invasion. It would have been a bloodbath. So, yes. Russia played a big part right at the end. The US cryptologists did play a major role in the beginning (as well as throughout the war), but it took a team and lot of luck to make progress in the early stages of the war.
@smackallor The argument is mostly moot. During and after the war Soviet leadership had admitted that without the insane aid from the United States that they would have most definitely lost the war against Germany.
Stalin said it best at the Tehran Conference in Dec 1943., Stalin added: “The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.”
Russia's most overrated general, Zhukov, had similar beliefs. But the tankies hate when you mention this lol
"Liberated" is a funny term to use in the context of Soviet invasions. What is not popularly known (probably because of anti-axis bias), is that in the Manchurian invasion alone there were several instances of the Soviet army exclusively graping and murdering Japanese/Manchurian women and children. The Gegenmiao massacre is one of the more famous. This is swept under the rug for obvious reasons. To add insult to injury, the Soviets had signed and agreed to the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, which was set to expire in August 13, 1946. As we all know, the invasion started a year later... Japan's mistake for every negotiating with Bolsheviks, they are typically ashkenazi in blood and will of course lie at any chance they can get.
Indeed, practically no one except Truman and his Talmudic advisors at the time (and after) agreed that the atomic bombs were necessary. I would highly suggest looking up what top US military brass at the time had to say about them. Eisenhower, MacArthur, Nimitz, Leahy, to name a few... Practically all saw the atomic bombs as unnecessary and barbaric in their own words. For one, they all knew Japan tried to surrender in May 1945, but this was declined by Truman with the excuse that they conceded they keep the emperor, and as we all know they did. Secondly, Japan already lost in their eyes, and this had happened as early as Midway. Thirdly, this shouldn't be a surprise considering that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets. The latter was chosen as a last minute decision by Truman in which the Nagasaki Cathedral would be ground zero, the largest Catholic population in all of East Asia at the time. If you know the beef between Freemasonry and Catholicism you could see why this was the choice. Both bombs destroyed zero military targets, and only a few soldiers died.
I met a former tokkotai (the official name for kamikaze, literally 特攻隊 special attack unit) who had become a woodblock artist. He said the training and mental torture was inhuman, and no one wanted to go.
Friend of mine’s dad was a navy veteran from that war, & survived being on a destroyer hit by a kamikaze, & would get a far away stare, whenever people talked about that war, or certain Japanese things…(we never bugged him about it, out of respect)
"What is steel, compared to the hand that wields it?" - Thulsa Doom
CONAN!!!!!!!!!!
@@WangNurMouth yes! That's right.
I misread what you wrote as weld's.
But I suppose steel is only as strong as the hand that weld's it.... When it comes to submarines
And remember kids! Whatever you do, if you manage to survive being selected for a kamikaze mission due to engine failure, don’t offer to cut a grapefruit for your white friend!
flesh
I don't understand the title. It says they "built a weapon", but kamikaze is a tactic, not a weapon. And how did they try to hide it?
Yeah, the Japanese invented suicide apparently.
Misleading thumbnail too
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5:15 he clearly said tactic.
@@silvereye717 Title and thumbnail. Not the video content itself.
My dad was a Naval Lt Commander during WWII. One day, he called us all into the living room to watch a newsreel of a kamikaze hitting his ship. He survived😀.
My stepfather was also a Lt. Commander in the US Navy. He was a bomber pilot in the Pacific Theater twice for more than 3 years. A true hero and gentleman was Robert Weeks.
My respects to both of your fathers
It's unfortunate that the Mongols were not able to teach the Japanese some humility. It took our atomic bombs to remind them they are but human. In the centuries in between, the Japanese brought incalculable pain, suffering and death to all their neighbors. More like a 'Devil Wind' than anything divine.
What not to do in war 101:
Number 1: Don't invade Russia during winter
Number 2: Don't invade Japan during monsoon season
Emperor Hirohito who should have held responsibilty for war escaped so easily. He just denounce himself from "living god" to just human and nothing happened to him.
And he lived comfortably until he passed, January 1989. !!
There’s literally a shrine to all these war criminals in Tokyo. Tojo (who was arguably the mastermind behind all these horrible things) is honored there…
Keeping him alive was a military decision made to prevent counter insurgency. No other reason
Tbf he was born in it
he wasnt responsible for the war, Tojo was. He may not have been openly against it but Japan was ruled by the military, not the Emperor. Hirohito, especially as the war went on, had less and less power and was just a glorified PR man
Mate that was an awesome one.
Thankyou.
I had no knowledge of the scuba kamikazes.
Or that the Kaiten,s depth limits so hindered the carrier submarines.
And at the end, many soldiers from all nations have chosen this final act. For various reasons.
New movie idea.
"Crouching Tiger Hidden Diver"
Ghost of Tsushima!
15 hours death though... I imagine he felt bad about all these deaths, especially considering Japan still lost in the end, but damn. It's not like his suffering was going to bring anyone back. The man must have been at least partially insane.
The Japanese take honor very seriously. Not to mention they are as religious as anyone else, he likely thought he would have to face the ghosts of those pilots and to do so without any penance would be shameful
Reminds me of Göering's daughter. Sterilised herself so his genes would not propagate. Nice thought I guess, but boy, ain't that just another expression of Nazi ideas about blood debts and eugenics?
magic mind, 71 pounds for 15 tiny bottles... for that price I hope it reverses aging one year per bottle
😂
Snake oil
It doesn't surprise me that the "locals" finished off the 2nd invasion.
The Katana isn't exclusive to Bushido Samurai. However, the 2nd Wakizashi is, and due to ancient customs, it was the mother's that taught their young to fight till they were ready to join a Dojo, and at all times, even at home, they carried a Tanto or Kaiken.
Essentially, it's a case in which well over 50% of the population is armed.
Their class system typically went as follows 1st class: Samurai (which includes government officials), 2nd class: farmers, 3rd class: artisans, and the lowest 4th class: merchants.
Merchants should always be at the bottom and our world is upside down largely due to their being first class.
@@bradchambers5886 Yeah, it was particularly because they dealt with money.
Samurai were intentionally not taught basic math and the value of each coin to prevent them from becoming corrupt, and instead were educated in despising the gathering of wealth.
@@Skelath A glorious, honorable, virtuous society.
@@bradchambers5886 wrong. Bad take
merchants create wealth. Wealth and education should be the primary deciding factors when it comes to classes. Artisans shouldnt even be below farmers either. I understand yall want to live in a fairy land but honour or glory doesnt wont feed your starving family and japan was quite poor back then. I wonder why
@@nexor7809here’s a radical idea 💡 maybe we shouldn’t have classes at all 🤔
What you're missing is that most Japanese pilots weren't returning from attacks on the USN anyway by this point in the war so the likelihood of returning from a mission was only slightly better for a strike pilot vs. a Kamikaze.
42, I've been binge watching all your videos from the oldest to the newest. Damn its been a long way, and the changes on how you deliver the story from then. Thank you for making all this videos! Keep it up 🤙💪
My dad was at Midway as a storekeeper. He was transferred there from Pearl Harbor. He told us of the night they all lay on the sand until morning (on Midway) and were told to shoot anything that came from the water. It’s the only story he ever said about his time in the Navy. Miss you dad. 💕🐝💕🇺🇸
any one else notice he never even mentions what they "tried to hide"? everything mentioned in this video is highly common knowledge that they have been teaching in high school history classes since the war.
Thanks, stopped me from watching it.
In the summer of 1974 I was taking a class called "History of the Far East." I had taken a class called "History of the Middle and Near East" with the same professor in the spring of 1973. He had been stationed after the war in Occupied Japan. He made friends with a Japanese businessman. He was invited over one night and they were getting ready to drink when he said as a bit of a toast: Banzai! This was one of the few words he knew in Japanese. This friend suddenly stopped, and left the room. He put down his own drink, realized he had somehow offended this man and was getting ready to leave, when the man came back. It was explained that he had been trained as one of the Kamikaze pilots, but had not committed suicide - obviously. So, yes, he had been upset, but also understood the American couldn't have understood why he had been upset. They did remain friends the rest of the time my prof was in Japan. It was after my prof had returned to the States he got his Ph.D in History. This was the final class he was giving. He told us as he handed out the finals that these would be the last finals he was ever going to grade. I had quite a few professors in college, but I think he was absolutely the BEST one.
Why are you lying
@@thebitsanpiecesman4423 why would I lie? Being trained doesn't mean he ever got on a plane...
I had a tokotai pilot who survived as a student in the 1980s. Fascinating individual, but prone to misunderstandings like the one you described!
Should have said "Kampai!"
@@joelellis7035 as an American airman in 1945-46 in a country that is culturally so different from his own, is it any wonder he made a big blunder? It is why the business man understood that my prof hadn't meant to cause harm. When I took this class at 20, I was already understanding things like this. Taking classes like this helped me understand that there were many worldviews that many people in the Western world don't understand.
I had many classes with many professors during my time in university, but Dr. Hahn was one of my favorites. I had another History professor at the same university that I would go and talk to, something I would not have felt comfortable doing with him. If I needed to talk to him, I would've been careful to make an appointment. While I made Cs in both of his classes, I recognized that I worked hard to earn those Cs. I had a different prof at a different university I was in awe of, but after finals I wasn't afraid to go by his office to find out my grades. I made a B in the first one and an A in the second one, but I didn't find him as awesome in the same way I did Dr. Hahn. In fact, he wrote the book in the class I took, Recent American History, and I learned a lot in his class, but since he basically read from the book, it hardly was my favorite class. If skipping class and reading the textbook would've passed me I might've done it.
I graduated with 30 hours of History as my minor, if I could've learned a foreign language I would've had a double major.
Did anyone else immediately think of Xanadu? I’m probably just too old.
The roller skating battalion ? Yes , they were deadly.
A I know old.
Kamikaze Roller Skate Warriors almost beat the USA Troops
You mean his stately pleasure dome? Nah, dunno what you're on about.😅
No way are you too old. The critics hated it but I loved it!
@14:58 "Fukuryu, or crouching dragon... naturally"
Me: "British man funny😂😂😂😂😂"
Lmao im terrible for laughing at that
When I lived on Lamma Island in Hong Kong, I was fascinated by the Kamikaze caves where the Japanese kept some of their one and two man Explosive Motorboats (EMB's) under the Shinyo (Sea Quake) program. Navy EMB's had explosive charges attached to the bow of the motorboat and were expected to ram enemy ships, whilst Army EMB's carried 2 depth charges for dropping beside enemy ships before turning and heading away (not suicide boats). They were used in the defense of the Philippines and in Okinawa and by the end of the war over 9,000 of these boats had been built with many waiting in coves around Japan waiting for the invasion fleets. At least 8 ships (gunboats and landing craft) were sunk and the American Destroyer USS Hutchins was badly damaged at Okinawa.
At 12:21, the shallow depth restriction of subs carrying kaiten suicide subs is not as bad of an issue as you make it out to be. In WWII, most subs spent most of their time on the surface. The problem is that the kaiten carrying sub must surface near the target to transfer the pilot to the kaiten and prepare it for launch.
My mother was one of those students equipped with bamboo spears readied to repel the US invasion force.
how was she chosen for that??
@@muzammilhasan1119
She was alive, Japanese, and probably in school at the time. The attitude of the leadership was that all Japanese should resist to the death.
@kranzonguam we often view that level of resistance by the japanese as crazy, but allied nations also had similar levels of resistance. Japan gets painted in a certain light and it's certainly true, but Britian had plans for every British subject to resist down to the last woman and child as well.
@@LazySillyDogsure when you are the defender. A bit different if you are the on who started the war
@@PriitKallas”behind every blade of grass…”
Kamikaze tactics was not unusual, even ships do it - british destroyers against Admiral Hipper or Jervis Bay against Admiral Scheer. Not to talk about Eastern front, where whole soviet units fought to the last man. Logic is simple - if you are going to die kill as much enemies you can.
I think it's safe to say their own brand of *Magic Mind" came in the form of amphetamines. With Germany doing the same you can't help but wonder if things would've turned out different had there not been widespread use of the stimulant.
Yeah the war would’ve been over before it started lmao
Fair question
@@poindextertunes You saying they actually needed them amphetamines where the US was just old guts N' glory? I can respect that to the fullest if that's your implication.
Yup.Powdered into the pre-mission Sake shots ?
As a former meth abuser and lifelong history buff, I can safely say that much of World War 2 made sense only once I experienced what it was like to be on meth.
For instance, Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States simply *MUST* have been made after a solid shot of meth into the veins.
What I can say is that your focus intensely narrows, you experience heightened anxieties after a while (often descending into paranoia) and your moral compass significantly degrades. I have no doubt that much of the brutality was influenced by meth.
But what gets me is that when I was a meth abuser, I had no idea that amphetamines was used in WW2 until I speculated it, and then searched it online to confirm. At the time, the use of Pervitin by the Wermacht and the use of IV meth by Hitler, was not widely known to the public.
Nowadays I consider that WW2 history cannot be properly taught without reference to the drugs used.
0:28 nah they didn’t conquer Tsushima, Jin Sakai defended it. (It’s a joke, relax)
15:20
😂 thoughty wtf, Lol that was great
I thought that was a fake name for them lmao. Had to Google it. Cant believe thats what they're were actually called 😂
@@RosinGoblin Bro I didnt even catch what it sounded like until thoughty caught me off guard like that🤣
I saw those kamikaze torpedoes at the Kure Museum. Never knew about them till I saw it, but was overwhelmed with how disturbing it was. Otherwise, the Kure Museum was a very insightful experience.
When you talk about an enemy willing to die in order to kill you being terrifying, I find it reminiscent of something a British POW wrote about the Japanese (I forget the exact quote but I'll stay true to the essence): when a single life weighs less than a feather what value is a life (possibly ...feather when will the killing stop)? I believe his name was Ernest. I'll try and find the quote.
Edit. Captain Ernest Gordon. "Through the Valley of the Kwai" is the name of his book however I can't find the quote (thanks Google) but I did find a quote from the movie based on a retitled version of the book "To End All Wars"- What is the consequence of a single life weighing less than a feather? What is the final destination of hatred? When you look in the eyes of the enemy and you see yourself. At what price mercy? Who is my neighbor? How many times shall I forgive my brother? What does it mean to love ones enemies? What can a man give in exchange for ones soul? These are the questions that I faced in my prison camp; the answers changed my life forever.
The Japanese worked British and American POWs to death (along with other civilian POWs and conscripted locals to build a railroad through jungle mountains in NW Thailand to Burma. It is unbelievable how much rock a man was expected to move by hand, and was fed a handful of rice to eat.
@@sterling557 very true. It's a testament to the human spirit how many of these people survived and many made something of themselves after, in one way or another. At least the POW's.
We usually say here in the States that a fallen soldier 'gave' their life to the country, but in reality, their lives were taken involuntarily. It's a whole other level of devotion to your country to knowingly give your life up in service.
They made it into Sydney harbour here in Australia using mini subs. From memory we caught 3 of em. The did a little bit of damage but nothing really noteworthy. One of the mini subs is on display at the war memorial in Canberra.
They are midget submarines from what I remember. Basically baby sub with two torp tubes.
"It was 80 samurai against and entire army"
-Jin Sakai
Love when I see a video of yours come up in my feed. I know it's going to make my day a little better.... cheers mate.
3 to 1 odds whe you are defending in fortified positions is actually pretty even. In fact, I'd say the Japanese had a slight advantage. The Mongols were not exactly siege experts either.
Sure, they could do sieges if they needed to but they were primarily horsemen.
It's why the Golden horde eventually ran outta steam near hungary. Too many highly fortified castles.
My Dad was in the pacific during WW2. He was on a PC and spent the war patrolling the Hawaiian islands. So far as I know he was there through the end of the war. He never talked much about the war. I think he felt that he'd had an easy time of it and felt bad that so many hadn't. But luck of the draw, we had no friends in high places to pull strings.
My grandfather told me everything about his service in the Pacific in WW2. Fear wasn't always making allies trigger-happy, but a lot more accurate as well. It may have took till 1944 to authorize kamikaze attacks, but was a self sacrifice attack from the beginning of the war with Japan. Basically attacking for a honorable end when they could not make it back. Admirable devotion.
My father was on a ship during WW2 that was hit by a kamikaze. He fell and hit his head on a stairwell leading down into the engine room and it cut his scalp straight across so that his face literally fell off. It slipped down off of his head and had to be sewn back on. Refused to go home or stop fighting.
karma can be a cunt.
That was grim. In part it may add a layer of explanation to the use of the atomic bombs…. it is not too difficult to see that when in America, we value every human life those making the decisions to drop the bombs could see that the entire nation of Japan needed massive social reorganization, and the disruption of the bombs would create an unavoidable necessity to do that. when they talk about, dropping the bombs to save more lives, if one would take a very long view, moving through the years up until today perhaps many more lives were saved than were lost in the atomic bombings, devastating and horrific as they were. Life is not easy or fair, something we forget at our own peril. This was not easy to listen to but thank you for doing it.
dmn some westerner justifying genocide, classic, like in the recent conflict. almost every country in the world have dark past, we the people of today need to learn from it, not justify it in the names of racial/national superiority.
My dad a WWII veteran. Told me the Japanese used Guinea Pigs to fly aeroplanes down the funnel of enemy war ships. The years have passed and Dad is long dead: Staring at my son's caged Guinea Pig I am still scratching my head to this day how Guinea Pigs produced such actions of heroism...
Aaron: talks about the most disturbing topic
Also Aaron: thanks for watching 😉
My late father in law served on HMS Belfast in the Pacific in WW2. He said that the kamikaze had more effect on the US ships, as they had wooden decks, but the British ships had metal decks, and they "swept the burning remains off the side of the ship". Can a naval historian verify if this was true?
True! But only with carriers.
Anyone maintaining that the two atom bombs were unnecessary because Japan was about to surrender should watch this video. Japan was preparing to fight till the last man in every street and every home.
Still, murdering civilians is not a good thing... wouldn't you agree as a human-like creature?
@@Mike-LitorisSoBig Murder is a legal technical term but yes, I agree that killing civilians is in principle something to be avoided. If the choice is between killing the enemy's civilians or your own soldiers, it becomes an entirely different equation. This is why killing civilians became so popular in WW2.
My wife is Japanese. She said some of the troops that agreed to a suicide mission for the Emperor, did volunteer for the honor of it. But the truth is, most had little to no choice. So, technically they all "volunteered," however, that was because their choices were 1: Die as a loyal subject to the Emperor by agreeing to this madness. This suicide mission with no chance of survival. In fact you are swearing, to a living God (as they saw the Emperor) to go out and definitely die as part of your mission, in the hopes you take as many of the enemy as you possibly can. But you are certain to die. Yours is the only death that's guaranteed in this mission and in doing so, you bring honor to your family. Or refuse, and disgrace yourself and your family, which will mean he probably can never return home after refusing anyways, he will live as a coward who saved his own skin while the Emperor and his countryman died with honor. He will forever be remembered in shame, his family will never speak of him again. It's like he never existed. So, what kind of choice is that? It's still technically his choice, but with one hell of an ultimatum attached to it. My wife said most families would gladly take their son, brother and father back with open arms, especially the mothers, Honor be damned, but how is a young man, so torturously brain washed by the military at the time, supposed to believe he would be forgiven for not accepting the mission? Yes, avoidance was your best bet (my wife said), but sometimes avoidance was impossible. My wife also told me, Japanese troops who returned home AFTER the EMPEROR surrendered, were treated as cowards and failures in their communities up into the late 60s. The took their uniforms off and never, ever spoke of the war again. Going through a war like WWII is DEFINITELY going to leave you with some scars. Physical and emotional. PTSD up the arse. But unlike here in the US, where at least they were hailed as heroes, the Japanese soldiers defeat was a subject avoided at all cost. Must have been horrible. Japanese culture can be beautiful, but it has it's very dark parts as well. This is one of them.
Should the “It” in the title not be “They”
The subject (Japan) is singular and not plural, so the title is correct.
It is known that the Japanese copy and generally improve other people's ideas. Keeping that in mind. The British used barrage balloons during WW2. Their purpose was to force enemy bombers to bomb from higher altitudes too make bombing less accurate. Inclement weather caused some of these to break free. With the prevailing wind being from the west. These balloons traveled across occupied Europe causing all sorts of power outages and general damage. So, having being informed of this. They were released on purpose. The Japanese used balloon bombs made of paper against the USA and Canada. The German Luftwaffe used Ram raiders against the USAAF bomber streams. The FW190 and ME109's into heavily armoured noses and wing leading edges. Armament being reduced to usually one 13mm MG131. The Japanese may have been influenced by this, too. Anna Reich tried to turn unit of the Luftwaffe into suicide Squadrons. Also making manned V1. She was a notable German test pilot herself. Communication between Germany and Japan went on throughout the war. So, each side would be aware of these developments.
Some thought that Emperor Hirohito should have faced trial for the huge part the Emperor played in the Japanese-USA war, after the trial the Japanese emperor would have been executed.
But MacArthur considered it essential to protect him so that the changes the Americans were introducing in Japan would have had the imperial blessing. With hindsight, he was surely right, but at the time the decision was distinctly controversial.
I dont think people realize the favor the Allies did the world by crippling Imperical Japan. The amount of crimes against humanity they committed in 50 years is looked past quite often.
Absolutely true brother...
How many of you think his voice is AI now
It’s definitely AI
Actually, very few pilots went down with the ships! All aircrew were ordered to leave the damaged carriers well before they sank. They weren't members of the ship's crew so couldn't contribute to fighting the fires raging on the ships. The ship's captains were well aware of the value of their aircrews and did their best to protect and save them.
Been subbed for like 5 years since those og space vids
I was in Japan and Korea back in the 1950s when I remember reading that the majority of Kamikaze pilots survived. Somehow, that didn't compute back then and still doesn't. I think there was an explaination but I can't recall it. Age might be a factor.
The historian David Bergamini hypothesized that the Emperor and the hierarchy knew the war was lost after Midway but calculated that if at least 3+million of their citizens died, the people would feel loyalty and fight against unconditional surrender.
The leaders had little to no concern for their citizens.
They themselves estimated over 3 million Japanese would die in the loss of Honshu. The Americans estimated 10 million Japanese, 1 million Americans would die.
No wonder the American government used the bomb.
Also : the bombs were dropped on Military Targets. The first one was dropped on the Army Southern Headquarters and Staging Center (one of two Army HQ in Japan) that WAS IN Hiroshima. Japan didn't surrender. Three DAYS LATER...
The second one was to be Dropped on the Military target of the Yokohama Shipyards, but it was clouded over that day and the Shipyards were hidden, so they changed to the alternate Military target of Nagasaki which made Torpedoes, ship parts, and was also a center of Munitions storage. The bomb was dropped between the two factory areas.
Japan still didn't surrender for another week, and that was only at the urging of the Emperor on the radio to the whole country. The Generals wanted to fight on, and had even armed women and children with Spears to fight to the last man.
Technically it wasn't scuba as it was only introduced in the early 50s. This would have been a diving suit. No details on how or if compressed air was brought on, but it may have been pretty close to scuba.
Japan, like Germany, suffered profoundly for its aggression in the war. But unlike Germany, Japan has not seriously come to terms with the appalling suffering it visited on millions of people across Asia, and on its POWs.
Until Japan follows the admirable lead of Germany in bravely, authentically apologizing and assuming deep responsibility for the intolerable inhumanity it displayed throughout the conflict, especially in the Rape of Nanking and other brutalities against China and Korea, its international, historical reputation will remain "the society that sacrificed its sons to suicide."
remember pigeons were locked inside missiles to guide them before electronic guidance became a thing in 1953.
I don’t think that ever made it out of testing
@@elicasteel591 until there is a war the vast majority of armaments are still in testing, the pigeons worked but technology moved on.
My father was on HMAS Australia which was hit by FIVE kamikazes over, I think 2weeks, at Leyte/Lingayen Gulf your comment about Allied warships shooting down friendly aircraft is true. Dad said that Allied aircraft were ordered not to overfly the Fleet below a certain height. Dad said one day he saw three US fighters returning from an attack, and they came barreling over the Fleet at about 1,000 feet. Unable to recognise them, every warship in range opened up. All three were shot down.
Could've mentioned that kamikaze pilots were given heroic doses of methamphetamine before they did the deed.
Man these videos are so professionally made...it's like a good tv documentary.
I was pretty sure that there were 5 of the 2 man Japanese subs used at Pearl Harbor. They have found 4 of them. One was hit by the guns of the USS Ward in the pre-dawn hours of Dec. 7th, with the very first actions off of Pearl Harbor.
Japan's secret weapon is so disturbing its known as hentia today.
The thumbnail has changed 4 times in the 2 days this video has been out, and the title has changed twice...
The Kamikaze attacks were very effective against the US Navy ships and the U.S. government downplayed the damage of the suicide attackers. After WW2 the US Navy working with scientists and engineers developed a better defense. The US Navy now has Close In Weapon Systems (CIWS) called C Wiss that will take out incoming missiles, suicide aircraft, or small boat attackers. It uses a rapid fire multi barreled Cannon that is radar guided to blast to pieces the attacking aircraft or boat. So the Japanese taught the United States Navy a hard lesson.
A TV show I loved (Space: Above and Beyond) told a story about the Kamikazes, saying that the night before their mission, they would clip their nails and/ or cut their hair, depositing these remains in a small wooden box, for burial, as they knew that their actual remains would be irrecoverable, assuming there were any. This way, at least, their family would have some tangible remains which they could bury.
I'd like to think that this story was true, but I've never been able to verify it...
I knew many naval vets who were terrified of kamakaze attacks
"Kublai Khan't conquer japan to save his life"
lmao 💀
I read Zero pilots would remove everything possible -- armor, seats, even thier radios just to squeeze in another liter of fuel to get to thier designated target area. They would navigate entirely by compass and eyeballs. Getting in the fight was everything but getting back to base not so important
... thus showing that you can, indeed, say that certain cultures (certainly in certain aspects) are superior to others. 0:00-3:13 was extremely interesting. 3:50-20:09 was horrifying.
It is not uncommon for people to sacrifice themselves to defend their homeland and families when these are under mortal attack.
My Grandpa was a gunner on the USS Fuller in the Pacific. He told me stories about shooting down Kamikaze planes aiming directly at them. He said there were some who got so close he could see the pilots faces.
When I lived in rural Japan as an English teacher, I would often go out to sing karaoke. One time an old man came in and sang an enki song which memorialized the kamikaze pilots. It was an interesting moment for me.
I was told that the reason they used a 2nd person to remove their head after disemboweling themselves, was to prevent them from doing something dishonorable (like making noises due to the pain) which would remove the honor regained from taking their own life.
Okay, when you took that second shot out of the spinach juice your sponsor sent, carefully, I seen your eyes water. You slightly squinted your eyes as to hid your inner dialog saying gad damn that taste like leprechaun balls. I have watched your channel since the beginning. And on the 3rd day, a hero was born.