Japan’s new look at kamikazes

JOSEPH COLEMAN; The Associated Press

Published: July 9th, 2007 01:00 AM

Enlarge image DAVID GUTTENFELDER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Photos of Japanese kamikaze pilots, who gave their lives in World War II suicide attacks against Allied forces, hang on a wall last month at the Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots in Chiran, Japan. Some say such actions shouldn’t be held up as an example for modern youth.

CHIRAN, Japan – On April 12, 1945, Lt. Shinichi Uchida faced a terrifying mission – crash his plane into a U.S. warship. But the young kamikaze’s final letter to his grandparents was full of bravado.

“Now I’ll go and get rid of those devils,” the 18-year-old wrote shortly before his flight, vowing to “bring back the neck” of President Roosevelt. He never returned.

For many, such words are redolent of the militarism that drove Japan to ruin in World War II. But for an increasingly bold cadre of conservatives, Uchida’s words symbolize something else: just the kind of guts and commitment that Japanese youth need today.

Long a synonym for the waste of war, the suicidal fliers are now being glorified in a film written by Tokyo’s governor, Shintaro Ishihara, a well-known nationalist and co-author of the 1989 book “The Japan that Can Say No.” And a museum about the kamikazes in the southern town of Chiran, near the airstrip where Uchida and others took off, gets more than 500,000 visitors a year.

“The worries, sufferings, and misgivings of these young people … are something we cannot find in today’s society,” Ishihara said when his movie, “I Go to Die For You,” opened this spring.

“That is what makes this portrait of youth poignant and cruel, and yet so exceptionally beautiful,” he said.

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