cover image Thunder Gods: The Kamikaze Pilots Tell Their Story

Thunder Gods: The Kamikaze Pilots Tell Their Story

Hatsuho Naito. Kodansha America, $18.95 (215pp) ISBN 978-0-87011-909-5

The Thunder Gods were a Japanese naval-aviation unit trained for one-way missions in flying bombs called the Okha , which were launched from a mother-plane. Employed mostly in the 1945 Okinawa campaign, they sank one U.S. destroyer at a cost of 438 pilots and crew members. The author, who took part in the wind-tunnel testing of the Okha , describes the flying bomb's conception, development and the training of the pilots. Volunteers were categorized as Compliant, Eager, Very Eager and--if they signed their application in blood--Earnest. Missions are described from the mother-plane crew's point of view or by Okha pilots who were not launched at the target for one reason or another. More fully than in other recent books on kamikazes , Naito explains the spiritual dimension of the kamikaze phenomenon and its complicated effect on individual pilots. Photos. BOMC selection; paperback rights to Dell. (May)