Divine Wind
An important event in Japanese history occurred in the year 1281 when the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan invaded the island nation with an overwhelming army and naval armada. Vastly outnumbered, the Japanese fought back, but were saved only by an unseasonable typhoon that scattered the invasion fleet. This incident was considered an intervention by divine providence and remembered as the Kamikaze or Divine Wind.
In 1944, facing the inexorable Allied advance toward the home islands, the Japanese military turned to a desperate measure. A modern “divine wind” of suicide bombers was unleashed on the American fleet. The first wave of Kamikazes hurtled down at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in October 1944, where the escort carrier St. Lo became the first victim of the new tactic. These attacks built to a crescendo at Okinawa where thirty-six ships and landing craft were destroyed. It is estimated that by war-end 4,900 U.S. sailors were killed by as many as 5,000 Kamikaze attacks.515
In May 1945 a twenty-three-year-old Japanese pilot wrote his last letter home before his one and only mission:
Dear Parents: Please congratulate me. I have been given a splendid opportunity to die. This is my last day. The destiny of our homeland hinges on the decisive battle in the seas to the south where I shall fall like a blossom from a radiant cherry tree. I shall be a shield for His Majesty and die cleanly along with my squadron leader and other friends.516
The individual courage of this Japanese airman cannot be denied. It is the policy of intentional suicide that is so abhorrent to our value system. Our concern for human life stems from our loyalty to a God who created us in his image and places eternal value on every human soul. Even in wartime Americans have and will hopefully always continue to conserve lives, whether they be our own troops, civilians, or even enemy combatants. No human life is expendable.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
—Genesis 1:26
USS Bunker Hill burns after suicide attack. (National Archives)