When the Suicide Pilots Said Goodbye

[unhappycamper]

http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/01/suicide-pilots-said-goodbye/



A kamikaze plane on display at the Peace Museum of Kamikaze Pilots in Chiran in Japan.

When the Suicide Pilots Said Goodbye
By Suvendrini Kakuchi

CHIRAN (Japan), Jan 26 2014 (IPS) - They were known as the Kamikaze who swooped down on enemy ships with their bomb-laden planes – with the pilots inside. A museum here is now planning to register the last letters of Japan’s famed World War II suicide bombers as a Unesco Memory of the World document. The museum is calling these records “symbolic” of the country’s commitment to peace.

The move comes amid continuing political tension between Japan and its former East Asian colonies, China and the Korean peninsula, over its war past.

The Kamikaze pilots were a special task force assigned to protect their country from Western Allied forces at the tail end of World War II. The official number of Kamikaze deaths is 1,036.

Storytellers employed by the Peace Museum of Kamikaze Pilots describe them as brave young men who sacrificed themselves to protect Japan from the invading Western colonial powers.