Yeo, Mike Desperate Sunset. Japan's Kamikazes against Allied ships 1944-45

In a last desperate bid to stave off defeat, Japan's High Command launched the terrifying kamikaze attacks. This fully illustrated book examines Imperial Japan's last throw of the dice. Fully illustrated throughout, including rare images from Japanese sources, Desperate Sunset examines the development and evolution of the kamikaze using first-hand accounts, combat reports, and archived histories. By the middle of 1944, Imperial Japan's armed forces were in an increasingly desperate situation. Its elite air corps had been wiped out over the Solomons in 1942-43, and its navy was a shadow of the force that had attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. But the Japanese had one last, desperate, card to play. The Japanese High Command decided that the way to inflict maximum damage on the superior enemy forces was to get the poorly trained Japanese pilots to crash their explosive-laden aircraft onto their target, essentially turning themselves into a guided missile. The kamikazes announced themselves in the immediate aftermath of the Leyte Gulf naval battles, sinking the USS St. Lo and damaging several other ships. The zenith of the kamikaze came in the battle of Okinawa, which included ten kikusui (Floating Chrysanthemum) operations that involved up to several hundred aircraft attacking the US fleet.

By mid-1944, the Imperial Japanese armed forces found themselves in an increasingly desperate situation. Its battle-hardened air forces had been destroyed in the battles for the Solomons in 1942/43, and the fleet was only a shadow of the force that had attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941. But the Japanese had one last, desperate card to play. The Japanese high command decided that the only way to inflict maximum damage on the superior enemy forces was to get the poorly trained Japanese pilots to crash their explosive-laden or bomb-laden planes directly onto the intended target. These kamikaze planes first appeared during the naval battles in Leyte Gulf, sinking the U.S.S. "St. Lo" and severely damaging several other ships. The climax of the kamikaze attacks came in the Battle of Okinawa, which included ten Kikusui (Japanese for "floating chrysanthemum") operations in which several hundred kamikaze aircraft attacked the U.S. fleet.