Nothing New Under the Rising Sun

The evolution of technology over time is a formula that keeps compounding and increasing the capability of belligerents in war while truncating the timetables to achieve new effects. Ukraine currently hosts a conflict where both belligerents execute the abilities of one-way platforms and projectiles on each other. The United States Pacific campaign during World War II on Okinawa provides a foreshadowing of the same effects today's drones and robotic vehicles inflict in Ukraine, the difference being the Japanese use of men to pilot or deliver one-way platforms and munitions.

These attacks led Admiral Toyoda, who commanded all Japanese air forces in the East China Sea, to concentrate large numbers of airframes on Kyushu and Formosa to converge on the U.S. Military forces around Okinawa. This convergence of assets led to mass waves of kamikaze attacks. The first of these waves struck on April 6 and inflicted a "distressing amount of damage." A chart constructed to depict these attacks showed the non-linear operational area of Okinawa. The Japanese attacked U.S. Navy ships in all cardinal directions in the island's littorals and near sub-objectives on the smaller islands that orbit Okinawa.

The number of aircraft used dramatically increased the probability of a ship getting hit during the Battle for Okinawa. After-action reports showed that some ships were attacked by up to 50 planes, with as many as nine hits reported. This accuracy was due to human pilots guiding the projectiles rather than dropping inert torpedoes or bombs. With the losses of experienced pilots in the Battle of the Leyte Gulf and other engagements, the Japanese found that even inexperienced pilots were able "to make corrections and to take evasive actions – feats which no ordinary bomb can perform."

Unique to the Okinawa operation, the Japanese designed an air weapon specifically for suicide pilots, a piloted rocket bomb. The Baka had a 2400-pound warhead and an airspeed indicator calibrated for 600 knots; therefore, the Baka was both deadly and capable of high speeds. Its range was only 30-35 miles; however, it moved to its objective attached to the fuselage of bigger planes called Betty's. Reports from Okinawa indicated that a puff of brown smoke usually presaged its release from its escort. The Baka often appeared invisible, except for the brown smoke trailing it to its target.

The Japanese use of suicide tactics in the air gave them numerous advantages. First, the Japanese doubled their operational reach to target ships and ground-based supply and command nodes because there was no return flight. Second, the guided nature of the planes and Baka bombs allowed the Japanese to possess a guided missile capability before the technology existed to enable it. Thus, their sense of morality in the war gave them an edge in developing asymmetries to combat American materiel dominance. Third, they could use less-skilled flyers, particularly in some training aircraft, while saving more experienced flyers for the piloted missiles. This matching of pilots to equipment was necessary because of the loss of experienced aviators; thus, the quality of equipment and personnel should be aligned since there was not enough quality in either materiel or airmen.

Japanese leaders also sought to inflict further damage on the American landing forces through piloted suicide boats and torpedoes, suicide swimmers, and lunge mines used against tanks by individual soldiers. The captured narrative from a talk given to Japanese Soldiers who were part of a suicide unit for use against tanks gives a new direction for self-sacrifice. "It is imperative that all troops have a thorough understanding of tactics of a suicidal nature, with each man destroying a plane, ship or tank to smash the enemy who depends on materiel superiority." American momentum significantly changed Japanese posture in the Central Pacific Theater and manifested in these new tactics on Okinawa.

Japanese military leadership expended human-delivered bombs against materiel targets. They preserved their infantry formations for a war of attrition, anchored in one of history's most formidable defense arrays, much like the brutal faceoff in Ukraine.

S.L. Nelson has served from the tactical to strategic level as a military officer. His views are his own and do not represent the position of the U.S. DoD.