Final Letters of Kamikaze Pilots - Japan Powered

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Final Letters of Kamikaze A AA
Pilots
MY BOOKS
Posted on MAY 22, 2016
Here in the United States, kamikaze pilots are seen as evil or

misguided at the least. They took the lives of many American soldiers
during World War II. Our history books often fail to show how
kamikaze pilots were as human as the Americans they killed. This is a
collection of letters from kamikaze pilots written just before they flew
their final missions. They show a concern for family and mundane,
everyday things. These translations may be a little awkward at times.
NEVER MISS AN
ARTICLE
Kamikaze Special Attack Group Fugoku
Killed near Luzon Island on 13 November 1944
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Native of Shizuoka Prefecture latest weekly article in your
inbox.
Honorable Older Brother, Email Address
Once again, orders have come down for the attack from Subscribe
which we will never return. I feel not the slightest regret.
Already I have grown intimate with death, the ultimate
character-building passage that we human beings have to
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face. All that is left is to carry out the duties for which I’ve
been trained and to fulfill the Imperial mandate. I am
deeply ashamed that in the twenty-seven years of my life I
have been such an unworthy son and younger brother.
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https://www.japanpowered.com/history/final-letters-of-kamikaze-pilots 1/11
I will have to leave everything up to you. It is with an

untroubled heart that I fulfill the obligations for which I was
born. I am merely carrying out my duties as a man.
The made-in-Manila bar of toilet soap you’ll find in my Anime’s Breast Obsession
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things was given to me by the chief of staff. Please take
good care of Mother, and take care of yourself in the coming
winter.
Yoshitaro
The Controversy Surrounding
Goblin Slayer Episode 1
Captain Furukawa Takao to his wife
Killed in the sea off Kagoshima on 21 April 1945 at age 25
Native of Saga Prefecture
Recently, in calmer moments, I find my thoughts returning

continually to you and our soon-to-be-born child. Please How To Stop Being a Weeb, a
12 Step Program
take good care of your health.
When we first arrived at our base in Kyushu, there was a

sudden change in plans, and we were all ordered into
special attack units. I expected to depart at any moment.
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Every day, as I waited for my first, and last, attack, I reread
the letter you wrote the day you made the jelly and gazed at
the photos of you and Sister Etchan.
Surprisingly, my heart was perfectly at peace-as though

Chan, Kun, Senpai? Japanese
another me were gazing upon the me that was so calm.
Honorifics
But orders, for better or for worse, changed again, and I was
assigned to another squadron and given other duties. We
made two sorties to Okinawa; the first was completed
without incident, and I returned without doing anything
The Two Frogs: A Japanese
especially heroic. Folktale
Mr. Hagiwara, who visited us the other day, asked about

you. Try not to be upset, but he was shot down the day after
he arrived.
What Does Waifu Mean?
Now, more than ever, the fleetingness of human life
astonishes me, but I have become a much stronger person.
You too must be strong. Wait for me. I will return without
fail. Until you’ve safely given birth to our child, I have no
intention of dying easily. Gender Roles of Women in
Modern Japan
Captain Adachi Takuya to his parent
Kamikaze Special Attack Group No. i Seikita
Killed in the Okinawa area on 28 April 1945 at age 23
Native of Hyogo Prefecture
The Ending of Samurai

Honorable Mother and Father, Champloo
The difficulty of the journey you made to see me was clearly

evident in your disheveled hair and in the hollows under
your eyes-it made me want to bend my knees and worship
before you. In the wrinkles on your brows was vivid 10 Anime Essay Topic Ideas
testimony of the pains you took to raise me. Words could
not express my feelings, and what little I did say was

superficial in the extreme.
Yet, although acutely conscious of how little time we had, I

saw in your eyes and in your gaze all you wanted to say but What is a NEET?
couldn’t.
When you took my hand and passed it over your chilblains, I

experienced a sense of profound peacefulness unlike
anything I have experienced since joining up -like being a Anime Visual Language Guide
baby again and longing for the warmth of a mother’s love. It

is because I bask in the beauty of your deep devotion that I
can martyr myself for you-for in death I will sleep in the
world of your love. Washed down with my tears was the
sushi you prepared with such loving care, for it was like 5 Ways to Handle After-Anime
Depression
putting your love to my lips. Though I ate but little, it was
the most delicious meal of my life.
Honorable Mother, even if I was never able to fully accept

the love you gave me, I received so much wisdom from you.
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And Father, your silent words are carved deeply into my
heart. With this I will be able to fight together with you
both. Even if I should die, it will be with a peaceful spirit.
I mean this with all my heart.

Jisei: the Japanese Death Poem
The war zone is where these beautiful emotions are put to

the test. If death means a return to this world of love, there
is no need for me to fear.There is nothing left to do but press
on and fulfill my duty.
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Sister Complex, Examining
At 16oo hours our meeting was over. Watching you walk out Incest in Anime
the gate, I quietly waved goodbye.
Letter from Second Lieutenant Tomisawa.
I trust that everyone has been doing well recently.

You Are What You Watch. The
Effect of Anime on the Mind
I am dearly grateful that you went to all the trouble to come
visit me the other day in such a busy time.
Since my injury is already healed, do not worry.
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At last for me also the time of final service has arrived. I very
deeply appreciate my special upbringing until now. I am one
who lacked courage, but please do speak well of me.
In order to destroy our enemy, I will summon courage with A Look at Gender Expectations
all my might and will go to strike. We are the ones to deliver in Japanese Society
the country from the current crisis. Taking pride in this, I will
surely do it. My comrades have already done it. Even right
now my comrades, believing in those who will follow after C AT E G O R I E S
them, are striking the enemy.
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Shall I keep silent? Shall I try to be quiet about this?
Father, Mother, please do congratulate me. Search …
Brother, sister, please take care of Father and Mother.
I surely will be protecting everybody from the immortal

faraway skies in Nansei Shoto (Okinawa and other islands
in archipelago that stretch south of Kyushu and toward
Taiwan). Even though my body dies, I will certainly defend
you.
Please give my kindest regards to the neighbors. I hope you

will always keep in contact with Mr. Ebihara of Honjo. Since I
have been busy, I have not been able to write a letter to him
for a long time. Please give my greetings to Mr. Nishigaya
also.
With this I give you my final farewell. Thank you for

everything. Goodbye, goodbye.
Second Lieutenant Tomisawa
Lieutenant Kishi Fumikazu to his family
Killed in the Philippines on 24 October 1944 at age 22.
Dear Mother and Father, Brother and Sister,
End of autumn. The backyard must be filled with the cries of

insects, as it is every year around this time. My heart is full
to bursting with memories of the many evenings we spent
talking together. I suppose you are all somewhat concerned
about how I’m doing.
During my visit home in May, Sister said to me, “Ever since

you joined up, Mother has been setting meals before your
photograph. She’s given up drinking tea, and every evening
she visits the shrine to pray for you.” I was so moved that I
was unable to thank her. Mother really wore herself out at
the farewell party the night before I left to join my unit. She
was so busy preparing for my departure that she didn’t sleep
at all the night before.
And on my sun flag, she wrote HAPPILY WAITING FOR A

RETURNING CHILD. Whenever I can, I gaze at those four
noble characters for the nourishment they give my soul. The
fighting has become extremely intense, and there is no
guarantee of my safe return. The image of all those poor
school kids and everyone else singing war songs and waving
a sea of flags as they saw us off to the front is burned
indelibly into my mind. I firmly believe in the benevolence of
the Emperor and of our parents. Mother seems to be
growing weaker by the day. Brother and Sister, you will have
to give her the love that I cannot.
Please forgive my impiety; I pray for the continued good

health of you all. The three photo albums I sent the other
day are keepsakes for Brother and Sister. Please don’t worry
about me. When you hear of my death, be happy for me, for
I will have achieved my ambition.
Goodbye
References
Last Letters of Kamikaze Pilots.(2001) Manoa 13 (1). 120-123.
Naemura, Hichiro. 1993. Rikugun saigo no tokkou kichi: Bansei

tokkoutaiin no isho to isatsu (Gordon, .B.trans.) Osaka: Toho Shuppan.
Posted in HISTORY
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22 thoughts on “Final Letters of

Kamikaze Pilots”
K
May 25, 2022 at 2:14 am
This reminds me of letters from Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney’s, “Kamikaze,

Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in
Japanese History,” (2002), and her follow-up, “Kamikaze Diaries:
Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers,” (2006), both from the
University of Chicago Press. She’s a Research Professor in the
Department of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison. Many of the letters are heartbreaking, simply apologies to
families for leaving them. Most of these pilots were college students
who were well-educated and intelligent enough to know that what they
were doing was a waste. But the nationalist cultural impetus not to
dishonor their families, much clothed in the traditional symbolisms and
rhetoric, compelled an acceptance of death.
My father was born in 1937 in northern Japan, near the start of the
Second Sino-Japanese War. By the age of twelve he’d become a
committed pacifist, much motivated by having witnessed the result of
the firebombing of Aomori. Consequently, I grew up with an insight into
the Japanese anti-war, feminist, communist, anarchist, and Quaker-
pacifist movements that existed in various degrees of conflict with
official government policies, especially those of Imperial Japanese
military-colonialism dating back to the time of the Russo-Japanese War.
I not to long ago wrote something about the feminist/anarchist, Kaneko
Fumiko, who was swept up in the purge after the Great Kanto
Earthquake and who subsequently died in a Japanese prison in 1926.
Reply
Chris Kincaid
May 25, 2022 at 10:16 pm
I will have to give those books a read. Thank you! The Japanese
anti-war movement isn’t discussed too often in books I’ve read.
Usually, the pacifist sections are short before going back into
description of suicide charges. As I’ve delved into bushido, I was
pleased to find most samurai writers frowned upon needless
suicide. Some even discussed how such a death was a dishonor
because it violated filial piety and stole a lifetime of service from
the warrior’s lord. Sadly, these aspects of what we would call
bushido, as you know, were ignored. Did you father or any of the
other pacifist dissenters use these writings to support some of
the stances? Takuan Soho is one writer that jumps into my mind.
Reply
Kumi
May 26, 2022 at 12:35 am
(Apologies for the long comment.)
Several years back, partially in response to government

moves to reinterpret or repeal Article 9 of the Japanese
constitution, the poetry of Akiko Yosano regained some
popularity. (The street protests in front of the National
Diet were epic, and there was a Taiwanese-style near riot
on the legislative floor when they tried to sign
documents.) One poem by Yosano that became popular
during the protests was, 君死にたもうこと勿れ (“Kimi
Shinitamou koto nakare”), or “Brother, You must Not Die,”
which was written to her younger brother and published
in the popular poetry journal, “Myōjō”, during the height
of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Yosano spent most of
her life skirting the edges of arrest for violations of lese-
majesty, and was instrumental in the creation of the girls’
“Bunka Gakuin” (Cultural Academy) in 1922. The girls’
private university in Tokyo’s Shibuya district still exists
today as the “Bunka Gakuen University.” Alas, these kinds
of movements don’t fit the popular Japanese cultural
narrative that seems more fixated on samurai and geisha,
which also means that little has been translated into
English.
The Japanese Christian “Friend” and author, Inazō Nitobe,

wrote a modernized assessment of Bushido for foreigners.
On death, he wrote that, “…it is true courage to live when
it is right to live, and to die only when it is right to die.” He
was implying that courage is not defined by a mere
willingness to perish, and certainly not without purpose.
The Japanese expression for this is, “inujini” (犬死に), a
dog’s death — a term that conveys a tragic sense of
waste.
Takuan Sōhō… Rinzai school… interesting. My father

practiced eastern Japanese “Pure Land”. He was involved
in the late 60s Tokyo University movement… which ended
up leaving him discouraged. I think that Kaneko Fumiko,
whom I mentioned above, had come to some of the same
conclusions forty-five years earlier.
Chris Kincaid
May 27, 2022 at 8:53 am
First, thank you for sharing this and the poem! You’re
right on how this isn’t widely available in English. What
I’ve read only touched on what you described. Details are
rarely offered by English books. Of course, if you read any
book about World War 1 or 2, you don’t see much about
the American protests that went on nor the atrocities
Americans soldiers did. Omission simplifies history.
The poem certainly would be a dangerous one for the

time! Yet, the heartbreak needs to be felt. Too often
history forgets its human element. Thanks again for
sharing!
Kumi
May 26, 2022 at 12:47 am
A translation of the poem that I mentioned:
O My Brother, You Must Not Die
by Akiko Yosano
O my young brother, I cry for you
Don’t you understand you must not die!
You who were born the last of all
Command a special store of parents’ love
Would parents place a blade in children’s hands
Teaching them to murder other men
Teaching them to kill and then to die?
Have you so learned and grown to twenty-four?
O my brother, you must not die!
Could it be the Emperor His Grace
Exposed not to jeopardy of war
But urging men to spilling human blood
And dying in the way of wild beasts,
Calling such death the path to glory?
If His Grace possessed of noble heart
What must be the thoughts that linger there?
Michael
June 7, 2020 at 11:08 pm
These letters are among the most powerful writings I have ever read. I
admire their devotion to their families and their nation. Unlike some
Westerners who, against their better judgement, freely spread dissent
and show disdain for their own societies and predecessors, I do not fault
American commanders for deciding to do what was done to end
Japanese imperialism. The loss of life and property was horrific but
ultimately it did enable the transformation of Japan into the peaceful
and highly functional society it is today. Were it not for those bold
decisions, more lives would almost certainly have been lost on both
sides to bring about imperial Japan’s surrender. Japan is now the envy of
the world; who knows what it would be like had America not intervened.
That our two nations are close allies and strongly tied by trade and
friendship bodes well for the decisions that were made.
Reply
Chris Kincaid
June 8, 2020 at 7:04 pm
These letters gave me pause when I first read them. Death

poems also have the same effect: these are the final public
thoughts of people just before they died.
Reply
Ric
September 26, 2021 at 12:41 am
“These letters are among the most powerful writings I have ever
read. I admire their devotion to their families and their nation.
Unlike some Westerners who, against their better judgement,
freely spread dissent and show disdain for their own societies
and predecessors.”
There was some serious opposition to the Japanese Army

departments going as far as they did pre-WW2. They were all
killed and otherwise suppressed though.
Arguably, the leadership, culture, and the people themselves

deserve a whole lot of scorn for what they did during WW2. No
idea why you think dissent and disdain shouldn’t be there for
their society if they go through with metaphorically jumping into
a bonfire they built themselves.
“Against their better judgement…” I’m not too sure about your
judgement frankly, you picked a nation that essentially thought
that taking on a first tier threat, when they’re stalemated and
struggling with a mid-tier threat was a good idea, resulting in
them unconditionally surrounding, their cities burnt, tens of
millions of lives lost, countless maimed and permanently injured,
and getting to be the only recipients of hostile nuclear devices.
This is the result of doing exactly what you are praising got them,
neverminded that they kill a lot of innocent people as well.
Maybe the Japanese people who dissented and were disdainful
of the culture the military adopted of “just trust the army people”
were right. I struggle to find a worse example for the things you
are supporting than this.
And what military interventions the western world took part in

during the last 50-60 years did you think were good anyway?
How does one look at Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, all the other
little interventions here and there and think that public suspicion
on the uses of force are not deserved?
Reply
Chris Kincaid
John Toland, in his book “The Rising Sun” accounts of

several instances where Japan and the US could’ve and
almost-did avoid the war. It saddened me to think how
pride among a handful of people ultimately led to such
death and destruction. But that is the way of human
civilization.
John Cowling
March 9, 2022 at 10:03 am
I agree that these letters are profoundly and deeply moving, so

much so that I had tears in my eyes when reading the long one
to his parents. I must strongly disagree with your statement
regarding what I assume alludes to the bombings that brought
about the immediate surrender of Imperial Japan. So much of the
historical commentary regarding this ghastly part of US history,
much of it monopolized zealously by hawkish professors and
ahistorical statist reactionaries, is deeply propagandized. Fascist
Imperial,J apan, whose horrendous ethnic cleansing and war
crimes was among the worst purveyors of this kind of violence in
modern history, had been defeated by the time Okinawa fell. Its
navy, never having dominance against the Americans since
Midway, were no longer an offensive threat, the US had complete
air superiority and with the Soviet Union advancing rapidly
through Manchuria and an increasing American blockade, Japan
was utterly trapped, bereft of allies and had no possibility of
breakout or imports. One third of the Japanese government was
in favour of surrender, one third (the aggressive nationalist
military cult which still exists in Japanese parliament today), and
the final third, including Hirohito and his close advisors, wanted
to sue for peace and end the war. Essentially, the Pacific War was
over, at great cost to all parties involved. A mainland invasion
was certainly being planned, but many in the US army thought it
unnecessary, with the Red Army, then the world’s largest, tripling
the blockading power. The firebombing of Tokyo and the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what you refer to as ‘bold
decisions’ intentionally slaughtered hundreds of thousands of
non combatants, women, children, the elderly, workers, killed
more from leukemia and thyroid cancer, utterly destroyed the
concept of American righteousness and unleashed a specter,
nuclear war, from which humanity will probably always live in
fear. Eisenhower, Nimitz and LeMay, to name a few, opposed the
bombings, but Truman saw an opportunity to make a show of
power to the Soviets, punish the Japanese and stake a claim for
American interests in the East, even going so far as bringing
Nagasaki’s date three days closer to not give Japan time to
surrender. Ironically, once the American occupation of Japan
began after VJ day the US pardoned many heinous Japanese war
criminals, casting doubt onto the bombings being a question of
justice. The notion that the bombings ‘transformed ‘ Japan into
what it is today is a strange one to me, I find it hard to believe
any goodwill between the west and Japan was formed by the
mass murder of it’s civilian inhabititants. Speaking subjectively, I
don’t find the Western-Japanese relationship all that healthy in
truth, from us distilling an ancient island culture into crass vapid
exotic consumer media and cheap cars, and they having memory
holed their own dark 20th century and suffering (far from
functional) from the social decay from their embrace of
neoliberal capitalism, which has seen the erosion of labor
movements, the rise in Japanese exceptionalism and the
phenomenon of such a highly stressed and profit driven middle
class that it threatens the traditional family structures of Japanese
culture. So to finish, I must say I think the bombings of Japan
rank among the worst war crimes of the 20th century, and I, as
an American, Westerner and humanist, am more than happy ,
proud even, with my best judgement, to freely spread dissent
and show disdain against the crimes and cruelties enacted upon
the citizens of Japan in the 1944-45. I most certainly fault any
commander or society, my own included, that commits such acts,
and I would hope that my Japanese equivalent would show the
same contempt towards his predecessors in Manchuria and the
Philippines. I truly believe that a citizen’s most sacred duty is to
hold his or her own government to account, not from afar as a
foreigner but from within as a sovereign son.
Reply
Chris Kincaid
March 10, 2022 at 7:40 am
When you dive deep into history, you start to see just
how complicated events and perspectives can become.
And you see how uncertainty will always remain. Did the
a-bombs convince the hold-out factions of Japan to stop
fighting? Perhaps. Did the US need to drop them?
Perhaps not for Japan’s surrender, but perhaps yes to
stave off a bloodier conflict with the Soviet Union. Then
again, perhaps not. Either way, the actions were done, and
we need to consider the lessons and consequences of
those actions so we can do better. It just shows that war is
one of the most primitive of human behaviors, and one
we really should leave behind.
Mon
May 4, 2020 at 1:17 am
In Palawan, there is a World War 2 Museum set up by the sons of a

prisoner of ward in World War 2. His grandfather escaped the prison
that the Japanese set up before the rest of his troupe were burned alive.
There were Japanese flags in the museum with Japanese characters all
over and the museum curator said Japanese visitors to the museum
translated them as letters of families of the young soldiers. It is sad,
especially thinking that many of these soldier were just starting with
their lives – late teens and early 20s
Reply
Chris Kincaid
May 4, 2020 at 10:40 am
I’m glad the museum exists. World War II is quickly fading into
history as the people who live through it die, and with them will
also die the lessons the war taught.
Reply
Fred
“how kamikaze pilots were as human as the Americans they killed.”
Actually they were more human, they were giving their lives to try to
stop Americans who were mass bombing Japanese cities and mass
murdering Japanese civilians. This is why they were willing to do
kamikaze and die.
Did the Japanese mass bomb and murder American civilians? No, they
just attacked a US army base that was on occupied land the US took
over from the Kingdom of Hawaii.
If you are unaware of the US bombings of Japanese cities, go look at

Tokyo in 1945, nearly totally flat. The US indiscriminately napalm
bombed 66 Japanese cities in WW2, causing mass civilian death (which
was the purpose).
Who are the real war criminals?

Go look at what the British and Americans did in Dresden also.
Reply
Chris Kincaid
I won’t defend the actions of the US during the war. It is still

common to find people in the US who hold a grudge against the
Japanese (though this is a shrinking population) for the deaths of
their family members. I wanted to remind them of their shared
humanity.
Reply
Moon
October 23, 2018 at 10:48 am
Japan itself isn’t as human as the Kamikaze Pilots. They tried to

take over China, They actually did take over Korea, and they
teamed with Hitler. Adding to that, the attack on Pearl Harbor,
Bombers actually did kill many people. Sure, some people were
killed by American Bombs during the attack on Pearl Harbor, but
the Japanese brought it on.
Reply
Chris Kincaid
October 26, 2018 at 10:25 pm
WWII provides an example of how nationalism ends with

suffering on all sides.
Mon
May 4, 2020 at 1:20 am
The Philippines was an American territory.
The Philippines has no animosity with Japan in terms of WW2

anymore, but your comment justifying the war will definitely rub
people the wrong way.
It was war, so people died. Both sides suffered. Justifying each

others action take for granted the suffering of the others.
Reply
Anon
December 11, 2020 at 7:43 am
You are an idiot. Both sides were full of monsters, and trying to
justify one being better than the other is outrageous.
Reply
Takashi Furukawa
August 17, 2018 at 11:22 pm
Furukawa, above mentioned, died shot by B29. Six years later,vhis plane
was found offshore of small island. I went to the island with my mother.
Reply
Chris Kincaid
August 18, 2018 at 8:45 am
Thank you for providing more details. I had hoped the letters
would provide the human story behind what books often show
as dry history.
Reply
Salatiso
February 29, 2020 at 8:26 am
They do, thank you.
Reply
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11/25/22, 8:13 PM Final Letters of Kamikaze Pilots - Japan Powered

ANIME BOOKS H I S TO RY FOLKLORE WRITING C U LT U R E PHILOSOPHY ABOUT

Here in the United States, kamikaze pilots are seen as evil or

Killed near Luzon Island on 13 November 1944

Subscribe here to receive the

Manga Sound Effect Guide

I will have to leave everything up to you. It is with an

Killed in the sea off Kagoshima on 21 April 1945 at age 25

Native of Saga Prefecture

Recently, in calmer moments, I find my thoughts returning

When we first arrived at our base in Kyushu, there was a

Surprisingly, my heart was perfectly at peace-as though

Mr. Hagiwara, who visited us the other day, asked about

Kamikaze Special Attack Group No. i Seikita

Killed in the Okinawa area on 28 April 1945 at age 23

Native of Hyogo Prefecture

The Ending of Samurai

The difficulty of the journey you made to see me was clearly

not express my feelings, and what little I did say was

Yet, although acutely conscious of how little time we had, I

When you took my hand and passed it over your chilblains, I

baby again and longing for the warmth of a mother’s love. It

Honorable Mother, even if I was never able to fully accept

I mean this with all my heart.

The war zone is where these beautiful emotions are put to

Letter from Second Lieutenant Tomisawa.

I trust that everyone has been doing well recently.

Since my injury is already healed, do not worry.

11 Steps to Stop Being an Incel

Shall I keep silent? Shall I try to be quiet about this?

Father, Mother, please do congratulate me. Search …

Brother, sister, please take care of Father and Mother.

I surely will be protecting everybody from the immortal

Please give my kindest regards to the neighbors. I hope you

With this I give you my final farewell. Thank you for

Second Lieutenant Tomisawa

Lieutenant Kishi Fumikazu to his family

Killed in the Philippines on 24 October 1944 at age 22.

Dear Mother and Father, Brother and Sister,

End of autumn. The backyard must be filled with the cries of

During my visit home in May, Sister said to me, “Ever since

And on my sun flag, she wrote HAPPILY WAITING FOR A

Please forgive my impiety; I pray for the continued good

Last Letters of Kamikaze Pilots.(2001) Manoa 13 (1). 120-123.

Naemura, Hichiro. 1993. Rikugun saigo no tokkou kichi: Bansei

‹ PREVIOUS POST NEXT POST ›

Considering the Bombing How Tajima Shume was

22 thoughts on “Final Letters of

This reminds me of letters from Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney’s, “Kamikaze,

(Apologies for the long comment.)

Several years back, partially in response to government

The Japanese Christian “Friend” and author, Inazō Nitobe,

Takuan Sōhō… Rinzai school… interesting. My father

The poem certainly would be a dangerous one for the

A translation of the poem that I mentioned:

O My Brother, You Must Not Die

O my young brother, I cry for you

Don’t you understand you must not die!

You who were born the last of all

Command a special store of parents’ love

Would parents place a blade in children’s hands

Teaching them to murder other men

Teaching them to kill and then to die?

Have you so learned and grown to twenty-four?