Bedford Public Library

Memoirs of a kamikaze, a World War II pilot's inspiring story of survival, honor and reconciliation, Kazuo Odachi with Shigeru Ohta and Hiroyoshi Nishijima ; translated by Alexander Bennett and Shigeru Ohta

eng

autobiography

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no index present

non fiction

Memoirs of a kamikaze

1144744304

Kazuo Odachi with Shigeru Ohta and Hiroyoshi Nishijima ; translated by Alexander Bennett and Shigeru Ohta

a World War II pilot's inspiring story of survival, honor and reconciliation

An incredible, untold story of survival and acceptance that sheds light on one of the darkest chapters in Japanese history.This book tells the story of Kazuo Odachi who, in 1943, when he was just 16 years-old joined the Imperial Japanese Navy to become a pilot. A year later, he was unknowingly assigned to the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps, a group of airmen whose mission was to sacrifice their lives by crashing planes into enemy ships. Their callsign was "ten dead, zero alive." WWII and his eventual life as a kendo instructor, police officer and detective. His attention to detail, unwavering self-discipline and impenetrably strong mind were often the difference between life and death. Odachi, who is now well into his nineties, kept his Kamikaze past a secret for most of his life. Seven decades later, he agreed to sit for nearly seventy hours of interviews with the authors of this book, who know Odachi personally. He felt it was his responsibility to finally reveal the truth about the Kamikaze pilots: that they were unsuspecting teenagers and young men asked to do the bidding of superior officers who were never held to account.This book offers a new perspective on these infamous suicide pilots. It is not a chronicle of war, nor is it a collection of research papers compiled by scholars. It is a transcript of Odachi's words

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