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Glossary
The attack on Pearl Harbour
A Japanese fighter took off a small air field in the Philippines on October 15, 1944. The plane never got back to its base. The plane was piloted by Captain Masafumi Arima who is sometimes credited with inventing kamikaze tactic. His flight was the first kamikaze attack. On the day of his suicide mission, other pilots tried to reason him out of going ahead with his plan. But he climbed into his plane and flew off towards its target, the USS Franklin. Unfortunately his sacrifice was all in vain. He failed to crash his plane into the battleship and found his death into the Pacific Ocean. But that event opened the way to the attempt to change the course of the war through the use of suicide attack units as suggested by the Vice Admiral Takijiro Onushi . How the units were formed 
After six months of continuous victories following their attack on Pearl
Harbor , the Japanese had suffered serious losses at Midway, in the Solomon
Islands and over Rabaul, and the battle of the Philippines Sea. As a consequence
the Japanese Navy had become very weak
by the summer of 1944 and could not compare to the newer US-made planes.
The Japanese therefore decided to form a suicide attack unit .Commander
Asaiki Tamai asked a group of 23 student pilots to volunteer for the special
attack force which had to be captained by Lieutenant Yukio Seki. They
formed four sub-units . They had a special war mission:
they would deliberately attempt
to crash their aircraft loaded with explosives, extra-bombs and fuel
tanks into naval vessels in order to damage or disable
the ships. They were ready to die for their emperor.
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