Most Pilots only Vaguely Thought About Their Enemy
Allied propaganda played a big role on how the world saw kamikaze pilots; this may still dictate how many people think of these daring men. The Allied powers typically depicted the kamikaze as ruthless killing machines determined to kill all others.
However, writer Yuki Tannaka of the Hiroshima Peace institutes argues that many hardly thought of their enemy at all. He argues that the “boy soldiers” in the Japanese army frequently wrote home and give readers a different perception. Tannaka writes:
“In their diaries and letters home, there is barely any reference to their adversaries. The enemy does not exist in their mind. Specifically, virtually no sense of ‘hatred of the enemy’ can be found in their writings. Perhaps this was partly due to the fact that these cadets had never experienced actual combat… In the case of these Japanese youths, a concrete mental concept of ‘the enemy’ did not exist at all.
Instead, they were preoccupied with philosophical ideas such as how to find some spiritual value in their brief lives, how to spend their remaining time meaningfully and how to philosophically justify their suicidal act.”