With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Former sailors shake hands with Japan kamikaze

Sixty-two years ago they were bitter enemies -- one a Japanese pilot trained to crash his plane into U.S. ships on a suicide mission, the other two survivors of a ship sunk by one of the pilot's kamikaze comrades.

But on Friday the three now elderly men shook hands and blinked back tears during a meeting that the former U.S. servicemen said finally helped them come to terms with their traumatic past.

"You feel terrible towards the people who did this to you and as the years go on and we get older, it's a terrible burden to carry," said Fred Mitchell, an 81-year-old survivor of the U.S.S. Drexler, a destroyer sunk by kamikaze off Okinawa in 1945....

The meeting was arranged by the makers of a documentary on the kamikaze released in Tokyo on Saturday, which shows that not all the young men who trained for the missions faced their almost certain death gladly.

Read entire article at Reuters