Blossoms in the Wind - Human Legacies of the Kamikaze

By October 1944, Japan was fighting for her life. Her fuel reserves and food supply were running out. Most of her fleet lay at the bottom of the Pacific. What remained of her once vaunted air power was hunted quarry in skies ruled by American fighter planes.

Now the unstoppable Allied juggernaut was rapidly closing a noose around the neck of the Japanese nation itself …

In a last-ditch, desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable, the Japanese high command unleashed a new breed of warrior unique in the history of human conflict. They were the kamikaze, idealistic young men believing there could be no greater glory than to sacrifice their lives in suicide attacks to defend the sacred soil of their homeland as a proud nation prepared to choose "the honorable death of the 100 million" over the ignominy of surrender and occupation.