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View Full Version : Japanese kamikazes died 'against their will'



John Lindsey
30th September 2001, 04:45
Complete story at:
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010921-15065120.htm


ZUSHI, Japan — Former kamikaze pilot Kenichiro Onuki, 80, believes only 10 percent of his World War II brothers-in-arms shared the same fanaticism as the terrorists who caused havoc last week in the United States.

"Only about 10 percent of the pilots were real volunteers, and those 10 percent probably had something in common with the fanatics that crashed their planes in New York," Mr. Onuki said of his wartime colleagues.
"That 10 percent died for the emperor without thinking about anything, with no worries.
"They have something in common, if we are talking about their blindness," Mr. Onuki said of the airline hijackers who rammed passenger jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, and those who were foiled in a fiery crash in rural Pennsylvania apparently because of resistance aboard United Flight 93.
Mr. Onuki survived only because his aircraft, carrying a 550-pound bomb and just enough fuel to get him over the target — American warships engaged in the Battle of Okinawa in April 1945 — was shot down during his mission. After an emergency landing on an island, Mr. Onuki was rescued by Japanese troops.
"There are two types of Islam — the extremists and the moderates. In my day, too, some people were fanatical supporters of the emperor," he said in an interview with Agence France-Presse. But in his view, the difference is that last week's attacks in the United States were not the same as war.
"This is not a war. Those are guerrilla acts, ... terrorism," said the retired architect.

hikari
1st October 2001, 16:17
Wouldn't be just nice if these terrorists got a deeper understanding of the Japanese culture and learned how to protest by commiting seppuku? ;)