Customer Reviews

Thunder Gods

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Thunder Gods: The Kamikaze Pilots Tell Their Story by Hatsuho Naito is mistitled in that there is very little in the book in which the pilots tell their own story. Instead Naito's book is more of a chronological story of the history of the Kamikaze in general and the Thunder Gods in particular. While it is understandable that few of the pilots may be alive, the title creates expectations that were not fulfilled. The Thunder Gods were suicide pilots of jet propelled bombs; while Kamikaze pilots traditionally piloted airplanes.

Naito startes with the development of the rationale behind the use of kamikazes and the initial reluctance of the Japanese command to utilize them. Interestingly, it was not the command officers who pushed the idea of their use, but mid level officers who kept the idea alive. While this is a strong part of the book, Naito should have spent more time describing the conflict and how that conflict finally got resolved in favor of their use. The state of the war, and the continual Japanese loses, surely had a major impact on the decision,. But the massive use of suicide missions cannot be solely explained by theses loses. While history is full of examples of nations losing wars, the use of kamikazes on the scale utilized by the Japanese was unprecedented. The reader is left with the only explanation that the reason is somehow unique to the Japanese psyche. Such an explanation, while it may have some relevance, is too easy.

As a chronological history, the book is otherwise excellent. It reads easily and is well written.

I read it expecting more eye-witness accounts, which is actually pretty dumb of me given that the eye witnesses are dead. There isn't much of "telling their story" in the book. Still, an interesting look at the Exploding Cherry Blossoms of World War II. Introduction by James Michener.