How Effective Is 2%?

The Navy admitted last week that six more U.S. ships had been hit off Okinawa. Five of them were destroyers, whose casualties totaled 464 officers and men: the Twiggs* and the William D. Porter had been sunk; the Ingraham, Newcomb and Leutze had been damaged. The sixth was the Liberty ship Josiah Smiling. All were hit by Kamikaze (Divine Wind) suicide planes except the Twiggs, which may have been struck by an aerial torpedo. Three British carriers and one destroyer (total casualties: 104) were also added to the list of Kamikaze victims last week.

Admiral William F. ("Bull") Halsey had ridiculed the Jap air force as fifth or sixth rate, "instead of third rate." Vice Admiral Marc A. ("Pete") Mitscher had said that suicide planes were "not more than 2% effective . . . they don't worry us very much." But the weight of the Navy's own evidence seemed to indicate that the admirals might have been indulging in the ancient game of fanning the breeze. Navy censors passed a less cheery opinion in a dispatch from Stanley Woodward, burly, globe-trotting sports editor of the New York Herald Tribune: "There is no use denying the fact that damage by Kamikazes to units of the fleet has been much more severe than the people at home believe."

Added Correspondent Woodward : "There is no sure defense against the Kamikaze. More than 90% of them are picked off by the Combat Air Patrol and the ships' gunners. A small proportion go into the water through their own ineptitude. A few . . . have ditched their planes in the water and have been taken prisoner. The ones that carry out their mission do tremendous damage and cause great loss of life among American crews."

How It Started. According to Radio Tokyo, the Kamikaze corps began its "death-defying, body-crashing" tactics last Oct. 15, when Vice Admiral Masabumi Arima flew his plane into a U.S. aircraft carrier, lest "the traditional spirit of the Japanese Navy be spoiled." Thereafter, Radio Tokyo daily intoned the names of "hero gods," who were promoted (posthumously) two or three ranks instead of the customary one. Japanese journalists interviewed little boys whose ambition was to grow up and become suicide pilots.

Not until April did the Navy relax censorship to permit mention of enemy suicide air tactics, one of the most lurid stories in the history of warfare. But on the same day, Franklin Roosevelt died, and for most of the U.S. press the Kamikaze news was completely overshadowed.

How It Grew. Since then the Navy has admitted that 19 ships have been hit by suicide planes, including the carriers Bunker Hill and Saratoga, and one unidentified carrier to which Admiral Mitscher transferred his flag after the Bunker Hill was hit. The destroyer Mohan was announced sunk, the cruiser Nashville and two more destroyers damaged in December. Two ships were admittedly hit in March, seven in April, four in May, one in June. Presumably others among the 80-odd ships hit during the Okinawa battle were victims of suicide pilots. Radio Tokyo says all Jap pilots now are suicidal.

*The Twiggs, whose men had just been told they were going home after 13 months, had all its officers killed or wounded. Pharmacist's Mate Joseph Deworocki took command.

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