Murder & Suicide

Tokyo announced a shake-up in its Navy, bringing Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa into the top operational command.

U.S. Navy war planners at once dug into their secret files for a dossier on the man who thus became their most direct enemy.

This much was already on the record: Ozawa was tough and aggressive, but above all he was air-minded -- for 25 years he had boosted the cause of Japanese naval aviation. Tokyo itself supplied another reason why Ozawa was chosen: he had "thoroughly familiarized himself with surface special-attack [i.e., suicide] tactics."

The same strain ran through the other appointments. Admiral Koshiro Oikawa, who had accomplished nothing in ten months as chief of naval staff, was kicked upstairs to an ornamental advisory role; fat, ugly Admiral Soemu Toyoda moved up from commander in chief of the fleet to chief of naval staff, opening the way for Ozawa. And into Ozawa's place, as vice chief of staff, came Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi, who was the "originator as well as one of the persons who perfected the air special-attack [Kamikaze] corps."

Born of Desperation. The basis of future Japanese naval and naval-air war was thus laid bare. With their air force in tatters and their navy cut to shreds, the enemy was preparing for a last-ditch defense by any means at hand. And to the Japanese, that meant murder and suicide.

The Japs would throw into the continuing battle off Okinawa, and into any other operations in the islands, every available aircraft. To the strength of the Kamikaze Corps was already added that of the Jinrai (piloted buzz-bombs) and the Giretsu (airborne saboteurs). Ozawa would go further: he would take surface ships, rig them for self-destruction, then --if the Kamikaze squadrons could blast a way through the "picket line" (outer naval screen)--he would send the ships in to try "body-crashing" tactics against major U.S. fleet units.*

No doubt there would be heavy casualties among U.S. ships in the future, as in the recent past. But there was one great flaw in the Japs' plan: while they could be sure of committing suicide, they still could not be sure of getting away with enough murder in the process. Radio Tokyo, announcing that Japan's entire naval air corps had been converted to a suicide outfit, explained with admirable clarity: "If this tactic is successful, victory is assured for Japan. If otherwise, the navy will have many heroes for our shrines."

*Midget craft made such attacks on the fleet off Okinawa in the first days of May. In a ramming incident off Luzon, disclosed by the Navy last week, a large support landing craft was destroyed by two small boats packed with explosives, which "just disintegrated against the side of the ship," killing 24 U.S. sailors.

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