Word: onishi
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Dates: during 1945-1945
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Died. General Korechika Anami, Army bureaucrat and War Minister in the Suzuki Cabinet; and Vice Admiral Takejiro Onishi, originator of Kamikaze ("divine wind," i.e., suicide) tactics; both by harakiri, induced by the Japanese surrender; in Tokyo...
Vice Admiral Takejiro Onishi, who was apparently elevated for the suicide from vice chief to chief of the Navy general staff, left a note to the "spirits" of his Kamikaze corps: "With my death I desire to make atonement to the souls of ... you who fell gallantly as human bullets. ... I also have a message to the young men at large. . . . You are the treasure of the nation. Attend properly to your peacetime circumstances. . . . Maintaining steadfastly the spirit of the Special Attack Corps, do your utmost for the revival of the Japanese race...
There is a right and a wrong way to commit harakiri. In the case of General Anami and Vice Admiral Onishi, it is presumed that they donned the usual ceremonial robes, knelt on a dais, surrounded by friends and officials. When the jeweled hara-kiri dagger had been handed to them, they would have made many bows to the Emperor. Then they would have plunged the razor-like dagger into the left side below the waist, at the same time drawing it toward the right. They would thus have fulfilled the hara-kiri command: to die with honor, when...
...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...