The Kamikaze Hunters

by Will Iredale

Overview

In May 1945, with victory in Europe established, the war was all but over. But on the other side of the world, the Allies were still engaged in a bitter struggle to control the Pacific. And it was then that the Japanese unleashed a terrible new form of warfare: the suicide pilots, or Kamikaze.Drawing on meticulous research and unique personal access to the remaining survivors, Will Iredale follows a group of young men from the moment they signed up through their initial training to the terrifying reality of fighting against pilots who, in the cruel last summer of the war, chose death rather than risk their country's dishonorable defeat—and deliberately flew their planes into Allied aircraft carriers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681771793
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	06/07/2016
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Will Iredale joined the London Sunday Times in 1999, working first on the foreign news desk and subsequently undercover investigations. He lives in London with his family. This is his first book.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Maps xi

Prologue 1

Introduction 6

1 Flying sailors 13

2 They were like gods 27

3 Wakey-wakey, rise and shine, show a leg 51

4 Bags of food and lights and girls 70

5 Wings 83

6 They don't know what they want and they won't be happy till they get it 100

7 Flat-hatters 115

8 Blooded 136

9 Flat tops 152

10 An enterprise of the first magnitude 166

11 The balloons go up 184

12 The jitter effect 203

13 The body crashers 223

14 April fools 246

15 A formidable return 261

16 Little yellow baskets 269

17 Breaking point 286

18 The absolute full 303

19 The final onslaught 320

Epilogue 340

Acknowledgements 347

Bibliography 349

Notes and References 353

Index 371

Editorial Reviews

05/16/2016
British journalist Iredale revisits the history of the British Royal Navy's short but violent operations in the Pacific Theater late in WWII. He uses official records, interviews, diaries, and letters to relate how the British Navy deployed to the Pacific, beginning in spring of 1945, in order to support the American fleet as the U.S. waged the final battles of WWII against Japan. The majority of the book's early chapters describe the state of Fleet Air Arm as well as the training and preparation its pilots received as they prepared for combat. British naval aviation was far behind its American Navy allies, and many of the British pilots trained in the U.S. Additionally, by the end of the war most of the aircraft in use were American types. By the time the British aircraft carriers arrived, the worst of the war in the Pacific was over, but the final months were still very dangerous. In one squadron of 18 pilots, only three were still flying as the war ended; another squadron lost four of 10 aircraft in the last 10 days of the war. Iredale's enjoyable work depicts an important and oft-overlooked moment in the histories of both the Pacific Theater and the British Navy. Illus. (June)

Publishers Weekly

A gripping account of British fighter pilots in the Pacific.

Rick Stroud

Will Iredale writes with verve and expertise to illuminate the story of the young men who lived and died at the fag end of the war in the battle against Japan in the summer of 1945. His story is laced with vivid anecdotes which wonderfully illustrate the character and calibre of the individuals who took up this great challenge.

Jonathan Dimbleby

05/15/2016
Relying heavily on survivor recollections, journalist Iredale's work presents a nearly forgotten account of the carrier pilots and deck crewmen who served in the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) during the closing phase of World War II. In March 1945, the BPF joined the U.S. Fifth Fleet. This sizeable task force was led by six major aircraft carriers, including 250 fighter aircraft and thousands of naval personnel. In April, the BPF came under Japanese kamikaze attack southeast of Okinawa, even as American Marines landed on the island. Iredale vividly outlines how the carriers' plotting rooms traced kamikaze contacts on radar and dispatched intercepting fighters, as well as the fast-paced nature of aerial dogfights. Between April and May 1945, every British carrier was damaged by kamikazes, killing 44 men and wounding nearly 100. According to Iredale, a total of 105 British airmen would be lost by wars' end. Following V-J Day in September 1945, the BPF oversaw the surrender of Hong Kong and the transport of former Allied prisoners to Canada, Australia, and the United States. VERDICT A powerful testament to World War II's Anglo-American military alliance. Recommended for military and diplomatic historians, general readers, and all libraries.—John Carver Edwards, formerly with Univ. of Georgia Libs.

Library Journal

2016-04-06
Surprising history of the "half-forgotten" British effort to help the United States end the war with Japan in 1945. While the British were celebrating victory over Germany, the U.S. war against Japan raged on, enlisting the help of the little-known air arm of the Royal Navy, the Fleet Air Arm. As London Sunday Times journalist Iredale delineates in this enlightening work, Prime Minister Winston Churchill knew that the British needed to work alongside the Americans in defeating Japan or be open "to American accusations that Britain's main concern was restoring its rule in its old colonies while the Americans bore the brunt of the final battles." And while the U.S. did bear the brunt against Japan (e.g., the Philippines, Okinawa) the FAA, operating from the aircraft carriers Indomitable, Victorious, Illustrious, and Indefatigable, was employed to strike at Japan-occupied Indonesia's two most important oil refineries. Iredale fashions a meticulous account of the run-up to these late campaigns, detailing the aircraft involved, namely the Royal Navy Corsairs, Hellcats, and Spitfires, mass-produced with American help under the lend-lease program; as well as the training of the FAA pilots first in Canada, then in Michigan and Florida. U.S. Adm. Ernest J. King was not keen on using the British ("The Limeys had never fought in the Pacific"), but the pilots proved themselves admirably against the desperate eleventh-hour weapon by the Japanese, the suicide kamikaze pilots. In "softening up" the Sakishima Islands for the Marine invasion, the Royal Navy (under American command for the first time in history) targeted airfields beginning in March 1945 on Miyako and Ishigaki islands and several sites over mainland Japan as well. In May alone, the British Pacific Fleet lost more than 40 percent of its original aircraft, and all of the British carriers had been hit at least once by a kamikaze. In an impressive first book, Iredale fairly weighs the effectiveness of the British effort. An engaging history of an underreported facet of the Pacific war.

Kirkus Reviews