Question about kamikaze pilots

[waldorf]

In Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan Witts book Enola gay, I came across a reference that sometimes cockpits were screwed down so that the pilots could not change their minds on their way to their targets and bail out. This was found on page 135 of the book. Is this true and if it was how common was the practice?

Chris

[Acolyte]

From what I know, it was pretty common. Those kamikaze pilots that did not have the canopy screwed on were considered very honourable fighters (e.g. the Ohka pilots).

[Goldfish]

This is the first I have heard of having the cockpits screwed shut and I would highly doubt it. For starters, many kamikaze pilots didn't wear parachutes and couldn't bail out in any case. Second, for pilots that got cold feet, the standard "out" was to return to base and claim that they could not find the target or got lost in the weather (a valid excuse in both cases because of the inexperience of the pilots). Bailing out, unless one intended to surrender, would have been an admission of cowardice, while returning to base because you couldn't find the target was a more "face-saving" excuse. I have read several kamikaze memoirs, and all of them, since they survived the war, mention "getting lost" and "failing to find a target" many times. Take Saburo Sakai, for instance, who was sent on a suicide mission from Iwo Jima. En route, he saw a vision of his mother telling him not to waste his life, so he led his flight back to base. His report-"failed to locate target due to weather".

[David_Aiken]

In Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan Witts book Enola gay, I came across a reference that sometimes cockpits were screwed down so that the pilots could not change their minds on their way to their targets and bail out. This was found on page 135 of the book. Is this true and if it was how common was the practice?

Chris

MYTH about the cockpits....

Pilots were NOT 'screwed down' in their cockpits... that is a MYTH which came out in post-war articles by popular writers and picked up by your source without checking the facts.

and YES they had parachutes in the cockpit...the seat was designed to have a parachute to sit on...

So they HAD to sit on a parachute...whether they buckled it on or not was their own decision.

Cheers,
David Aiken

[waldorf]

Thank you gentlemen. It sounded a little fishy which is why I posted the question.

Chris