アジアの曙

August 19, 1945, Manchuria, The Last Kamikaze: The Special Attack Pilot Who Flew with His Wife④
Former military officers who survived the war scornfully dismissed it as "simply an act of suicide, not a kamikaze attack ordered by orders," and condemned the carrying of a woman as a "violation of military discipline." They were treated almost like war criminals and were not even allowed to be included among the war dead. Therefore, their families, concerned about appearances, did not even hold funerals.

However, thanks to the efforts of comrades who had served in the same unit in Manchuria, a memorial monument to the Shinshu Fumetsu Kamikaze Unit was erected at Setagaya Kannon in Tokyo in 1967, 22 years after the end of the war. Later, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (at the time) recognized them as war dead, and 11 kamikaze pilots, including Tetsuo Tanifuji, were enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine.

August 19, 1945, Manchuria, The Last Kamikaze: The Special Attack Pilot Who Flew with His Wife③
The day before, Asako, having been told of her husband's decision to carry out the Special Attack, pleaded, "Please take me with you." Rather than endure humiliation at the hands of Soviet soldiers and suffer a lifelong scar, even if she survived, she would rather charge into the enemy lines with her beloved husband and die. Tetsuo accepted his new wife's heartfelt wish.

And so, Asako perished along with the eleven Special Attack. According to eyewitness accounts at the Daohushan Airfield, Asako boarded the kamikaze plane wearing a white dress.

August 19, 1945, Manchuria, The Last Kamikaze: The Special Attack Pilot Who Flew with His Wife②
At that time, there were men who defied the Kwantung Army's surrender order and decided to fight the Soviet army. These were Tetsuo Tanifuji and eleven other pilots stationed at Dahushan Airfield in southern Manchuria. They held secret meetings at the inn to plan a Special Attack against Soviet tank units, naming themselves the "Immortal Divine Land Special Attack Unit." Even if it was merely a sting from a ferocious tiger, it would be the first time the Soviet army had faced a suicide attack. Psychologically unsettled by the Soviets' fear that "angering Japanese soldiers would lead to a series of Special Attack" a temporary halt in the Soviet advance would buy some time for Japanese residents to escape. For this reason, Tetsuo and his men decided to sacrifice their own lives.

August 19, 1945, Manchuria, The Last Kamikaze: The Special Attack Pilot Who Flew with His Wife①

...The eleven kamikaze planes began to take off one by one. At that moment, Lieutenant Ichiro Horie, a second-generation kamikaze pilot, pointed to one of the planes and shouted.

"There's a woman in that plane!"
In Manchuria immediately after the end of the war, the Soviet army, which had unilaterally violated the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact and invaded, was carrying out a massacre of Japanese residents. However, the Japanese Army's "Kwantung Army" stationed in Manchuria followed the surrender order, abandoning their comrades and giving up fighting the Soviet army.

Student Youth Genuine Alliance poster:

Let's reclaim Karafuto and the Kuril Islands!