I was musing about kamikazes in WWII and began to wonder:
Is there any conceivable situation in which the U.S. military might require kamikazes or suicide missions (that is, missions specifically entailing suicide, not just a merely highly-hazardous-but-still-meant-to-survive mission),
Is there any historical precedent of anyone in the U.S. military, or militia, or American civilian rebels, attacking the enemy in a willfully suicidal manner (I don’t think Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg truly counts; more like suicide bombers);
What would be the legal implications for the U.S. military if they had soldiers (let’s say, 100% voluntary) serve as suicide bombers/kamikazes, etc. for a particular mission?
As far as I can tell suicide attacks have never been a part of American tactics at any level. The better computers get the less likelihood that it will ever be needed as blowing up a robot is far cheaper than replacing a soldier.
I read some of it but there was an error when I tried to load it. My point is someone up the line told them they should fly without ammo which I find crazy.
Nope. There was no “up the line.” Her CO hopped in one plane, told her to get into the other, and they both scrambled to try to intercept Flight 93. There wasn’t time to load ammo.
Ramming as a weapon in air combat in the past hasn’t necessarily been a ‘formal’ suicide tactic by pilots or units recognized as intending to die. It was in case of Japanese a/c late in WWII (ramming B-29’s as well as ships). But in case of the Germans and Soviets it was in the category of extremely risky operation quite likely to get the pilot killed, but with some theoretical chance of survival which the pilot would aim for.
Plenty of US service men have gotten posthumous CMOH’s doing things with an obviously very high chance of death, which unfortunately turned out so in their cases. But not in missions pre-planned to result in death, or units recognized as preparing for such missions.
I wish I could remember where I read it, but now I don’t even know what war or action it was. Some vital target – a ship, I think – had to be taken out. The CO of the squadron got his crew together, and told them “Don’t leave the area until the target has been destroyed.” They all understood what that meant: If you’ve used up all your weaponry and haven’t destroyed the target, fly your plane into it. It wasn’t exactly a kamikaze mission, but it was do or die. As I recall, they hit the target with the weapons. Sorry I got no cite. It was a jet-age action, I think.
Right. Has there ever been a situation where US troops opted to fight to the death rather than surrender (to an enemy that would ***accept ***their surrender, so, Davy Crockett and the Texans at the Alamo wouldn’t count since the Mexicans weren’t taking prisoners), and/or exhibited behavior of the “I’m-dying-but-I’ve-rigged-an-explosive-device-to-take-some-of-them-with-me” Viet Cong type?
Well, the torpedo bombers at Midway were on a virtual suicide mission, but they weren’t expected to crash into the target if their torpedoes missed. The Devastators they flew probably couldn’t have even executed a kamikaze attack, they were so outclassed.
Suicide attacks by their nature are used when the party using them feels it has no chance otherwise. So I absolutely think the U.S resistance would have no hesitation in employing suicide attacks against the occupying PLA forces on 2063. Of course the chance of that situation happening is zero point nada.
Re aircraft ramming, AFAIK pilots on all sides have trained to ram bombers if no other way to bring them down as a possibility exists. Though it’s less suicide and more “hit it and eject afterwards if still alive”. The devastation even a single nuclear armed bomber could do makes this worthwhile.
Surviving 25 heavy bomber missions in the RAF or USAF wasn’t much better than suicide. A bit of googling around suggests the survival rate was about 49% to live though the war and about 25% to survive unharmed without a crash. So yes, each mission there’s only a single digit percent change you get shot down and probably die, but the odds stack up quick. Apparently, it’s incredibly dangerous to hop in a hastily built craft made of aluminum and high explosives and fly into enemy territory. Who knew. Also, being in the sky, without ejection seats, means that when you go down, you probably die.
Only 10% of the marines were killed at Iwo Jima - not sure how that works out over the whole Pacific campaign. But I have read on various sources that despite how stupidly deadly facing the enemy machine guns in your tunic appears to be, at least it’s not fighting in the sky or under water, where the environment makes the enemy’s job easy. (as in, the enemy only needs to do a little bit of damage or even just cause stress so you make a mistake, and then you either crash or drown)
The military didn’t keep fighter jets ready in combat status stationed around the country. So you have to transport and load the weapons on to the plane to arm it; a process which takes about an hour. On 9/11, the officers involved decided that getting their planes into the air, albeit unarmed, was better than having them still sitting on the runway getting loaded while the attacks were being made.
As was discussed recently, available statistics show those odds overall as having been significantly different between RAF Bomber Command and the US 8th AF (which is generally what’s compared on US side to BC). The death rate of BC crews which flew any combat missions was 46% v only around 12% in the 8th AF. There was obviously a much higher chance of being wounded, captured or unharmed in the destruction of one’s a/c, but then again that’s not ‘suicide’. The overall combat loss rate of the main bombers of the 8th AF, B-17 and B-24, over those planes’ whole combat careers in every theater, was about 1.6% (both). So around 1/3 chance being involved in an a/c loss over 25 missions. Obviously higher in some units, places, but as was mentioned you can cherry pick one albeit famous USN mission and it lost 35 out of 41 TBD’s, focusing down to VT-8 all 15 plane and only one survivor.
But while the term ‘[virtual] suicide mission’ is often used to emphasize the sacrifice of units which stuck to their missions until total defeat, there’s still a difference between a conventional air mission which failed horribly and an actual suicide mission planned upfront, or even the spur of the moment decision to crash a damaged a/c into the target.
Of the latter, there a few cases this might have happened or been attempted by US a/c in the Pacific War. Although it’s not 100% clear it was ever intentional at any moment and never will be. But for example Japanese witnesses believed one of the B-26 torpedo bombers shot down at Midway attempted a suicide crash on the carrier Akagi. And it was long believed USMC Capt RE Fleming might have deliberately crashed his crippled SB2U dive bomber onto the cruiser Mikuma during that battle. Photographs of that doomed ship purported to point out the wreckage of the plane on her No. 4 turret. But from more complete accounts in recent decades it doesn’t appear the a/c actually hit the ship. The SBD of Ens Paul Halloran of VB-10 did crash onto the cruiser Maya in the convoy battle connected to the ‘Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal’ (as called on US side) in November 1942, causing a serious fire. But as with any such incident, it can never be known if it was intentional even in those last seconds. The plane apparently hit the ship’s mast first but by then awfully close to have avoided it in a diving attack.
Whereas even long before formal ‘special attack’ units and tactics it was assumed by the Japanese their pilots would try to crash hopelessly crippled a/c into their targets, and their combat reports would often tally aircraft losses as ‘suicide crash’, even early in the war. Although, cases of their a/c actually crashing onto US ships in that period were rare. But it’s more background evidence to say such apparent attempts were deliberate. Examples would include the 4th Air Group Type 1 Land Attack Plane, recognizable from its markings as that commanded by Lt Cdr T Ito, seen in a famous series of photographs apparently trying to crash into USS Lexington during the aborted Rabaul raid in February 1942, after suffering crippling damage from USN fighters; or the actual crash of an a/c believed to been commanded by Lt (jg) T Sasaki from the same unit onto the US transport George F Elliot right after the Guadalcanal landings in August 1942.
Pickett’s Charge is not the best example - there was supposed to have been heave artillery bombardment of the Union position.
there wasn’t, but the charge was carried out anyway.
WWI - trench warfare + heavy machine guns. All prior tactics were instantly obsolete.
Nonetheless, the Brits ordered 3 waves of “Slow Walk” against the German lines.
The first MIGHT have been worth a shot. The third was simply ordering men to their certain deaths with no chance of success or even survival.
I actually think it an improvement that people will nowadays ask if conventional war is actually suicide.
Up until about Vietnam, you put on the uniform, took the oath, and died when told to.
And the US Military was called the “WAR DEPARTMENT”. Kinda put it right on the line.
Missions/attacks with little chance of survival; yes. But one with no chance? The only examples I can think of that come even close are the heat-of-battle moves made by an individual to save his comrades or others.