# Kamikazes in the U.S. military, and the implications **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 17, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418 "2017-03-17T16:44:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/41 "2017-03-20T16:22:51Z")
IIRC even after the Kamakazis; the most successful attack, like one on the USS Franklin; weere carried out by regular aircraft. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/42 "2017-03-20T16:36:37Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > 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, It was considerably higher earlier in the war. Early on, the main losses were due to fighter attacks, and IIRC the reason they set the 25 mission threshold was because that was the 50% chance point for a given crewman up through the end of 1943. Sometime in 1944, they extended it to 35 missions, as they became considerably less risky. The main reason Bomber Command had such horrible statistics is because they had what amounted to a “win the war or die” sort of policy, in that crewmen were in for the duration, and didn’t get rotated back for training duties permanently like US crews did. So if you were a Lancaster crewman in 1940, you were flying missions until you were either killed, wounded, captured, or the war ended. Still, not quite suicide, but pretty bleak nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/43 "2017-03-20T16:50:46Z")
What are you talking about? [Bomber Command combat tour was 30 missions](http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/commandlosses.html). VIII Air Force was 25. You did not get discharged after 25 kr 30 missions. You went back on training duties preparing for your next tour. You could absolutley be sent on a second tour later in both the US and UK. For example [Robert Morgan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Morgan), USAAF, of Memphis Belle fame later undertook a second tour over Japan in 1945. US involvement in the war was of less duration and in earnest basically from 1943-1945, which meant that relatively fewer persons had the chance to complete one tour and undertake a training regime and the get a second tour, while many more Bomber Command people did. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/44 "2017-03-20T18:01:50Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Not the US military, but the first firemen who went into Chernobyl did so knowing that they were going to die from radiation. But they went in anyway. > > Regards, > Shodan That’s disputed. The early leadership was in denial that the reactor had even suffered catastrophic containment failure. Their dosimeters were mostly off-scale, leading to wishful thinking that the radiation levels were “just” a little over the max their dosimeters could register. - One fireman said later: “We didn‘t know much about radiation. Even those who worked there had no idea. There was no water left in the trucks. Misha filled a cistern and we aimed the water at the top. Then those boys who died went up to the roof – Vashchik, Kolya and others, and Vladimir Pravik…. They went up the ladder … and I never saw them again.” Anatoli Zakharov remembers it differently: “Of course we knew!” he laughs. “If we’d followed regulations, we would never have gone near the reactor. But it was a moral obligation - our duty. We were like kamikaze.” \* From here : [https://leatherbarrowa.exposure.co/chernobyl](https://leatherbarrowa.exposure.co/chernobyl) - Time and time again Bryukhanov and Fomin were told that the reactor had been completely destroyed, and time and time again they ignored everyone who warned them\* ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/45 "2017-03-20T19:13:03Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > 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. I think a better example might be the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg. One regiment of 262 soldiers was ordered by General Hancock to assault 2 brigades to buy time. They had to know this was a suicide charge. 82% of the regiment became casualties in about 5 minutes. Which was enough to bring reinforcements to plug the gap. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/46 "2017-03-20T19:31:38Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > What are you talking about? [Bomber Command combat tour was 30 missions](http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/commandlosses.html). VIII Air Force was 25. You did not get discharged after 25 kr 30 missions. You went back on training duties preparing for your next tour. You could absolutley be sent on a second tour later in both the US and UK. For example [Robert Morgan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Morgan), USAAF, of Memphis Belle fame later undertook a second tour over Japan in 1945. > > US involvement in the war was of less duration and in earnest basically from 1943-1945, which meant that relatively fewer persons had the chance to complete one tour and undertake a training regime and the get a second tour, while many more Bomber Command people did. I had it a bit wrong; Bomber Command had an initial tour of 30 missions, then a non-combat tour of 6 months, then another 20 mission combat tour. After that, they weren’t rotated back to combat missions again. As far as the USAAF goes, men could volunteer for more (like Morgan, Tibbets, etc… did), but they were definitely not assigned beyond their 25/35 missions in the ETO. Don’t know what the Pacific B-29 crews’ tour length was though. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/47 "2017-03-20T21:58:43Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I had it a bit wrong; > Don’t know what the Pacific B-29 crews’ tour length was though. It was 30 missions generally for B-29’s against Japan. The overall B-29 combat loss rate was around 1.1% per sortie v 1.6% career combat average for the older four engine bombers. The prospects if parachuting into Japan were a lot worse, OTOH a lot more of the flight was over water, typical of many earlier Pacific bombing missions too, many bombers came down at sea, and there were a/c and submarines detailed to try to rescue the crews. Anyway from previous, even if there were periods where the overall loss rate equated to 50% chance of loss for a given a/c in 25 missions (that’s ~2.75% per sortie), that still includes a lot of men who were captured or rescued from ditching or total loss crash landing in friendly territory, although OTOH some were killed in a/c which returned safely. Again we can scope in further to particular bad luck units or periods in the 8th AF, but we can just as easily further scope in on particular disastrous missions for all kinds of a/c everywhere. Again USN VT sdns at Midway, or 3rd/22nd Bomb Group in New Guinea in 1942, they had different missions with three types where only one a/c returned after encounters with Tainan AG Zeroes, B-25, B-26 and A-24. If you were unlucky enough to be on one of those missions you could call it ‘almost suicide’, but it really wasn’t because you had to _be_ unlucky to be in that situation rather than later/elsewhere in a unit that suffered much more lightly. And there was no intention of being in the worst of situations. And there was a big statistical difference between 8th AF and BC. The main reason though is just that the BC offensive went on a lot longer at closer to its maximum strength. The missions historical drama and fiction have tended to focus on in the 8th AF in 1943 were in a force much smaller than the one which suffered less heavily %-wise in 1944-5, and then that was it. BC OTOH was already ‘1000 plane raid’ capable in 1942 after a buildup going back a couple of years before that. And the German night fighter force held up better and longer in 1944-45 than their day fighter force also. Also just the mechanics of night action and loss, perhaps the characteristics of the planes to some degree also, seemed to result in a lower % of successful bailouts. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/48 "2017-03-21T17:52:33Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > And there was a big statistical difference between 8th AF and BC. The main reason though is just that the BC offensive went on a lot longer at closer to its maximum strength. The missions historical drama and fiction have tended to focus on in the 8th AF in 1943 were in a force much smaller than the one which suffered less heavily %-wise in 1944-5, and then that was it. It wasn’t so much a numbers thing in 1943; the USAAF was still feeling out the right strategies and tactics, and learned the hard way through the late summer and fall of 1943 that unescorted bomber raids just couldn’t go all the way into Germany without suffering unsustainable losses. Starting in the last couple of months of 1943 and through the first half of 1944, the P-51 equipped with drop tanks came into wide use in the 8th AF fighter groups. What this meant was that they finally had a high performance fighter with the legs to escort the bombers all the way to the targets. So they essentially upped the ante with larger series of raids like “Big Week” where they went after German industry, and essentially dared the Luftwaffe to come and oppose it, in hopes of shooting down the Luftwaffe fighters. This worked spectacularly, as by May 1944, fighter losses among bombers had diminished greatly. So in dramatic terms, the fall of 1943 was essentially the darkest point before the dawn, hence its use in movies, etc… ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/49 "2017-03-22T11:44:21Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > See this post in a current thread for more on this point. There’s a few other relevant posts by others as well. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20077703](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20077703) I see that a few other posters made my point for me. Yes, a 757 is much larger than an F16. But the tail rudder and other control surfaces are relatively delicate, complex mechanisms. I would imagine it doesn’t take much of a collision to render the plane uncontrollable. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/50 "2017-03-22T12:07:27Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I see that a few other posters made my point for me. Yes, a 757 is much larger than an F16. But the tail rudder and other control surfaces are relatively delicate, complex mechanisms. I would imagine it doesn’t take much of a collision to render the plane uncontrollable. You’re right. It doesn’t. In fact ramming the tail would be an excellent way to have a substantially 100% probability of killing the target. The failure in the bumping plan is that you can’t use one airplane’s structure to gently push on another’s and expect only the pushee to fail, not the pusher too. As between a tank or APC and a passenger car? Sure. As between an airliner and a fighter? Not so much. The balance of probabilities works the other way; you’re more likely to damage the fighter before you materially upset the airliner. At which point you’ve used your only “bullet” so to speak and haven’t accomplished your goal. Think of bumping a dump truck with a Mini Cooper. ---
**Author:** ![JHBoom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/13edae/32.png) [@JHBoom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JHBoom)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/51 "2017-03-29T00:09:41Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In any multi-crew aircraft the expectation is the commander will try to keep the thing under control until everybody bails out. With the advent of ejection seats, that’s a faster process in a B-52 than it was in a B-17. But AWACS, tankers, & transports still do it the old fashioned way: Geronimohhhh!!! Parachutes were removed from KC-135s in the late '00s/early '10s for cost & weight savings. The KC-10 never had parachutes - there’s no way to exit the aircraft in flight. I believe C-130s and C-17s only have 'chutes for the loadmasters during airdrop missions, and no other times. I don’t think C-5s or AWACS have 'chutes anymore either (assuming they did in the first place). And then there’s helicopters… Non-ejection multi-crew aircraft crewmembers know they’re gonna fly/ride it all the way to impact. There’s no getting around that fact. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/52 "2017-03-29T00:33:31Z")
My Dad, rest his soul, was an airline pilot in the late piston & early to middle jet era. One of his stock phrases taking the runway was “Well boys, in 6 hours one way or the other we’ll be back on the ground.” Words to live (or if necessary die) by. ---
**Author:** ![Avery\_Weisman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d78d45/32.png) [@Avery\_Weisman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avery_Weisman)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418/53 "2017-03-29T00:45:57Z")
And to underscore the fact that one gives up one’s life for the mission, and not not to exchange lives with the enemy, recall “Train to Busan” or some other zombie movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamikazes-in-the-u-s-military-and-the-implications/782418.md?page=2)