A Japanese pilot slammed his Zero fighter plane into the USS Missouri and ignited a fireball on April 11, 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa. The suicide attack instantly killed the pilot, but none of the battleship’s crew members were badly hurt. The Missouri’s captain ordered a military burial at sea with full honors, marking one of the more unusual and little-known episodes of World War II. The pilot received the same funeral that the ship would have given one of its own sailors. Eighty years later, the Missouri is a museum moored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, not far from the submerged hull of the USS Arizona, which sank in the 1941 Japanese bombing that propelled the U.S. into the war. On Friday, three of the captain’s grandsons will mark the anniversary of the attack and burial with the mayors of Honolulu and the Japanese city of Minamikyushu, from which many kamikaze pilots set off on their suicide missions. “This is one of the ship’s great stories and explains, in part, why the ship became an international symbol of peace and reconciliation within two years of its launching and rather than just an instrument of destruction,” said Michael Carr, CEO of the Battleship Missouri Memorial. “This is a remarkable story of compassion and humanity, even in the midst of one of the worst battles of World War II.” Here’s what to know about the attack on the Missouri and the pilot’s burial: What is a kamikaze pilot? Japan launched a suicide attack campaign as a last-ditch measure to push U.S. forces back late in the war, when it was hopelessly losing. The Imperial Navy founded the Kamikaze Tokko Tai, which translates as Divine Wind Special Attack Corps, and the Imperial Army followed with its own unit. Internationally their missions are called kamikaze, but in Japan they are better known as “tokko,” which means “special attack.” The pilots flew hastily constructed planes and even reconnaissance and training aircraft because the military lacked sufficient equipment. They took off on one-way flights with just enough fuel to reach their targets. Kamikaze sank their first ship on Oct. 25, 1944, when a navy Zero pilot smashed into the USS St. Lo in the Philippine Sea while carrying a pair of 550-pound (250-kilogram) bombs. Britain’s Imperial War Museum says they killed 7,000 Allied naval personnel in all. Their initial 30% success rate fell to about 8% by mid-1945 due to declining crew skills, dwindling aircraft capabilities and improved U.S. defenses. Some 4,000 pilots died on suicide missions, about 2,500 navy and more than 1,400 army, most of them university students drafted in late 1943. Many launched from Chiran, a tea farming town that today is part of Minamikyushu, a city in southwest Japan. The missions became more intense as Japan’s outlook grew more dire and the military showcased the sacrifice of the pilots to drum up patriotism and support for the war. Those who failed to take off or survived were considered a disgrace. Despite stereotypes of kamikaze as super-patriots who volunteered to die, many were not, as shown by their carefully nuanced last letters to loved ones and survivor accounts. “They were victims of war,” said Hiroyuki Nuriki, mayor of Minamikyushu, who noted the pilots were only around 20 years old and had futures. “I’m sure they didn’t want to […]