"Boy Soldiers 2"

     As Japan became more and more desperate for war material and manpower, by late 1944 they began to draft young high school students and those previously considered physically unfit for military service.  Most of the Japanese high schools at the time had at least some sort of military training like the Junior ROTC programs.  The better schools had better programs such as pre-flight training.  Those kids that attended schools with pre-flight training, besides receiving all the ground training, learned to fly gliders.  It was in a sense, a fairly short step for them to start flying real planes.
Kids from high schools that had pre-flight training were drafted as early as age 15 or 16, Japan was desperate for more pilots!
     It isn't quite certain as to who or when the so-called kamikaze or the Tokkubetsu Kokkekitai (Special Attack Units) program formally started.  But it started sometime in the late Fall of 1944 when volunteers for the "Special Attack Units" were sought.  The method that was used to get the young men to "volunteer" were frankly dishonest and criminal in some respects.  The "volunteer" selection would begin by having a large "assembly"  held with all of the new, young recruits that had just completed or were about to complete their basic training in the Imperial Army Air Corps or Imperial Navy.  During the "assembly" various officers would make patriotic speeches and possibly even a propaganda film would be shown.  The speech makers talked at great length about the glory of fighting for the Emperor and Japan, and how it was their duty to protect their country and loved ones.  At the end of all the speeches and movies, an announcement was made that the Imperial Army or Navy, whichever the case, was seeking volunteers for a Special Attack Unit,  the Tokkotai.  All those not wishing to volunteer for this "honor" of serving in a Special Attack Unit were to come forward and stand in front, facing the assembly.  Given such circumstances, what teenager or young man would step forward and stand facing the large assembly as the one not wishing to volunteer?
     Incredibly, apparently there were some independent thinking young men who did step forward.  Many of these non-volunteers were killed, treated horribly by the cadre and to some extent, shunned by their peers.  However, for the most part, it was a mass "volunteering" assembly!  Once they "volunteered," they were shipped off to secret air bases for training.  Their training was absolutely brutal.  There were those who wanted to quit the program.  If they announced that they were quitting, they were treated even more brutally, and many of them died at the hands of the cadre.  The cadre members carried baseball bats with the words "yamato damashi" (Japanese spirit) written in large letters.  Whenever a trainee was thought to lack true "spirit" the bat was used to instill the spirit.  The brutality ended only after they finished their training and were considered ready to go and die.  However, their treatment by superiors was still very harsh.
     For propaganda purposes, films were made of tokkotai drinking sake and willingly going off to their deaths.  What drove them to their final act was not the desire to seek glory, it was simply conformity and duty, two of the most important elements in Japanese culture that had been literally pounded into their heads since childhood.  A Japanese parent chastising a child for bad behavior would invariably say, "Think what others will say about you!" or "Don' bring shame on the family."  Sometimes they would even use the entire community and say, "Think of the shame that you are bringing on everyone!"  A very different perspective is developed by a young Japanese child from that of his western counterpart.  A young tokkotai plunged to his death because he didn't want to disappoint his family or society in general, and because he was duty bound to honor them!
     I've given somewhat of a simplistic explanation.  I didn't mean to make any less of the very complicated and different perspective that these young men had.  But the bottom line is that for the most part, they were not some glory seeking, fanatical, samurai warriors.  They were simply young men, kids, who were under tremendous societal and peer pressure to do as they were told, to conform.
      Things have changed considerably now.  The young Japanese of today is not going to think and act the same way.  More than likely they would simply refuse to do what they think is unreasonable.  But back in the 1940s, there was no other way.