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By the end of World War II, the Japanese naval air service had sacrificed 2,525 kamikaze pilots and the army air force had given 1,387. According to an official Japanese announcement, the missions sank 81 ships and damaged 195 and according to a Japanese tally, suicide attacks accounted for up to 80 percent of US losses in the final phase of the war in the Pacific. But in reality only 34 ships were sunk and 288 were damaged. The military effect of kamikaze tactics was significant but not overwhelming. Even so, the psychological effect on Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen was profound.
The Japanese never had problem recruiting volunteers for kamikaze missions; indeed, there were three times as many volunteers as there were aircraft. As a result, experienced pilots were turned away (they were needed to defend the Japanese airspace and to train new pilots), and the average kamikaze pilots would be 20-year-olds studying science at university. Their motivations to join vary: to serve the Emperor and the country; to bring honour for their families; or simply to prove themselves as 'real men'.
Special ceremonies would typically be held prior to kamikaze missions, in which pilots, wearing prayers from their families, were given military decorations. These ceremonies no doubt helped glamourizing the suicide missions, thereby attracting enough volunteers to join the missions.
According to legend, young pilots on kamikaze missions often flew southwest from Japan over the 922 metre (~3000 ft) Mount Kaimon . The mountain is also called "Satsuma Fuji" (meaning a geometrically symmetrical beautiful mountain like Mount Fuji, but located in the Satsuma region). Suicide mission pilots looked over their shoulders to see this, the most southern mountain on the Japanese mainland, while they were in the air, said "goodbye" to their country, and saluted the mountain.
Residents on Kikaijima island, east of Amami Oshima, say that pilots from suicide mission units dropped flowers from the air, as they departed on their final missions. Supposedly the hills above Kikaijima airport have beds of cornflower that bloom in early May. (Source: Jiro Kosaka, 1995, Kyou ware Ikiteari)
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