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Japanese Wiki's account (as of this date) of the attack on the St. Lo states that two hits were made on the St. Lo, with Lt. Seki's being unsuccessful: ja:関行男

関隊長機は甲板激突後、機の搭載燃料によって同空母に火災を発生させたが爆弾は炸裂せず、機体の胴体部は甲板上を転がって海に落ちたという。同艦には更に別の機も体当りし、火薬庫の誘爆を起こして沈没した。

[my translation:]

"After Capt. Seki's plane crashes onto the deck, a fire is started on the carrier from his plane's fuel, but the bomb does not explode, and the main portion of the fuselage continues off the deck into the sea. Another plane crashes into the same warship, creating a chain reaction with the ship's magazine and sinks it."

This contradicts ST LO's Action Report which states that a single plane struck St. Lo. This follows the above description of Lt. Seki's hit on the St. Lo. According to this, one of the bombs did go through the hanger deck and only later exploded, resulting later in the explosion of the magazine. [1]

(1051}

"Approaching the ramp at very high speed, the "Zeke 52" crossed over the aft end of the ship at less than fifty feet. He appeared to push over sufficiently to hit the deck at about the "number 5 wire", fifteen feet to the port side of the center line. A tremendous crash followed quickly followed by an explosion as one or both of the enemy s bombs exploded. The aircraft continued up the deck leaving fragments strewed about and its remanents went over the bow.
The Captains first impression was that no serious damage had been suffered. There was a hole in the flight deck with smoldering edges which sprang into flame. Hoses were immediately run out from both sides of the flight deck and water started on the fire....smoke soon appeared on both sides of the ship, evidently coming from the hangar. Within one to one and one-half minutes an explosion occurred on the hangar deck, which puffed smoke and flame through the hole in the deck and bulged the flight deck near and aft of the hole. This was followed in a matter of seconds by a much more violent explosion, which rolled back a part of the flight deck bursting through aft of the original hole. The next heavy explosion tore out more of the flight deck and also blew the forward elevator out of its shaft. "

The report from AGM2c Gilbert S. Raynor, USN on USS KITKUN BAY (CVE 71) reports 1 hit on Kitkun and one on St. Lo in the first wave. Reports 1 later hit on Kitkun some 30 minutes later. This accounts for 3 of the 5 Kamikazes in Seki's squadron:

"1049 Seven Jap planes in air attack, several maneuvered off port bow to draw attention and others made attack.
1050 One Jap Tony made suicide dive on ship. Hit port catwalk opposite Exec's room. Exploded, shrapnel splattered all forward section of ship and sheet of flame flashed as far as the bridge. 1 killed, a number hurt.
1050 One plane made suicide dive into flight deck of MIDWAY (USS ST LO (CVE 63)) and exploded. Fire and explosions followed.
1104 MIDWAY (ST LO) abandoned ship (800 rescued).
1111 All DE's leave to pick up survivors.
1120 Another suicide dive on ship from aft by Judy. Exploded just off bow. Bomb landed on starboard side, motor on port. Plane in bits strewn all over and part of pilot landed on deck. Gas splattered all over - - water splashed up to bridge and shrapnel broke large signal light.[2]"

I left a query on the ja wiki in order to get the source for their account and identify whether maybe my poor understanding of the seki article was the cause of this apparent condradiction.

-Mak Thorpe 23:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


The 1050 Kamikaze attack was not the first attack on the 15th often described as Kamikaze attacks. There was an earlier attack on Taffy one at 07:40 on the 25th. The text of USS Suwannee (CVE-27) as of this date reads:

At 07:40 on the 25th, "Taffy 1" was jumped by land-based planes from Davao in the first deliberate suicide attack of the war. The first one crashed Santee (CVE-29); and, 30 seconds later, Suwannee splashed a "kamikaze" during his run on Petrof Bay (CVE-80). Her gunners soon scratched another enemy plane, then bore down on a third circling in the clouds at about 8,000 feet. They hit the enemy, but he rolled over, dove at Suwannee and crashed her about 40 feet forward of the after elevator, opening a 10-foot hole in her flight deck. His bomb compounded the fracture when it exploded between the flight and hangar decks, tearing a 25-foot gash in the latter and causing a number of casualties.

However, this report states the planes came from Davao, not from the north (Mabalacat) where the the kamikazes were based. Again, not two hits on the same ship as the jp article on Seki states.

There is a painting at the Etajima Museum of Naval History page depicting the men of the Shikishima Unit of the first Kamikaze Special Attack Corps in October 1944 as they prepare to depart from the air base at Mabalacat. If this falls under the same rules as PD Japan Oldphoto, then I will copy it to Commons. -Mak Thorpe 01:42, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Has anyone already read this book, sounds interesting:

"Kamikaze - Japan's Suicide Gods" written by Albert Axell, an American writer based in London, and Hideaki Kase, a conservative intellectual, living in Tokyo.

"The first kamikaze pilot in history-he was ace flyer Lt. Yukio Seki-thought that it was entirely wrong of his superiors to send him out on a suicide mission. It would be better, he thought, to let him sneak up on a U.S. carrier, drop a 500-kg. bomb on its flight deck and then wing it back to base, to live and fight another day.

Seki-san is recorded by Kase and Axell as saying that he only agreed to do what he did-he went out on a last mission off the Philippines in the fall of l944, when the kamikaze strategy began-because he received a direct order. He was to play the role of guinea pig and role model, it turned out."

"Japan's future is bleak if it is forced to kill one of its best pilots," he said. "I am not going on this mission for the Emperor or for the Empire… I am going because I was ordered to" (Page 16).

"A quote as good as that sounds almost too good to be true. But I trust Axell, the main writer, and Kase, the main researcher, to have got their facts right. The remark, according to them, was made to a reporter on the spot in the Philippines. It seems that Lt. Seki expressed his dissent "privately," i.e. off the record. "

http://www.weekender.co.jp/new/021018/quis_custodiet-021018.html

-User:Felix_c 02:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Felix- I just have been reading stuff second hand from the net but first up for me is going to be the warner book that purportedly covers the Leyte attacks very heavily. On Talk:Kamikaze#First_kamikaze_attack_in_WW2, Ningyou added a great quote on this very subject. I left a note on his talk page for the source which wasn't mentioned. I think your quote is even more interesting because of the way that Seki appears to have attacked St. Lo. If a plane comes in high, even if you you destroy huge bits of the plane, the intertia is going to carry the bomb into the ship. But Seki came in very very low. So maybe he did intend to demonstrate the technique. Indeed- the bomb indeed separated from the plane- whether he dropped it on his low pass but went out of control or whether he realized he was fatally hit at the last seconds and intentionally slammed the plane onto the deck is impossible to know.

Maybe his commanders even suspected he was being insubbordinate on his earlier aborted attempts. It will make interesting reading. -Mak Thorpe 03:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sacred Warriors book facts

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The sacred warriors book I quoted in the article was unequivocal on the point that Seki was ordered to carry out the mission.


The book quotes the reporter interview with Seki but does not end with, "because I was orderred to", but because of his desire to protect his "ka"- Naval slang for wife. The book emphasizes Japanese propaganda about what the Americans would do to Japan if they invaded. If this was his motivation, then coverage of his love for his wife, and his adopted sister, and of a geisha he knew might be enlarged.


I have not completed the Sacred Warriors book, and I have some doubts about the caliber of its research. Oftentimes it seems to lapse into commentary and conjecture, and to my mind depends too heavily on english language sources. The existence of Hiroyoshi Nishizawa in the attacking force was not even mentioned- a very significant oversight since it was clear the japanese command wanted an trusted eyewitness report on the effectiveness of the various tactics used (diving versus low level approach).


The way Sacred warriors tells it, Seki did not attack St. Lo, but was damaged and made the first diving hit on Kalinin Bay. The book does not support this assertion with its reasoning or quotation from original source, so it's hard to accept it over the Nishizawa report.


The story that emerges from Sacred Warriors is of an atypical Kamikaze- the Masashi Onoda quotes certainly demonstrate he had grave misgivings about the tactics. Indeed it is possible that he was ironically not a kamikaze at all if he fully intended to drop a bomb on the St. Lo and demonstrate to the naval command that good training and not kamikaze tactics was the superior method.


Such conjecture is impossible to verify, but it is clear that later Kamikaze motivation and skill set was nothing like that of Seki. -Mak Thorpe 19:06, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thought I'd repost my comment posted to the Battle off Samar discussion page for the comments of you guys here. ---

There is ONE thing I strongly object to regarding this article. But first, I'd like to say that this piece is extremely well done - extremely. It has obviously been researched to an extent above the caliber normally found here on wiki. A sad commentary, I know, but factual.

The one thing that concerns me is the inclusion of pure conjecture. Every Secondary source ever written cites Seki as having been the pilot to hit and sink the St. Lo. I realize this. But every Primary source says no, he didn't. In fact it is still an argument being waged to this day. The Japanese sent observer planes along with the Kamikazes. This was true on this particular flight. In fact, one observer was dedicated to documenting the results of Seki's attack specifically that day. This observer reported Seki glanced off a carrier and his bomb did not explode. His report then added that subsequent to Seki's attack a second plane struck the same carrier.

The observer was no less than Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Japan's leading fighter ace.

The CO of St. Lo, Captain McKenna, reported a single plane did the damage to his ship. Also, McKenna reported the plane was carrying a bomb under each wing. Seki carried a single 250kg bomb. With very clear evidence of contradiction such as these, how is it possible to conclude with any modicum of certainty that Seki did indeed sink St. Lo, as this article states? In fact, there is more primary source evidence to show that Seki did not dive on St. Lo at all, but rather another of the CVEs attacked at that same time - Kitkun Bay, or Kalinin Bay, being the most likely. Xl five lx 16:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Battle_off_Samar" Xl five lx 17:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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