Download Free Eyewitness Accounts I Was A Kamikaze Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Eyewitness Accounts I Was A Kamikaze and write the review.

Amberley's new series of Eyewitness Accounts bring history, warfare, disaster, travel and exploration to life, written by the people who could say, 'I was there!'
In this brand new publication from eminent historian Peter C. Smith, we are regaled with the engaging and often incredibly disturbing history of the Kamikaze tradition in Japanese culture. Tracing its history right back to the original Divine Wind (major natural typhoons) that saved Japan from invaders in ancient history, Smith explores the subsequent resurrection of the cult of the warrior in the late nineteenth century. He then follows this tradition through into the Second World War, describing the many Kamikaze suicide attacks carried out by the Emperor's pilots against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign.These pilots were at the mercy of an overriding cultural tradition that demanded death over defeat, capture or perceived shame. Despite often being under-trained and ill-prepared psychologically for the sacrifices they were about to make, they were nonetheless expected to make them. The dedication of sacrifice for the Emperor and the Nation is explored by dissecting the traces left behind by these pilots. Smith provides a detailed look at the heartbreak of the pilot's families and the men themselves, the notes they left and the effects on those who did not share their philosophy. The views of individuals under attack are also included in this balanced history.Countless attacks carried out over the Philippine Islands (including the sinking of the St Lo) are analyzed and the Okinawa campaign is afforded particularly strong coverage, with the sinking of HMAS Australia explored in detail. The collective sacrifice is then summed up, with reflections from survivors on both sides appraising events in a humane historical context. A detailed appendices then follows, featuring units formed, sorties mounted, ships sunk and damages inflicted.
"This book details more than 400 kamikaze attacks performed by Japanese aircraft, manned torpedoes, suicide boats and suicide swimmers against U.S. ships during World War II. Part One focuses on the traditions, development and history. Part Two details the kamikaze attacks on ships. Appendices list all of the U.S. ships suffering kamikaze attacks"--Provided by publisher.
Suicide attacks are the definitive form of terrorism. More than any other terrorist tactic, they convey the ruthless willingness of present day terrorists to kill themselves for killing others. Since September 11, 2001 the number of suicide attacks around the world has risen dramatically, causing on average far more fatalities per attack than other forms of terrorism. What drives a person to kill himself for killing others, in the name of a political or religious cause? This book is the first to report a series of studies in which failed suicide bombers and organizers of suicide attacks were subjected to systematic clinical psychological interviews and tests and were compared to non-suicide terrorists. This direct psychological examination enabled a first-hand assessment of the personality characteristics and motivation of suicide bombers. Additional interviews conducted by seasoned area specialists provided a comprehensive picture of the ways by which the suicide bombers were recruited, prepared and dispatched to their planned death, as well as how they felt and behaved along this road. This information was supplemented by data derived from interviews with the families of suicide bombers who died carrying out their attacks. The psychological makeup of suicide terrorists is put into context in other chapters of the book, so as to provide an inclusive understanding of this phenomenon, which takes into account public atmosphere and the ways in which terrorist groups influence the suicide candidates. The book examines the characteristics of suicide terrorists in light of the most influential theories of suicide and offers a critical and innovative analysis of current explanations of suicide terrorism.
This is the true story of a young American missionary woman courage and triump of faith in the jungles of New Guinea and her four years in a notorious Japanese prison camp. Never to see her husband again, she was forced to sign a confession to a crime she did not commit and face the executioner's sword, only to be miraculously spared.
This study of the armed wing of the African National Congress also “contributes significantly to scholarship on liberation movements more broadly.”—Gary Baines, author of South Africa’s Border War For nearly three decades, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), known as Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), waged a violent revolutionary struggle against the apartheid state in South Africa. Stephen Davis works with extensive oral testimonies and the heroic myths that were constructed after 1994 to offer a new history of this movement. Davis deftly addresses the histories that reinforce the legitimacy of the ANC as a ruling party, its longstanding entanglement with the South African Communist Party, and efforts to consolidate a single narrative of struggle and renewal in concrete museums and memorials. Davis shows that the history of MK is more complicated and ambiguous than previous laudatory accounts would have us believe, and in doing so he discloses the contradictions of the liberation struggle as well as its political manifestations.
More than eight hundred sailors served aboard the Sterett during her hazardous and demanding duties in World War II. This is the story of those men and their beloved ship, recorded by a junior officer who served on the famous destroyer from her commissioning in 1939 to April 1943, when he was wounded at the Battle of Tulagi. Peppered with the kind of vivid, authentic details that could only be provided by a participant, the book is the saga of a gallant fighting ship that earned a Presidential Unit Citation for her part in the Third Battle of Savo Island, where she took on a battleship, cruiser, and destroyer and was the last to leave the fray. Calhoun's gripping and colorful account tells what it was like to be there during those furiously fought, close-range engagements. When published in hardcover in 1993, the book was widely praised as a good read loaded with rich and interesting details.
Kasie West meets Morgan Matson in this hilarious and heartwarming debut about a girl’s summer mission to get over her ex-boyfriend by kissing her way through the alphabet. Getting dumped by her boyfriend is not how Veda planned on starting her summer. When Mark makes it clear that it’s over between them, Veda is heartbroken and humiliated—but, more importantly, she’s inspired. So she sets out on the love quest of a lifetime: use the summer to forget about Mark, to move on, and move up. All she has to do is kiss twenty-six boys with twenty-six different names—one for each letter of the alphabet. From the top of the Ferris wheel at her hometown carnival to the sandy dunes of Lake Michigan, Veda takes every opportunity she can to add kisses (and boys) to her list, and soon the break-up doesn’t sting quite as much. But just when Veda thinks she has the whole kissing thing figured out, she meets someone who turns her world upside down.
“Magnificent and important . . . should be on the shelves of anyone with a genuine interest in the history of the Royal Navy in the Second World War.” —Military History Monthly In August 1944 the British Pacific Fleet did not exist. Six months later it was strong enough to launch air attacks on Japanese territory, and by the end of the war it constituted the most powerful force in the history of the Royal Navy, fighting as professional equals alongside the US Navy in the thick of the action. How this was achieved by a nation nearing exhaustion after five years of conflict is a story of epic proportions in which ingenuity, diplomacy and dogged persistence all played a part. As much a political as a technical triumph, the BPF was uniquely complex in its make-up: its C-in-C was responsible to the Admiralty for the general direction of his Fleet; took operational orders from the American Admiral Nimitz; answered to the Government of Australia for the construction and maintenance of a vast base infrastructure, and to other Commonwealth Governments for the ships and men that formed his fully-integrated multi-national fleet. This ground-breaking new work by David Hobbs describes the background, creation and expansion of the BPF from its first tentative strikes, through operations off the coast of Japan to its impact on the immediate post-war period, including the opinions of USN liaison officers attached to the British flagships. The book is the first to demonstrate the real scope and scale of the BPF’s impressive achievement. “Perhaps the greatest Royal Navy story of, at least, the twentieth century.” —Aircrew Book Review
Alexander Cockburn was without question one of the most influential journalists of his generation, whose writing stems from the best tradition of Mark Twain, H. L. Mencken and Tom Paine. Colossal Wreck, his final work, finished shortly before his death in July 2012, exemplifies the prodigious literary brio that made Cockburn's name. Whether ruthlessly exposing Beltway hypocrisy, pricking the pomposity of those in power, or tirelessly defending the rights of the oppressed, Cockburn never pulled his punches and always landed a blow where it mattered. In this panoramic work, covering nearly two decades of American culture and politics, he explores subjects as varied as the sex life of Bill Clinton and the best way to cook wild turkey. He stands up for the rights of prisoners on death row and exposes the chicanery of the media and the duplicity of the political elite. As he pursues a serpentine path through the nation, he charts the fortunes of friends, famous relatives, and sworn enemies alike to hilarious effect. This is a thrilling trip through the reefs and shoals of politics and everyday life. Combining a passion for the places, the food and the people he encountered on dozens of cross-country journeys, Cockburn reports back over seventeen years of tumultuous change among what he affectionately called the "thousand landscapes" of the United States.