Masafumi Arima
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Masafumi Arima (1895-October 26?, 1944) was a Rear Admiral and Japanese naval aviator during World War II. He is sometimes credited with being the first to use the Kamikaze attack, although as there is little evidence to support this, as official accounts may have been invented for propaganda purposes.
Arima was born in the Kagoshima prefecture. He graduated from the Japanese Naval Academy in 1915. He was assigned to various surface ships during the late 1910s and mid 1920s, graduated from the Naval Staff College in 1928 and transferred to naval aviation in the early 1930s. Arima oversaw several naval air force bases between 1938 and 1941.
Arima was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1944, and was assigned command of the 26th Air Flotilla in late 1944 shortly before the Battle of Leyte Gulf. At some point during October 13-October 26 (accounts vary), Arima personally led an air attack against U.S. Task Force 38 near Leyte Gulf. Before taking off from Clark Air Base, he allegedly removed his rank and other insignia, and declared his intention to not return alive. Although Arima was killed, and some damage was caused to the large Essex class aircraft carrier, USS Franklin, it is not clear that this was a planned suicide attack, and some accounts state that none of Arima's formation reached their targets.
Another source claims that the first kamikaze attack happened a month earlier. On September 12, 1944, a group of Army pilots of the 31st Fighter Squadron located on Negros Island decided to launch a suicide attack the following morning. First Lieutenant Takeshi Kosai and another sergeant were selected. Strapping two 100-kilogram bombs onto two fighters, they took off on September 13 before dawn, determined to crash into carriers. They never returned and there is no record of an enemy plane hitting an American ship on September 13, 1944.[1]
In the aftermath of the battle, however, Arima was officially credited by the Imperial Japanese Navy with introducing the use of the kamikaze attack.
Promotions
Midshipman - 16 December 1915
Ensign - 1 December 1916
Sublieutenant - 1 December 1918
Lieutenant - 1 December 1921
Lieutenant Commander - 1 December 1927
Commander - 15 November 1933
Captain - 1 December 1937
Vice Admiral - 15 October 1944 (Posthumous)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936-1945, Random House, 1970, p. 568
[edit] References
- Inoguchi Rikihei, Nakajima Tadashi, and Roger Pineau, The Divine Wind. Annapolis, 1958.
- Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. XII, Boston, 1958.
