Kamikaze Bombers – Then and Now

Some 60 years ago, when the Flying Tigers were involved in their first conflict, the Japanese unleashed a terrible weapon the likes of which the West had never seen – the kamikaze suicide bomber. Kamikaze, or divine wind, was named after the storm that arose to destroy Kubla Kahn’s Navy which was about to invade Medieval Japan. Rather than drop bombs on US and British ships attacking the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, the pilots of the kamikaze bombers flew their aircraft right into our ships – killing thousands of United Nations (that what we called our alliance back then) troops along with the pilots.

A strange and horrible weapon – but an understandable one. The target, after all, was the United Nations navies.

Fast forward to yesterday, to a Shia’ Mosque in al-Musayyib, Iraq. Here, the jihadist kamikaze doesn’t target US troops, but a mosque full of Muslim worshipers. Over 90 innocent civilian Iraqi Muslims were killed by a suicide bomber who, one can assume, claimed to be fighting the "Christian Crusaders" and their "Jewish Zionist" allies.

It would be as if the Japanese kamikaze of WWII spotted a US fleet, turned his plane around, headed back to Tokyo, and crashed his bombed-filled aircraft into a Shinto temple filled with Japanese worshipers.

Indeed, we are facing an enemy the likes of which we have never seen before. One, thankfully, that is doomed by his very irrational fanaticism that sees everyone on the planet (save a very select few) as falling into one of two categories of legitimate targets: either kifur (non-Muslims) or apostates (folks just not Muslim enough.)


Could there be an enemy more worthy of destruction and defeat? Certainly not. And the 8-229 Aviation Flying Tigers are proud to be doing our part to bring an end to such killers and their psychotic philosophy.