Overview

• BBC Four aired “Kamikaze: An Untold History” on July 28 with newly surfaced interviews from surviving veterans and rare wartime newsreels.
• It recounts how the Imperial Japanese Navy used exam results to select suicide pilots, sparing only the highest and lowest scorers.
• Applicants were asked to indicate their willingness to die but saw those personal choices overridden by a culture that prized conformity.
• The programme examines propaganda that glorified kamikaze missions through ceremonies, slogans like “100 million kamikaze,” and the portrayal of pilots as “war gods.”
• It highlights how material shortages in mid-1945 led to kamikaze flights in trainer biplanes armed with explosives, making survival largely a matter of chance.