![]() ![]() On November 12, 1944, Americans were gaining ground near Hürtgen in Germany. If all fighting would stop if people on opposing sides just got to know each other, that would mean all war is ridiculous, and that can’t possibly be true, can it? 1 A German Officer Died Trying to Save a Wounded American You can no longer remove the human element from it.” That answer is both inspiring and also kind of terrifying. They became so close they said they were like brothers.Īsked if he could bomb Serbia again having met the guy on the other side, Zelko said, “ Absolutely not. Zelko had appeared in a documentary, Dani’s son saw it, they got in touch, and eventually, they met in person. The missile operator was named Zoltan Dani - clearly, the universe was declaring that they were mirror images of each other. Only around 10 percent of kamikaze attacks succeeded, and for decades afterward, Japan viewed the attacks as crimes - crimes against the families of the kamikaze pilots.Īgain, the American pilot was named Darrell Zelko. The way it went, a commander would get a bunch of pilots together and told them to raise their hand if they didn’t want to volunteer, which meant many men were marked down as volunteers whether they wanted to be or not. Kamikaze fighters, by the way, weren’t exactly the most die-hard among the Japanese military, though they’ve been portrayed as that. Naturally, the Americans had no such flag handy, so Captain William Callaghan ordered sailors to stitch one together. They even covered the body with a Japanese flag. The bugler played “Taps.” A chaplain spoke. That’s not a euphemism for gleefully chucking the corpse in the water but rather a description of the formal funeral they held for the man. The ship now had to decide what to do with the dead pilot (believed to be named Setsuo Ishino, although Japan never officially identified him). ![]() Harold Campbell The plane is in the top left. He was “Buster” Campbell, an assistant baker on the ship who specialized in yummy donuts, and if even he didn’t panic upon seeing the incoming plane, we can assume few on the Missouri feared it. One man on the ship managed to snap a photo of the incoming plane. Far from sinking the 60,000 ton vessel, it just set a small fire on deck, which the sailors quickly extinguished. It was a Japanese kamikaze attack, but it hurt no one other than the pilot. On April 11, 1945, a plane flew into the USS Missouri, a battleship off Japan’s coast. 5 An American Captain Demanded a Proper Burial When a Kamikaze Fighter Hit His Ship Do I really hate that soldier on the other side?” Giving us stories like. As a method for determining who’s right, it makes about as much sense as courts using trial by combat or political elections decided via tennis.Īnd so, every now and again, people on opposite ends of a conflict note the absurdity and say to themselves, “Hold on. Whichever side wins the fighting also wins the dispute. During war, two sides who disagree send their people to kill each other.
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