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Old 09-08-2007, 08:47 AM  
Grapesoda
So Fucking Banned
 
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Join Date: Jul 2003
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Posts: 46,238
the first suicide bombers

By the end of World War II, the Japanese naval air service had sacrificed 2,525 kamikaze pilots, and the army air force had lost 1,387. According to an official Japanese announcement, the missions sank 81 ships and damaged 195, and according to a Japanese tally, suicide attacks accounted for up to 80 percent of the U.S. losses in the final phase of the war in the Pacific.

According to a U.S. Air Force source:

Approximately 2,800 Kamikaze attackers sunk 34 Navy ships, damaged 368 others, killed 4,900 sailors, and wounded over 4,800. Despite radar detection and cuing, airborne interception and attrition, and massive anti-aircraft barrages, a distressing 14 percent of Kamikazes survived to score a hit on a ship; nearly 8.5 percent of all ships hit by Kamikazes sank. [6]
In a 2004 book, World War II, the historians Wilmott, Cross & Messenger stated that more than 70 U.S. vessels were "sunk or damaged beyond repair" by kamikazes.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze
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