Speaker 1: It is The Jesse Kelly Show, Final hour of The
Speaker 1: Jesse Kelly Show on a wonderful, fantastic Monday. And so
Speaker 1: let me tell you what you're in store for this hour.
Speaker 1: If this is your first time ever tuning into The
Speaker 1: Jesse Kelly Show, I'm sorry. So every now and then, Look,
Speaker 1: I love history. I'm a history nerd. I do it
Speaker 1: in my spare time. I read, I watch it whatever
Speaker 1: I can get my hands on. I'm a history nerd.
Speaker 1: And on occasion on this show, I will just completely
Speaker 1: blow up the show. No more political talk or anything else.
Speaker 1: And we are going to tell a history story of
Speaker 1: some kind. This one I left up to you. This
Speaker 1: one I left up to you. Everybody emailed in. This
Speaker 1: is the one you wanted. It was a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago, and so I've been digging into it, reading
Speaker 1: and watching and reading and watching it. I spent like
Speaker 1: eight hours, yeah, yesterday, kind of putting the finishing touches
Speaker 1: on some things, making sure I was where I needed
Speaker 1: to be to kind of lay out the story. And
Speaker 1: now we're about to lay out the story. I'm not
Speaker 1: promising you I'm going to finish this hour. If I don't,
Speaker 1: we will do it again tomorrow in this hour. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've had them go three days before. I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I don't think this one will, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know till I start. Okay. So we are
Speaker 1: about to tell the story of the kama Kazis, the
Speaker 1: Japanese Kamakzis from World War Two. Now, before we get going,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go do all kinds of background on
Speaker 1: it and history stuff and things like that. Before we
Speaker 1: get going, let me ask you something really, asking what
Speaker 1: is suicide? Okay? Jewish producer Chris already jumped in and said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? Uh So, if you take a plane,
Speaker 1: a fighter plane, and you intentionally fly it into a ship,
Speaker 1: I think you would agree that is suicide. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's very fair. Let me ask you. You're in a
Speaker 1: fighting hole, You're a marine on Ewo Jima. You're in
Speaker 1: a fighting hole with your buddy, and one of the
Speaker 1: Japanese troops throws a grenade inside of the fighting hole.
Speaker 1: You look at the grenade and you throw yourself on
Speaker 1: top of it? Is that suicide? Not quite as simple, now,
Speaker 1: is it, Chris? Is that suicide? Okay? All right? Let's
Speaker 1: do it. Let's do one more, just one more. Let's
Speaker 1: say your wife or husband. If you're a woman, your wife,
Speaker 1: your mom, your dad, your family, every person in your
Speaker 1: family who you love, they're all in a house. It's
Speaker 1: right behind you. You're on the sidewalk, they're all in
Speaker 1: the house. Right behind you, standing in front of you
Speaker 1: is a seven foot muscle bound man with an axe
Speaker 1: in each hand, and he is walking towards that house
Speaker 1: to kill, maime, rape and torture everyone in the house.
Speaker 1: You are standing there unarmed. Are you going to attack him?
Speaker 1: Chris says yes. I would say yes as well. I
Speaker 1: think everyone would say yes, that's your family. Okay, you're
Speaker 1: gonna die the seven foot guy with an axe, a
Speaker 1: couple of them. Is that suicide? All right? Now, just
Speaker 1: keep those questions in the back of your mind and
Speaker 1: we'll do some background here and then we'll discuss the
Speaker 1: actual comcasis, what they did, why they did it. We're
Speaker 1: going to do this very honestly, as as usual some history.
Speaker 1: When we do it may offend if it does, just
Speaker 1: like the regular show. I don't care if you're offended.
Speaker 1: You can email me all you want, but it's not
Speaker 1: going to bother me at all. Your offense is your
Speaker 1: your choice. I don't care about that. We don't do
Speaker 1: We do wantest history here from every side. We do
Speaker 1: honest history. So let's background this quite a bit first.
Speaker 1: In this part is going to be very very important
Speaker 1: for our purposes. We need to understand two things, two huge,
Speaker 1: huge things about Japan that will matter a lot, and
Speaker 1: I mean a lot. The first one of those things
Speaker 1: is a I'm going to use the word celebration. That's
Speaker 1: probably not the right word, but everything I read on
Speaker 1: it sure looks like that a celebration of death, a
Speaker 1: celebration of death, a different view of death than Westerners
Speaker 1: have than I have, probably than you have. One of
Speaker 1: their emperors, one of their emperors actually has a quote,
Speaker 1: maybe you've heard this quote before, that duty is as
Speaker 1: heavy as a mountain, but death is as light as
Speaker 1: a feather. Now that may just sound like one statement
Speaker 1: that was preached to the Japanese people, and most definitely
Speaker 1: the Japanese military. You know, some of the first training
Speaker 1: you got in the Japanese military back then. I've read
Speaker 1: several different sources. Some said it was one of the first,
Speaker 1: many said it was the first was not how to kill,
Speaker 1: not how to march, not how to run, not how
Speaker 1: to do pushups, how to die? How do you die?
Speaker 1: What's the best way to die? Dying in service to
Speaker 1: your country, in service to your emperor was not frowned upon.
Speaker 1: In fact, whatever the opposite is a frowned upon. That's
Speaker 1: what it was. It was lionized to the point of worship.
Speaker 1: The Kama Kazi pilots were going to discuss, and Kama
Speaker 1: Kazi submarine guys in Kamakazi boats and Kama Kazi torpedoes.
Speaker 1: There were all kinds of different kinds, and we'll get
Speaker 1: into that a little bit. But the Kama Kaze guys
Speaker 1: we're going to discuss here. Their names weren't carried around
Speaker 1: back home of Hey, did you hear what? Gosh, you
Speaker 1: hear what Bob did? It was playing into a boat,
Speaker 1: so sad, Why would he do that? No, Bob's name.
Speaker 1: There was a special shrine area set up, and not
Speaker 1: only would Bob's name be part of this special shrine area,
Speaker 1: people would show up and say, look at that guy.
Speaker 1: He gave his life for the emperor, he gave his
Speaker 1: life for Japan. Wow, I want to be like Bob
Speaker 1: understand there is a different relationship with death the way
Speaker 1: they view it there. And I said there were two things,
Speaker 1: here's the second thing, and they kind of tie it together.
Speaker 1: You remember we went to Israel as a show. We did
Speaker 1: that big promotion thing and I don't remember how many
Speaker 1: of us, to two hundred of us, something like that,
Speaker 1: to three hundred of us The Jesse Kelly Show family
Speaker 1: made Jewish producer Chris Corey wasn't with us then, but me, Chris,
Speaker 1: my parents, my wife, my sister, kids, and you and
Speaker 1: your kids. We all went over to Israel. Now, I'd
Speaker 1: never been to Israel, but it was it is a
Speaker 1: holy land tour. And I'm not one who gets sentimental
Speaker 1: about places that much. A little bit, a little bit,
Speaker 1: but not much. But I will tell you for me,
Speaker 1: in my belief system, being on a boat on the
Speaker 1: Sea of Galilee was powerful. It was powerful. It meant
Speaker 1: something to me to this day. If you told me, hey,
Speaker 1: Israeli governments they're making some moves and they're draining the
Speaker 1: Sea of Galilee. Did that hurt walking walking and saying hey,
Speaker 1: this is the place where we're reasonably sure Jesus carried
Speaker 1: the cross when he was bleeding and tortured. It hit
Speaker 1: me that that place hit me, Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: had to take a knee, say a prayer with my dad.
Speaker 1: Hit me. Now, there is something about having a religious
Speaker 1: connection to a certain spot of land. And the reason
Speaker 1: I brought up Israel was I've lived all over and
Speaker 1: I've liked a lot of places and like this house
Speaker 1: or like that condo, but never there's not another spot
Speaker 1: on earth where I would where I would feel like
Speaker 1: I have a religious connection to the ground. We're talking
Speaker 1: about Japan, back in this time and still to this day,
Speaker 1: but back in this time they very much do Japan.
Speaker 1: For the Japanese people at this time and for most
Speaker 1: of their history, it's not just a string of islands
Speaker 1: where they ended up. It's so much more than that.
Speaker 1: It is their home. There is a spiritual connection to them.
Speaker 1: And this was obvious from all the writings, all the
Speaker 1: things I've read on it. A spiritual connection there. That
Speaker 1: is the best comparison I can make is to one
Speaker 1: I just did. Wow, that's where Jesus was carrying the
Speaker 1: cross like that is the best connection I can make.
Speaker 1: This is the sea a galilee. The disciples are, That's
Speaker 1: the best connection I can make, an actual religious connection
Speaker 1: to the land that is beyond physical It gets to
Speaker 1: a spiritual realm. All right, Now that we got those
Speaker 1: two things out of the way, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: origins of Kamakazi. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on
Speaker 1: a Wonderful Monday. If you just joined us, you just
Speaker 1: joined us at the beginning, after the beginning of a
Speaker 1: history story on the Japanese Kamakazi. And this will probably
Speaker 1: undoubtedly last us the rest of this show, possibly into
Speaker 1: hour three as well tomorrow. So I just gave you
Speaker 1: a little bit of a background of the Japanese people,
Speaker 1: their religious connection to their homeland. And there I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say in affinity for dying, because that is not
Speaker 1: true at all, and we'll find that as we get
Speaker 1: deeper into this. But dying for your country, your emperor,
Speaker 1: your your whatever is honor extremely so over there, and
Speaker 1: we will go into some of the propaganda that they
Speaker 1: went into. But for now, that was kind of the
Speaker 1: Japanese people in their connection. We have to go over
Speaker 1: the long, long, long background hundreds of years ago, not
Speaker 1: because I think it is important to the Kamakazi story,
Speaker 1: and actually not because this is where they got the
Speaker 1: term Kamakazi from. But because the Japanese people and most
Speaker 1: definitely the young men, the Japanese military men, they thought
Speaker 1: this event was hugely important. So here's the event you
Speaker 1: know about. Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Just always think
Speaker 1: that the twelve hundreds, that was when the Mongols were
Speaker 1: they were wiping out everybody, everybody. In my opinion, this
Speaker 1: is an opinion part I think the Mongol army is
Speaker 1: unquestionably the greatest army of all time. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's a close second. And I say that because they
Speaker 1: just blew through the other great armies like they weren't anything.
Speaker 1: I realized there was some heavy fighting, but they just
Speaker 1: stormed through everybody. Oh European knights, ha Oh, the Muslim
Speaker 1: Empire of the Middle East. That's hilarious. They just destroyed everybody. Now,
Speaker 1: Genghis Khan is dead by this time, but his grandson,
Speaker 1: I believe grandson, Kublai Khan, is not dead. He is
Speaker 1: still the Khan. He's the Mongol king. Essentially, he is
Speaker 1: the Mongol king. And by now this is it's the
Speaker 1: twelve seventies. Don't worry about the dates. Remember, history is
Speaker 1: not about dates. By now, the whole world knows about
Speaker 1: the Mongols. It's not a mystery. The Mongols show up
Speaker 1: outside of your city, you in some trouble. Kublai Khan,
Speaker 1: he's in China at this time. So if you'd like
Speaker 1: to look at a map, which I love to do,
Speaker 1: you're welcome to. If not, don't worry about it. China
Speaker 1: and Japan are very close. According to the map. It's
Speaker 1: across the water, but they're very close. Japan was doing
Speaker 1: some trading with the last surviving Chinese dynasty that Kublai
Speaker 1: hadn't conquered yet, and plus Kublai was a Mongol. Kublai
Speaker 1: looked across the water at Japan and thought to himself,
Speaker 1: I want it. I think I should have that now Japan.
Speaker 1: At this time, Japan was a feudal society run by
Speaker 1: different lords in this place, and their elites really were warriors,
Speaker 1: the samurai, as you already know, they were all about warfare.
Speaker 1: They believed wholeheartedly in warfare and making your body strong
Speaker 1: and training and things like that. These were not some chumps.
Speaker 1: The Mongols had run into tough guys and they'd run
Speaker 1: into chumps. These were not going to be chumps. Kublai
Speaker 1: Khan he arranges a forty thousand person military force, eight
Speaker 1: hundred ships, and he crosses that ocean to take over Japan.
Speaker 1: The Mongols are not chumps either, obviously. The fighting is
Speaker 1: inhumanly fierce. This is an an amphibious force. The Mongols
Speaker 1: actually gain a foothold, but people are dying in droves
Speaker 1: on every side. Japan is outnumbered here right, the Mongols
Speaker 1: brought forty thousand troops. Japan's outnumbered the Mongols. They get
Speaker 1: a foothold, like I said, and then they returned to
Speaker 1: their ships at night. Mostly there were some Mongos still
Speaker 1: on the land, but most of the force returned to
Speaker 1: their ships at night. Now, I spent six months in
Speaker 1: Japan when I was in the Marine Corps. We had
Speaker 1: several typhoons when I was there, and I remember, like
Speaker 1: it was yesterday, looking down at a big conex box
Speaker 1: in the parking lot, and I watch this typhoon pick
Speaker 1: up that conex box and throw it across the base
Speaker 1: like it was a soda can. A typhoon is a hurricane.
Speaker 1: Remember it's a hurricane. Imagine you're on an old. We're
Speaker 1: talking the year. This is the twelve hundreds, right, this
Speaker 1: is two hundred years before Christopher Columbus sailed the Ocean blue.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of ships we're dealing with. The Mongol
Speaker 1: army was sitting on ships in the ocean and a
Speaker 1: typhoon came and wipe them out. Now let's just say
Speaker 1: you're in Japan. You're a Japanese person, This frightening Mongolian
Speaker 1: horde crosses the ocean, tries to take you out. They
Speaker 1: get wiped out by the weather. You already remember you
Speaker 1: have a religious connection to your land. They just got
Speaker 1: wiped out by the weather. Wait, we had a storm.
Speaker 1: Wait last night. Really, the Mongols are gone. Do you
Speaker 1: think you would think God's looking out for me? Japan
Speaker 1: itself is looking out for me. And this is where
Speaker 1: the name, what the name Kamakazi actually means is divine wind,
Speaker 1: and that's what they chose to name the Saving of Japan.
Speaker 1: In Japan's mind, the Mongols were coming to rape and murder,
Speaker 1: and of course, because it's the Mongols, they were most
Speaker 1: definitely coming to rape and murder. This gigantic, unstoppable army
Speaker 1: showed up and the divine wind stepped in to save Japan.
Speaker 1: But wait, there's more, and we have to understand this
Speaker 1: part before we get to the World War II part.
Speaker 1: It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a wonderful, wonderful Monday.
Speaker 1: Remember you can email this show love, hey, death threats,
Speaker 1: whatever you would like. Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com.
Speaker 1: Currently telling the history of the Japanese Kama Kazi WW two.
Speaker 1: Don't worry if you just got here, we haven't even
Speaker 1: gotten to that yet. We talked about the Japanese affection
Speaker 1: for their homeland, a religious connection to their homeland, a
Speaker 1: willingness to die, dying in service of that is honored.
Speaker 1: And we just talked about the Mongolian invasion. They showed
Speaker 1: up on the shore, they fight this huge battle, they
Speaker 1: get a foothold. Oh, we're about to be conquered and
Speaker 1: murdered and raped and everything's going to end. And then
Speaker 1: a typhoon comes in and wipes out the army. Wow,
Speaker 1: if you are already primed to believe that there is
Speaker 1: a religious sacredness to your homeland, that your homeland provides
Speaker 1: protection to you and your family, and then a typhoon
Speaker 1: wipes out the invading Mongols. What do you think that
Speaker 1: does for that belief system? It pretty much confirms it
Speaker 1: to you. Now, wait, there's more a lot of people
Speaker 1: I've heard of the failed Mongolian invasion because a typhoon
Speaker 1: came in and wiped out the army. But what most
Speaker 1: people don't know it happened twice. You see, after the
Speaker 1: Mongols got wiped out by a typhoon. Again, I want
Speaker 1: you to put yourself in the mind of the Japanese.
Speaker 1: The Mongols got wiped out by a typhoon. Kublai Khan
Speaker 1: then decides, Okay, the army got wiped out by a typhoon.
Speaker 1: That's some bad luck. Clearly, maybe I've bit off more
Speaker 1: than I can chew here. Anyway, let's just make a
Speaker 1: deal instead. So Kublai Khan the Mongol he sends emissaries
Speaker 1: over to Japan instead of sending an army. He sends
Speaker 1: over some diplomats. Essentially, he sends over US Scott Descent
Speaker 1: and Howard Lutnik. He just sends over some diplomats. Diplomats
Speaker 1: show up hat in hand. Hey, all that fighting stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's let bygones be bygones. Shall we Let's make a deal,
Speaker 1: only the Japanese cut their heads off. The Japanese were
Speaker 1: not the most forgiving people, especially when you just tried
Speaker 1: to conquer their homeland. Enemies tend to be enemies for life.
Speaker 1: Plus they were a very very very closed off society
Speaker 1: by now. They really wanted to keep them themselves. You
Speaker 1: can say that's good or bad. They just wanted to
Speaker 1: do their own thing. You just tried to conquer them.
Speaker 1: The Japanese took the emissaries and they cut off their heads.
Speaker 1: Uh that you did not do to a Mongolian emissary.
Speaker 1: You remember the stories of Genghis Khan melting down silver
Speaker 1: and pouring it down the throat of a governor. He
Speaker 1: did that because the governor killed his emissaries. You remember
Speaker 1: the story of Genghis Khan and his Mongols. Some Russian
Speaker 1: princes killed his emissaries. He took over the town and
Speaker 1: built a wooden platform on top of those princes and
Speaker 1: they had a victory dinner, suffocating suffocating the princes underneath
Speaker 1: the platform sitting there, eating, drinking and being merry while
Speaker 1: everyone was dying. You really, really really didn't want to
Speaker 1: touch a hair on a mongol emissaries head. So when
Speaker 1: Japan cuts offset head, you know, Kublai Khan is not
Speaker 1: going to receive the news all that well. He gets
Speaker 1: the news, does not receive the news that well. And
Speaker 1: he promptly remember I said it was forty thousand Mongolians before,
Speaker 1: promptly raises an army of one hundred thousand Mongolians, over
Speaker 1: twice the size, over twice the size of the fleet,
Speaker 1: and he goes a sailing again. This is about six
Speaker 1: seven years later, After about six seven years after the
Speaker 1: first one, the Mongolian army returns. The Japanese wake up,
Speaker 1: the fighting begins again, and I kid you not, another
Speaker 1: typhoon comes in and wipes the Mongolian army off the sea.
Speaker 1: Remember that Japanese person, the Japanese religious belief, the Japanese
Speaker 1: connection to their land. How strong do you think that
Speaker 1: connection is? Now? When the divine wind the kamikaze just
Speaker 1: swept the Mongols off the sea twice in less than
Speaker 1: a decade. If you are a Japanese person, you think, ah,
Speaker 1: we have like a force field around us here, a
Speaker 1: divine wind. Now. I brought up that story because the
Speaker 1: Japanese brought up that story, and still due to this day,
Speaker 1: I should note, but since that time, that was the
Speaker 1: twelve hundreds, children were taught this. It had a religious
Speaker 1: reference there. It was a powerful story. The divine wind
Speaker 1: came and saved us. The Japanese people saved our homeland,
Speaker 1: saved our island. When our island is under threat, the
Speaker 1: divine wind will show up and save us. Now pause
Speaker 1: on that. It's important to understand that history. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about World War II a kind of from a Japanese perspective,
Speaker 1: because that's going to be important for our purposes here.
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor, you know about obviously, Japan. Prior to Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 1: before Hitler started invading Poland and things like that, Japan
Speaker 1: was expanding. They had already invaded Manchuria, they'd invaded China.
Speaker 1: Japan was fighting World War two before anyone else was
Speaker 1: fighting World War two. And Japan had a plan that
Speaker 1: rhyme Chris, Japan had a plan. The plan was, we're
Speaker 1: stuck on this island. We have now modernized. We have
Speaker 1: a modern military, a modern navy, we have a modern economy,
Speaker 1: we have modernized our society. We are no longer in
Speaker 1: danger of being conquered. We don't want to be colonized.
Speaker 1: But the problem is, it takes stuff to run a
Speaker 1: modern economy or a modern military. It just does. I
Speaker 1: have said many times before, I'll say it to you
Speaker 1: again now. One of the unbelievable blessings about America is
Speaker 1: not just the size of our land mass, not just
Speaker 1: that we have an ocean to our left and an
Speaker 1: ocean to our right, east and west. We have so
Speaker 1: much stuff here, so many resources here. Yes, we do
Speaker 1: want to do trade, there's no question about that. You
Speaker 1: want to trade with other countries. But we really don't
Speaker 1: have to. We could just seal off the border, keep
Speaker 1: all our goods in here and be more than fine.
Speaker 1: We have so much stuff. Japan doesn't have any stuff nothing,
Speaker 1: not only an island country. They just don't have resources.
Speaker 1: They don't have steel, they don't have oil, they don't
Speaker 1: have stuff. Into the Japanese government, they decided, well, we
Speaker 1: better go get someone else's stuff. If we have a
Speaker 1: modern military now, if we have a modern economy now,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna run out of stuff, we better go
Speaker 1: grab what we want. We better go conquer. And they began,
Speaker 1: they began to conquer China. Now America, this is good.
Speaker 1: This goes beyond America. It's all the Allies, but I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna make it about America. America. They didn't want
Speaker 1: Japan in China. We had best, we had interests in China,
Speaker 1: we had things, and we started leaning on the Japanese.
Speaker 1: Hey back off, Hey, back off, Hey, get out of China,
Speaker 1: Get out of China, Get out of China. Well, Japan
Speaker 1: has a completely different national interest at this time. They
Speaker 1: don't want to get out of China. In fact, they
Speaker 1: want more than just China. Their intention is to take
Speaker 1: their modern mi military. They're very capable fighting for US,
Speaker 1: very capable navy, and they want to conquer so much
Speaker 1: over there in East Age. If you look at Japan,
Speaker 1: just make a gigantic ring, a big circle around it,
Speaker 1: including the Philippines. We'll come back to that. They want
Speaker 1: to make a big ring around it and conquer all
Speaker 1: of it. So they, just like us here in America,
Speaker 1: have all the stuff they need. America throws such a
Speaker 1: fit about this. We cut off their oil, we're cutting
Speaker 1: off their steel. Japan makes the worst strategic decision in
Speaker 1: military history. I don't know that that can even honestly
Speaker 1: be argued. They're going to attack Pearl Harbor. We'll touch
Speaker 1: on that quickly when we get back. Before we do that,
Speaker 1: let's make sure we have our dogs for as long
Speaker 1: as possible. It is a Jesse Kelly's Show. Final segment
Speaker 1: of The Jesse Kelly Show on a while Wednesday, A
Speaker 1: Blast of a Wednesday. I know, I know you're I
Speaker 1: know what you're already saying. You probably already said it.
Speaker 1: There's no way he's gonna finish this tonight as far
Speaker 1: as the history program goes. You're right, I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do it again tomorrow. Okay, start of hour three tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Wherever we leave off tonight, I am going to continue
Speaker 1: on with the history of the Japanese Kamakazis. The background
Speaker 1: is really, really, really important. Okay, So we have to
Speaker 1: go through all this stuff. Pearl Harbor happens. Japan is expanding.
Speaker 1: They seize control of all these places. Remember draw that
Speaker 1: big ring around Japan. They seize control of Manchuria, they
Speaker 1: have the Philippines, they have Wake Island, they Guam. They
Speaker 1: just grab control of this big bunch of islands and
Speaker 1: mainland stuff all around Japan. And the idea behind Pearl
Speaker 1: Harbor stupid and suicidal as it was, was not to
Speaker 1: defeat America. That's that's false history. Whoever told you that
Speaker 1: they were just trying to slow us down. The idea
Speaker 1: was slow down their navy, essentially, take out their Pacific fleet,
Speaker 1: grab control of these areas. Then dig in as fast
Speaker 1: as you can dig in because you know the Americans
Speaker 1: are coming. They weren't stupid, They knew we were going
Speaker 1: to come. Dig in. When the Americans show up, you
Speaker 1: make them bleed for every island, every inch of ground.
Speaker 1: And this is where they really screwed up. Americans, in
Speaker 1: their mind, were so soft. Remember it was very much
Speaker 1: a war of racial superiority for the Japanese. These soft
Speaker 1: Americans are too soft to withstand the amount of death.
Speaker 1: We can take the death, they can't take the death. Eventually,
Speaker 1: America will sue for peace. Even if we quote lose,
Speaker 1: we'll end up with more territory than we had before.
Speaker 1: Now this is important because this is this is something
Speaker 1: that we have to understand about the Kamikazi as we
Speaker 1: work our way to the Kamakazi. We already talked about
Speaker 1: that the honoring of death, dying for your country, death
Speaker 1: not being a bad thing, giving your life. You know,
Speaker 1: death is as light as a feather. That way of thinking.
Speaker 1: Japanese society at that time had nurtured, really, really nurtured.
Speaker 1: They had poured this mentality into their citizens, and as
Speaker 1: a result they had a country full of citizens who
Speaker 1: were willing to die for Japan, were willing to die
Speaker 1: for the emperor, and that that in itself is a weapon,
Speaker 1: and the Japanese there is certainly their leadership saw it
Speaker 1: as a weapon. Hey, we have all these people who
Speaker 1: will die for us, we can use that. That gives
Speaker 1: us a leg up. And wouldn't you agree militarily it does.
Speaker 1: If you have an army full of people who are
Speaker 1: more than happy to die for you, and they have
Speaker 1: an army full of people who are dying to get
Speaker 1: back home by Christmas time to be with the wife
Speaker 1: and Muffy, well I think you would agree that the
Speaker 1: army that's willing to die has some advantage in some
Speaker 1: way over the army that wants to go home. The
Speaker 1: Japanese government knew it had a benefit, it had something.
Speaker 1: It had a leg up that every other country on
Speaker 1: earth did not have. Its entire army, for the most part,
Speaker 1: was willing to die. Now during Pearl Harbor because a
Speaker 1: lot of people think the Kamikazis began later on, and
Speaker 1: officially the program did, but the Japanese were throwing themselves
Speaker 1: into death on purpose from the very beginning. Pearl Harper,
Speaker 1: one pilot plane disabled, not sure, has a chance to
Speaker 1: set it down somewhere. Instead of setting it down somewhere,
Speaker 1: makes the conscious decision to aim for an airfield hangar
Speaker 1: and try to fly his plane into it on purpose,
Speaker 1: to blow up and kill as many Americans as he could.
Speaker 1: Now he got shot down before he could do it,
Speaker 1: but he was trying it. That is one of ten
Speaker 1: thousand incidents I could list of the Japanese throughout World
Speaker 1: War II throwing themselves committing suicide, doing essentially a kami
Speaker 1: Cazi attack with whatever they had a plane, a train,
Speaker 1: an automobile, but seriously, a rifle, a grenade, a stick,
Speaker 1: throwing themselves into death on purpose. So it wasn't just
Speaker 1: that the Japanese government thought they had a people who
Speaker 1: would do this. They did. They had an army full
Speaker 1: of people who were more than willing to die. Pearl
Speaker 1: Harbor goes well for Japan, but America starts to claw
Speaker 1: its way back nineteen forty one. Obviously the end of
Speaker 1: it was a bad year. Nineteen forty two, certainly, the
Speaker 1: first half of it a bad year. Really, most of
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two was a bad year, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you. By the way, quick pause on this. You
Speaker 1: like World War two history stuff? You enjoy this? You
Speaker 1: know that I brought up Hillsdale College a lot. They
Speaker 1: have more than forty free online courses. You know they
Speaker 1: have a seven lecture series on World War Two? Do
Speaker 1: you think you might learn something from Hillsdale College? If
Speaker 1: you get anything from me, You're definitely gonna get it
Speaker 1: from Hillsdale College at no cost. Why don't if you're
Speaker 1: nerding out on this, maybe, why you wait until tomorrow?
Speaker 1: Why don't you go learn from Hillsdale at no cost?
Speaker 1: When I wrap this show up tonight, go to Hillsdale
Speaker 1: dot Edu Jesse and go learn about World War Two
Speaker 1: from the greatest university in the country, Hillsdale dot Edu
Speaker 1: slash Jesse more than forty free online courses, no cost.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, now back to the war Japan,
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor. You got it. The war at first is
Speaker 1: going poorly. We got yes, sucker punched, but they were
Speaker 1: also prepped and mentally ready, and they had their economy
Speaker 1: ready for war. We didn't. We were just sauntering along,
Speaker 1: minding our own business be in America. We didn't want
Speaker 1: to get involved in the European War. Remember we didn't
Speaker 1: like Hitler as a country, but it wasn't our problem.
Speaker 1: America didn't have that kind of foreign policy back then.
Speaker 1: All we wanted was to be left alone. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: now Pearl Harbor happens and you realize you're not going
Speaker 1: to be left alone. It took us time to get
Speaker 1: the equipment we needed, the training we needed to get
Speaker 1: up to speed, and at first we were struggling. But
Speaker 1: then Midway comes. You know about the Battle of Midway.
Speaker 1: You've heard about the Battle of Midway, but this is
Speaker 1: actually important for our story, for the Kamikazi story. The
Speaker 1: Japanese only add so many aircraft carriers. We of course,
Speaker 1: could print aircraft carriers like it was nothing. They only
Speaker 1: had so many, they only had so many planes, They
Speaker 1: only had so many experienced pilots. We slam into them
Speaker 1: at Midway, and we not only sink a bunch of
Speaker 1: their carriers, we kill a bunch of their excellent pilots midway.
Speaker 1: It did not break the Japanese sword, but it broke
Speaker 1: off the edge. They no longer were better than us,
Speaker 1: and virtually every way from that point forward they started
Speaker 1: to lose. The monster that was the American Navy was
Speaker 1: swimming closer and closer to the home island again. And
Speaker 1: that's where we will pick up our story again tomorrow.
Speaker 1: All right, that's all