PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
With exclusive access to American and Japanese archives and through first-time interviews, Timewatch explains how a nation, step by step, turned suicide into strategy.

By the summer of 1944, Japan was facing an experience unique in its history: defeat. In a single, disastrous encounter the Allies had destroyed 400 Japanese planes and sunk two carriers. Japan was powerless in what had proved to be the war's decisive theatre - the air.

Then an obscure naval warrant officer seemed to offer a solution. His name was Shoichi Ota, and his plan was simple: a wonder weapon, a new missile which could sink any ship and which could never miss its target - because it would have a human pilot. When the horrified designers asked, "Who would fly such a thing?" Ota calmly replied, "I would." He was not alone. Asked to sacrifice themselves for their country, hundreds and eventually thousands willingly came forward. They volunteered in the knowledge of certain death, either aboard the suicide missile, or by crash diving in planes which became weapons in themselves.

In a country desperate for heroes, they were revered as gods. But they were not gods, they were scarcely even men. It was a rare kamikaze who reached the age of 20. Not every kamikaze who vowed to die for the Emperor fulfilled his wish. A handful survived. In exclusive interviews they reveal how they faced the certainty of death, a few with exhilaration, most with reluctance, resentment, self-doubt and fear. A fear shared by the men they made their targets. US documents, never before made public, reveal the panic felt at the highest levels of Allied command, and interviews with US servicemen graphically illustrate the unique strain of fighting an enemy determined to die.

As the war neared its end, kamikaze was no longer a plank of Japanese military policy, it was Japanese military policy. And for the final conflict - the defense of the island of Okinawa on the very doorstep of Japan - every last plane was committed to a suicide mission. The violence of these massed attacks is captured in some of the most vivid and extraordinary combat footage ever filmed.

Timewatch also answers one final mystery in this definitive account of a unique chapter in the history of war. The real fate of Shoichi Ota, the man whose promise to ride the suicide missile led to thousands of deaths. Was it a promise he kept?

PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Producer Jonathan Stamp
Series Editor Laurence Rees
A BBC Television production in association with A&E

DURATION
1x50'