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Attritional Warfare and Kamikazes

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Throughout history, World War II has been the most horrendous event from every aspect of the world. World War II was dissimilar from any other war up until this time period because it was what was considered to be a total war. The definition of total war is that not only militia lives were taken, but also civilian lives as well. The explanation of certain tactics used by forces of the war range from unimaginable to worse. Some tactics were used intelligibly, other strategies were hard to explain. Overall, the most bizarre type of warfare was the attritional warfare tactic of kamikazes used by the Japanese forces. Attritional warfare in itself is not bizarre, nor is it difficult to explain, but Japanese forces took it to an inexplicable level. According to authors of Changing Minds, "A war of attrition works through steady erosion. As you wear down the other side they will hopefully realize that they are slowly being annihilated and will eventually capitulate." The Japanese attempted to erode the American forces by the use of kamikazes. A kamikaze is "a member of a special corps in the Japanese air force charged with the suicidal mission of crashing an aircraft laden with explosives into an enemy target, especially a warship" (dictionary.reference.com). The complete idea of a suicidal mission is not entirely incomprehensible to some country’s militia. Even if one were to justify the use of kamikazes for the explanation or an ample specimen of one’s loyalty to his or her

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