Bowing deeply before 49 bashful, middle-aged matrons at the old Myoen-ji Temple in Ozuki, seven former Japanese army pilots last week gathered for one of the most improbable war reunions ever. They were the survivors of Katsura Squadron, one of the Kamikaze ("Divine Wind") Special Attack Corps groups designed to destroy the U.S. fleet in the desperate months before V-J day. The women were the girls the pilots had left behind, never, as far as anyone then knew, to see again.
In the dark hours of a May morning 21 years ago, the...
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