The strange little men of Japan turned up in the Pacific with a strange little aircraft a man-controlled rocket plane that carried its pilot to certain death. At Okinawa, where it made its first tentative appearance, U.S. soldiers promptly dubbed it the "baka" (Japanese for "foolish") bomb.
Apparently an adaption of German designs, the new Japanese weapon was a 20-ft., two-ton, wood-and-metal airplane launched from a conventional bomber. Carried to about 15,000 feet by the mother plane, the baka would be cast loose by its pilot to ride on the 40-second "whoosh" from three powerful rockets. Since the nose was simply...
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