page_title: Suicide attack
section_title: Japanese Kamikaze
hierarchical_section_title: Suicide attack / History, pre-1980 / Japanese Kamikaze
caption_attribution_description: English: Kamikaze attack on the USS Missouri (BB-63). About to be hit by a Japanese A6M "Zero" kamikaze, while operating off Okinawa on 11 April 1945. The plane hit the ship's side below the main deck, causing minor damage and no casualties on board the battleship. A 40 mm quad gun mount's crew is in action in the lower foreground. The kamikaze on the photo has been identified as either Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Setsuo Ishino or Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Kenkichi Ishii. Suomi: Taistelulaiva USS Missouri kamikazehyökkäyksen kohteena Okinawan tienoilla 11. huhtikuuta 1945. Kuva otettu juuri ennen kuin Mitsubishi A6M -hävittäjä, "Zero", törmää laivaan. Kone osui laivan kylkeen pääkannen alapuolelle aiheuttaen vähäisiä vaurioita mutta ei miehistötappioita. Kuvan alareunassa näkyy neliputkinen 40&#160;mm ilmatorjuntatykki miehistöineen. Valokuvan ottajana pidetään matruusi Len Schmidtia.
context_page_description: A suicide attack is any violent attack in which the attacker accepts their own death as a direct result of the method used to harm, damage, or destroy the target. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout history, often as part of a military campaign such as the Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II, and more recently as part of terrorist campaigns, such as the September 11 attacks.
  While there were few, if any, successful suicide attacks anywhere in the world from the end of World War II until 1980, between 1981 and September 2015, a total of 4,814 suicide attacks occurred in over 40 countries, killing over 45,000 people. During this time the global rate of such attacks grew from an average of three a year in the 1980s, to about one a month in the 1990s, to almost one a week from 2001 to 2003, to approximately one a day from 2003 to 2015.
  Suicide attacks tend to be more deadly and destructive than other terror attacks because they give their perpetrators the ability to conceal weapons, make last-minute adjustments, and because they dispense with the need for remote or delayed detonation, escape plans or rescue teams.
context_section_description: Kamikaze, a ritual act of self-sacrifice carried out by Japanese pilots of explosive-laden aircraft against Allied warships, occurred on a large scale at the end of World War II. About 3000 attacks were made and about 50 ships were sunk.
  Later in the war, as Japan became more desperate, this act became formalized and ritualized, as planes were outfitted with explosives specific to the task of a suicide mission. Kamikaze strikes were a weapon of asymmetric war used by the Empire of Japan against United States Navy and Royal Navy aircraft carriers, although the armoured flight deck of the Royal Navy carriers diminished Kamikaze effectiveness. The Japanese Navy also used piloted torpedoes called kaiten ("Heaven shaker") on suicide missions. Although sometimes called midget submarines, these were modified versions of the unmanned torpedoes of the time and are distinct from the torpedo-firing midget submarines used earlier in the war, which were designed to infiltrate shore defenses and return to a mother ship after firing their torpedoes. Although extremely hazardous, these midget submarine attacks were not technically suicide missions, as the earlier midget submarines had escape hatches. Kaitens, however, provided no means of escape.
caption: A Japanese Mitsubishi Zero's suicide attack on the USS Missouri (BB-63), April 11, 1945.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2013:04:15 01:31:56", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8666", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1850", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2128"}