Kamikaze (Civ3)/Civilopedia

By the latter half of 1944 most of the skilled pilots that Japan had begun the war with were dead --
many claimed in the disastrous Battle of the Philippine Sea where the Japanese lost three carriers,
more than 400 carrier-borne aircraft and 445 air crewmen. Determined to hold onto the Philippine
islands at all costs (their loss would mean loss of access to the crucial oil and rubber resources
of Borneo and Java), the Japanese realized that drastic measures would be necessary. Knowing that their
new pilots, though under-trained and outnumbered, had no lack of enthusiasm and devotion for their
country, a new "weapon" was concieved: the Kamikaze (Divine Wind), a plane laden with bombs that
would be deliberately piloted into important targets (preferably enemy carriers) in a suicide attack.
By late October 1944 the first waves of Kamikaze planes began crashing into Allied ships, and
quickly claimed the American carrier St. Lo. From October 1944 to January 1945, almost 450
Kamikaze attacks were launched vs. Allied ships; of these, over 200 of the pilots “completed”
their mission of personal sacrifice, always with deadly effect.