During the war the American military feared some occult Oriental power, as in the 'invincibility of the Zero' (Dower, Japan in War and Peace, pg. 269).
My mother's uncle was a Zero pilot. He survived his missions because engine trouble caused him to turn back before reaching his target. Twice! What is a Zero pilot?
----Shigeru
Shigeru----
About your uncle: how miraculous that he survived. Because most Zero pilots didn't, at least if it was around 1944-5.
In 1937, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was asked to develop a fighter plane, and they created the Zero which was put in service in China in 1940. Only at the end of the war was it used for dive bombing, suicide forces -- October 25, 1944, as a matter of fact.
Many teenagers, college students, were recruited for the suicide forces, with only 7 weeks of flight training. They sunk 34 ships and 288 were damaged. A macabre and desperate chapter in the war.
