European kamikazes or eastern barbarians?
If you ask me, as an author and as a person, about how I feel about the issue of voluntary self-sacrifice in the name of a higher goal, then, as a Russian person, it is clear that I will treat this with understanding and respect.
And how can we not respect the choice of our great ancestors, who tried to inflict damage on the enemy even in the most hopeless situation? Today we are talking about rams and kamikazes, yes. The topic has been raised more than once, but today I would like to consider it through two lenses – the West and the East. I promise – it will be informative.
So, let's start with the air ram.
The Soviet ram was not a heroic suicide at all, as some organisms from that side and the domestically bred idiots they bought at the root are trying to show today. Yes, there are more and more of them in the fight for some "truth of that war", but we will fight some more.
Ramming was a rather complicated maneuver, the main goal of which was to destroy the enemy's aircraft and preferably not to ruin your own, because the command did not pat you on the head for this (especially at the beginning of the war). Every aircraft counted, and no one allowed you to just exchange it.
True, Soviet pilots tried not to ruin their machines anyway. The best example is the actions of Alexander Pokryshkin, who dragged his damaged MiG-3 out of encirclement to the last and burned it when it became clear that he couldn’t break through with it. And what about the Yak-1, which Pokryshkin suffered with, but stole from under the enemy’s nose and then gave it into good hands?
This is not the miracle pilot Hartmann, who jumped out of the plane at the slightest threat.
A fiery ram, as Gastello and many of his followers and predecessors did, is a little different. It was a choice - either captivity or death, but to take with you as many enemies as possible. The highest degree of heroism, expressed in such a personal choice, and there is nothing more to say about it.
A regular ramming is something else. It is a really complicated maneuver, in which an experienced pilot does not simply crash into an enemy aircraft, no. On the contrary, such a pilot tries to damage the enemy aircraft as much as possible and his own as little as possible. There are cases when pilots performed two rammings in a battle, after which they landed their aircraft at the airfield. At their own airfield.
The best example here is Hero of the Soviet Union Boris Ivanovich Kovzan, who boarded the enemy four times during the war, and three times he returned to the airfield in his plane.
By the way, if you think that Kovzan received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his rammings, you are wrong! Yes, he was nominated for the title of Hero in July 1942 for three rammings, but the 6th Air Army headquarters "cut" the nomination and replaced it with the Order of the Red Banner.
Why is that? It's simple: if you are a fighter, then in accordance with the Charter you must "maximum effectively use the technical capabilities of your aircraft and its weapons to inflict maximum damage on the enemy." That is, destroy enemy aircraft with cannon and machine gun fire.
What planes did Kovzan use to ram?
2 – on MiG-3, 1 – on Yak-1, 1 – on La-5.
The MiG-3 is a very complex aircraft, and a lot depended on its armament. While Alexander Pokryshkin's MiG-3 had five points, three of which were 12,7 mm Berezin machine guns, everything was more or less decent. When the wing-mounted large-caliber machine guns were removed, even such a classy fighter as Pokryshkin began to have problems. Rattling ShKAS at the Junkers-88 was quite an activity, which Pokryshkin honestly wrote about - it did not work out.
The Yak-1 is a more serious aircraft in terms of armament than the "skim" MiG-3. The 20-mm cannon and two 7,62-mm machine guns in the nose are more effective than the MiG-3's armament.
The La-5 is a plane in which you shouldn't think about ramming. But Kovzan was wounded, his eye was damaged, and his desire to destroy the enemy in such a situation is quite understandable.
By the way, on September 1944, 23, an order was read out to the Red Army Air Forces, signed by the Commander of the Red Army Air Forces, Chief Marshal aviation Novikova, Member of the Military Council of the Red Army Air Forces, Colonel General of Aviation Shimanov, and Acting Chief of Staff of the Red Army Air Forces, Lieutenant General of Aviation Krolenko, which explained the use of ramming.
"Explain to all flight personnel of the Red Army Air Forces that our fighters have excellent, powerful, modern weapons and are superior in flight and tactical characteristics to all existing types of German fighters. Consequently, the use of "ramming" in air combat with enemy aircraft that have lower flight qualities is inappropriate, therefore "ramming" should be used only in exceptional cases and as a last resort."
That is, in 1944, the Red Army Air Forces command was concerned about the losses of flight personnel and combat equipment as a result of ramming. And it strongly recommended using ramming only in extreme cases.
Very logical. Ramming really became less common, but they were practiced until 1945, especially when the war with Japan began. The Japanese were using kamikaze tactics in 1945, so ours responded in kind.
As for Boris Ivanovich Kovzan, he received the title Hero of the Soviet Union in 1943. But not for four rams, but for shooting down enemy aircraft. In total, during the war, Kovzan made 360 combat sorties, conducted 127 air battles, shot down 28 German aircraft, including one in a group.
Yes, now is the time to talk about the Japanese. About the kamikaze.
1944. Japan suffers one defeat after another. Midway Atoll, Saipan Island, Leyte Gulf.
Commander of the First Air Force fleet Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi, a man of rather peculiar mentality and psyche, decided to form a special strike force of suicide pilots. Onishi stated:
"I don't think there's any other way to accomplish the task at hand than to drop a Zero armed with a 250-kilogram bomb on an American aircraft carrier."
Onishi became known as the "father of the kamikaze."
Another one of his statements:
"By sacrificing the lives of 20 million Japanese in special attacks, we will achieve absolute victory."
Yes, now many will draw parallels with the “total war” declared by Hitler in 1945, indeed, there are similarities.
According to Japanese historian Hatsuho Naito, 1944 naval and 1945 army pilots were killed in kamikaze attacks in 2525-1388. Was the destruction of Japan's 16 air regiments of that time effective?
The Japanese military claimed 81 ships were lost and 195 damaged by kamikaze attacks. According to American data, the losses were 34 sunk and 288 damaged ships. That is, 14 pilots per ship according to the Japanese version or 12 according to the American version. In any case, the sinking/damage of one American ship cost a full squadron of personnel of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy Air Force.
Yes, there was also a psychological aspect to these attacks. And the American military really understood that if they had to seize the Japanese islands, it would be very hot there in terms of losses. That is why they first used atomic bombs, and when they did not have the desired effect, the Soviet Union came into play. And with that, Japan capitulated.
In general, the difference is visible to the naked eye. Of course, the psychology of a Russian is quite different from that of a Japanese, this is clear and understandable. The Japanese were decided by their command, which said: "Go and die for Japan!" And the Japanese went and died. And the best picture of this is the ratio of American and Japanese losses during operations to liberate territories captured by the Japanese. Japanese soldiers really did die somehow... thoughtlessly.
We also had "For the Motherland!", but the difference was that yes, we were ready to die for the Motherland, but judging by the results, we preferred that the enemy die. And here you can say whatever you want (and some do), but facts are stubborn things. Ramming was a common occurrence for us at the beginning of the war, but by the end it had greatly diminished. There was no need, they were breaking through anyway.
And most importantly, our pilots did not ram by order. By personal choice, making the decision independently. Therefore, we understand, accept, respect and bow down.
Kamikaze... Well, it's different here. You can't disrespect the actions of the Japanese pilot who broke through the fighters and the ship's fire. Defense, you can't. That's how he interpreted his duty to the country, that's how his head and soul worked. And no one was forced to become kamikaze, unlike in Germany in 1945, in Japan kamikaze were all volunteers. Onishi suggested dying in this way, the pilots agreed. I respect him, I even understand him in some ways. To accept - alas.
Did they help the kamikaze defend their territories? Destroy the American fleet? Hold back the advance of the Americans and allies? No. Onishi simply saw no other way out than to start burning all the pilots in the fire of war for the sake of achieving very illusory goals.
By the way, Onishi himself for some reason was in no hurry to get into the cockpit of a kamikaze plane. He sat very calmly in Tokyo and only after the Decree of Japan's surrender on August 15, he committed seppuku on himself, and even refused the help of an assistant (the one who cuts off his head in order to save him from suffering), suffering in agony for almost 12 hours. Well, in general, a poser. But passionately wanting to destroy 20 million Japanese in the name of a higher goal.
This is our East. Historically, we are somehow both East and West, a little bit of everything, a kind of arithmetic mean, if you like. And there are differences between us and the Japanese.
So, what about us and the West, what about the gentlemen noble knights, how are they doing in this regard?
And they have everything in order. A little about Germany. Despite the fact that the German affairs by 1945 were no different from the Japanese affairs, that is, everything was falling apart at the seams, such examples of self-sacrifice were not observed.
Moreover, despite Goebbels' calls for self-sacrifice in the name of the Reich (let's not slander Germany, okay?), there were no particular people willing to do so. Yes, a special unit of suicide bombers was created, who were supposed to destroy American and British bombers with rams. So what?
And nothing.
There is not a single recorded ramming attack by Luftwaffe pilots. NOT ONE. All these examples (no more than a dozen, by the way) were invented either by the British or by our fans of licking the eagle-with-a-wreath-and-sun. There is plenty of evidence, but we will talk about it in a dirtier topic, this is not the place for it. It is enough that among the Russian liberal intelligentsia there are enough of those who like to invent exploits for the Germans. And they do invent them!
But if you look at serious documents, they did not record a single ramming attack by German pilots. Yes, it is well known that the brave Luftwaffe pilots were very reluctant to engage in frontal attacks, and they came out of them completely exhausted.
It's a paradox, and this is despite the fact that the level of training of the Luftwaffe flight personnel was very high until 1943. But they didn't have the guts, and this is confirmed by a bunch of memoirs, recollections, interrogation protocols of German pilots who fell into our captivity. And we'll put an end to this.
And here the question is not only for the pilots, in principle the entire Wehrmacht had fought its fill by 1944. And in 1945 everything simply crumbled under the blows of the Red Army and collapsed.
Well, here we have for dessert, gentlemen British...
And here we don’t have ramming, the British weren’t great at that either. Again, there were “British ramming” of V-1 flying bombs, but these weren’t ramming at all. A British pilot would bring his plane up to a flying V-1, with his wing, brought under the wing of the German thing, he would flip the V-7,62, the gyroscopes would fly off, the flying bomb would lose orientation and fall. In my opinion, this was pure entertainment, the V-XNUMXs were quite normally destroyed by XNUMX mm machine guns. A demonstration of youthful daring and skill in handling an aircraft – that’s what a “British ramming” really is.
But the British had kamikazes.
It all started in 1940, after the "brilliant" Anglo-French campaign, which resulted in Germany having airfields and submarine bases on the Atlantic coast.
Given that the Germans were well aware of how dependent Britain was on supplies from the US, Canada and the colonies, especially for food and strategic materials, it is not surprising that, as in the First World War, the Germans decided to give the British a "fun life".
Bordeaux-Merignac airfield received Focke-Wulf Fw.200 "Condors" from the 40th Bomber Squadron KG.40. From here, the "Condors", which Churchill called "the Scourge of the Atlantic", could fly out to patrol the Atlantic Ocean, detect convoys and target swarms of German submarines.
However, the Condors themselves did a pretty good job as bombers: from June 1940 to February 1941, they sank more than 40 cargo ships with a total displacement of about 365 tons.
Since Britain did not have many fully-fledged aircraft carriers before WWII (9 including ships from WWI), and by 1942 three had already been sunk, plus two had sunk in 1942, the situation was so-so.
Strengthening the ship's air defense did not solve the problem, because, firstly, it required a huge number of barrels, and secondly, the Condor could easily fly at an altitude of 5-6 km, where 20-40 mm machine guns simply could not reach, not to mention the fact that it is not so easy to detect an aircraft at such an altitude. Plus, the Condor had its own Hohentwiel locator, thanks to which the aircraft crew could detect ships from a safe distance.
In general, the British were not eager to arm their merchant ships to the full extent, usually it was limited to 1 102-mm gun (often an old model), 1-2 anti-aircraft guns or, even simpler, machine guns. In general, if it was somehow possible to fight off a submarine that had run out of torpedoes, then it was more than doubtful to fight off an airplane.
In fact, this is why the Condors were so outrageous in the Atlantic: this outstanding aircraft had too many advantages over the merchant ship.
By the way, the British are keeping quiet about who came up with such a bright idea. I have been looking for a long time, I admit, and have not found it yet. But someone (obviously not a pilot, but some lord) came up with an idea that degenerated into the creation of the so-called "Merchant Aircraft Carriers": CAM (catapult aircraft merchant (ship)) and МАС (merchant aircraft carrier).
The first ones were just lovely! They were just regular cargo ships, on which a catapult with an airplane was mounted. This airplane was the first series of the Hurricane. Well, it seemed to be durable (though the first example fell apart during testing on the first launch and killed the pilot), inexpensive and all that.
The ships were equipped with a simple truss catapult and the same system for launching aircraft using a gunpowder accelerator.
The aircraft were nicknamed "Hurricat" or "Catafighter". Interestingly, the pilots for the catapult fighters on merchant ships were sent from the Royal Air Force, and on military ships, the "Catafighters" were lifted into the air by naval pilots of the Royal Navy.
However, here is another example of a chivalrous attitude: ships of these classes did not serve in the Navy and were considered part of the merchant fleet. In this regard, the Admiralty did not advertise their existence and activities, but what was it like for military pilots on a civilian ship and what status they would have enjoyed if something happened is a question…
So, a convoy is coming, signalmen or radiometers have detected enemy aircraft. The command to take off is given, the "Harricat" takes off... one way. You understand that the ship has no flight deck, there is nowhere to receive the aircraft. So, after repelling the attack, this old "Harricat" either heads towards the shore and lands there, or gurgles into the water. And the pilot is obliged to unfasten, open the canopy, throw out the inflatable boat, jump out himself, somehow find his boat and wait in it until his own people pick him up. Busy, if anything, repelling the air attack.
Okay, if it's the Atlantic in its central part and not in winter. But the Hurricanes were on ships in the polar convoys to the USSR...
Oh, by the way, another nuance: the boosters could push an aircraft with a maximum weight of about 3400 kg from the catapult. The normal takeoff weight of a regular Hurricane, without reinforcements, was about 3000 kg, so you couldn’t even dream about drop tanks and other pleasures. Considering the need to take a rescue kit on board, it’s not a very good prospect.
This is probably why the SAM pilots only flew 9 combat sorties. A total of 27 ships were converted into SAMs, but, alas, for some reason the effectiveness of these ships was so-so. Yes, according to British data, the SAM pilots shot down 7 Condors and 4 He-111s in nine sorties, and this may have been expensive, but converting 27 ships into SAMs, of which, by the way, the Germans sank 10, clearly cost more.
The second type of merchant aircraft carrier, the MAS, were ships with a flight deck built on top of the hull without a hangar and could receive aircraft after takeoff. The tasks remained the same.
In general, of course, the idea was… an idea. When on August 3, 1941, the crew of the Condor found convoy SL-81 in the Atlantic, sailing from Sierra Leone to Britain, they could not have imagined that a Harricat would fly out to meet them. But it did, launched from the ship Maplin, under the control of Lieutenant Robert Everett. And it shot down the Condor, whose crew was simply not prepared for such a turn of events. This was the first time that a Harricat shot down a German aircraft over the sea.
And what about Everett? He started to sink along with the plane. The Germans came to their senses and made a decent number of holes in the British interceptor. And Everett decided to land on the water. But the plane sank like a stone to the bottom, and the brave lieutenant was able to get out of the cockpit at a depth of almost 10 meters. He swam out and was picked up by his own people, although everything could have been more tragic.
For this, Lieutenant Everett was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Yes, this award is given in the British Army and Navy to officers of major and above, but Everett was awarded by King George VI himself, and kings, you know, are above convention.
And five months after his successful attack and miraculous rescue, on January 26, 1942, Lieutenant Commander Robert Everett, flying out of Heron II on a mission, died when his plane crashed on the beach near the Royal Naval Air Station Charlton-Hawthorn.
In April 1942, the CAM ship first escorted convoy PQ-14, heading to ports in the Soviet Union. During this mission, the Hurricane pilot shot down a Ju.88, but his plane was damaged by anti-aircraft fire. artillery, the pilot died.
In general, as you can see, it didn't work out. The idea of a kamikaze in the British style was not accepted by the kamikazes themselves. Indeed, in 1942, getting into the cockpit of a plane made in 1936, slightly reinforced to fly to nowhere - that's somehow not very gentlemanly.
A total of 50 Sea Hurricane IA and 340 Sea Hurricane IВ were built. That is, 390 aircraft and, most likely, about 200 pilots were involved. Aircraft are expendable material in this case. And as a result - 9 combat sorties.
In general, it should be summed up that the cultured European gentlemen had a somewhat different attitude towards self-sacrifice than the Eastern barbarians. More precisely, not at all. It was not accepted to go head-on, to ram the enemy when you ran out of ammunition, to direct your downed burning plane to the enemy's positions or to his ship. Somehow this did not fit into the heads of Europeans, no matter whether they were Germans, British, French, or Italians.
But the idea of catapult kamikazes doesn't look chivalrous or European either. Let's be honest, there was little chance of surviving there, and not because you had to land on water (and its temperature is different, one in the North Sea, another in the Mediterranean, plus sharks), but because, having completed the task, you had to fly closer to your own. After all, you had to splash into the water next to your ships, so that they could catch you. And in battle, who would watch what kind of plane was crashing towards the ship? Who would accurately determine from a kilometer away, in the rush, whether it was yours or someone else's?
By the way, in convoy PQ-14 this is exactly how the pilot died – his own men fired back in full in the heat of battle. Claims – what claims can there be when torpedo bombers attack…
You know, to be honest, reading all this information gives me a strange feeling. They called us barbarians. And themselves so exalted, with high and pure ideals. Fighting according to the laws of knightly honor, which are unknown to the barbarians from the East.
I read in the British (a completely rotten nation, genetically rotten, at the DNA level) what a cruel and bad person Pokryshkin was. He lost wingmen. He shot down a downed German ace in the air when he was escaping with a parachute. Yes, Pokryshkin lost his wingman Berezkin. In a battle over Kuban, where the Germans were twice as many as ours. And the fact that some German shot Berezkin, who also jumped with a parachute, was seen on the ground. And they told about it.
And excuse me, why should Alexander Ivanovich feel sorry for the German? He was acquitted, you know, on all counts. We did not have a war according to the laws of chivalry, and there is nothing to talk about. But about how the Allies starved to death almost a million German prisoners of war in their camps - much has been written about this. By the Germans who survived.
You know, this poseur chivalry, war in white gloves (it is appropriate to recall here how the civilized Germans, French and British gassed each other at Ypres and Marne) - this is somehow not for us at all. The years after the war have only confirmed this. Is ramming barbaric? No question. And how to evaluate what was written above about the European "knights"? Probably the best term would be cowardice. Well, and the dominant instinct of self-preservation.
And today we are watching how all this has multiplied among the gentlemen Europeans and turned them into an incomprehensible substance. But why, let's say, do we care about this, if the events of the last three years clearly show that the spirit that threw our ancestors against machine guns and enemy aircraft has not gone anywhere? And how is Europe going to fight Russia at all, except for supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine? This, of course, is a topic for a separate narrative and analysis, but if 80 years ago the same Germans and British were not examples of high spirit with rare exceptions, what are we going to talk about today?
Probably about the fact that being an Eastern barbarian is much more honorable than being a Western European “knight.”
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