The Japanese had been pushed back and the urgency of defending the home land would have begun to grow large in their minds. Distressed, they would have begun to seek the guidance and protection of their "Gods" And mayhaps they indeed clutched to the idea that as in the time of the averted Mongol invasion, that if the ones "who stopped attacks" could become one with the *Divine Wind* that the war could be turned back in their favor and the attempted "allied" invasion" would be thwarted.

So,if we imagine ourselves in the cockpit of a "Zero Figher Plane" when you put one of them into a dive from the appropriate height at nigh on snap the wings off speed, that maybe you would be hearing one hell of a roaring wind just prior to impact, explosion and death.

So, in the ultimate sacrifice the pilots/the ones that stop attacks die attempting to save the homeland from invasion by becoming one with the *Divine Wind* and taking out invading battleships and in so doing fulfill there final duty.

..

Does that satisfy you *Pericles* as an enhanced alternative story to mere "special attack corps" alone?

..

As an after note you may also be curious to know that many of the questions that I had about the martial traditions and related subjects, the majority of Japanese that I spoke to were completely clueless about. "GrandMa" wasn't though - she had in her book collection a very old Kanji dictionary, and contained within its pages where the translations to the old inscriptions that I was curious about.

"Historiography is a crock", Squeers?

Historiography is the study of history as a 'thing', not as a series of events. When one studies history, one studies events, dates, names, trends, ideas, etc. When one studies historiography, one studies the ways in which those things have been recorded and passed down. One reads sources critically, identifying bias and selectivity of evidence to determine what might have ACTUALLY happened, rather than what we have been TOLD happened. The idea that 'history is recorded by the victors' stems from historiography - it questions the veracity of historical accounts. In reality, the critique you present in your post is an act of historiographical writing, critiquing the presentation of history.

History (as an area of study) may be a crock, but you haven't really explained how historiography is a crock as well.

Not that any of this has to do with the matter at hand.

Otokonoko,
yes, fair enough; historiography is the history of history--I threw it off in a hurry. Of course in these poststructural days I could argue that there can be no meta-examination of history, and that though the Herodotean (postmodern) perspective is an improvement on recent monolithic histories, history, per se, is lost forever---but I won't.
As you say, this is hardly to the point, but I was pursuing the tangent irresistibly as we've just come out of the culture wars, under Howard, when colonial history was in danger of being taught again as veracity.
To get us back on track, history, like religion, should be taught in schools from a philosophical, and indeed ethical, point of view.

I love the smell of Divine Wind in the morning.

George, I thank you kindly for a fascinating link(s).
Deacon Andrei Kuraev appears to be a very reasonable man, and a good choice for the experiment; I wonder if the exponents of the other religions will be as reasonable.
There are some great quotes in that article, not only from Deacon Andrei:
"The Patriarch has set himself the task of bringing the growing generation of Russians into the church and taking care of them, a generation whose spiritual, moral and physical health is now being sorely tested by the false ideals that are forced on it - vulgar consumerism, social egoism, and attainment of personal success at any price. For as the old Russian saying goes, "he who does not know the law does not know sin either".
If this attitude can successfully be balanced with the Deacon's words:
"The textbooks should not contain criticism of other religions, and there should not be a single line which could be used as an argument in the debate of the superiority of one religion over another. The subject should be treated secularly. It should be financed by a secular organisation, and ‘indoctrination' into any faith should be prohibited," stressed the author of the future Orthodox textbook."
That pretty much covers the subject of this thread, doesn't it?
On a personal note George, I don't doubt for a second your childhood was considerably tougher than mine. On sheer numbers alone, a dictatorial mother would have to be easier to bear than a dictatorial society

Almost forgot, George; one of those 'inconsistencies' (admittedly not so much with the Bible, as with Churches) is evidenced in the first hyperlink in the article you directed us to.
Military Chaplains.
How can that not be oxymoronic?
The quite reasonable sounding Patriarch I quoted in my earlier post is here saying:
'that the modern soldier must be "strong in spirit" and emphasized the importance of spiritual support for servicemen, noting that, "for warriors to be capable of that [sacrificing their lives], we must support them with our prayers, while clergymen should be working with the armed forces,"'
"For warriors to be capable of sacrificing their lives", sounds so much more reasonable than "for warriors to be permitted to break the 6th Commandment".