Talk:Masafumi Arima

Accounts seem to vary a lot but reliable sources say his death/final attack was on October 13 or 15. If it really was on October 26, there is no question of it being the first kamikaze attack, since there were confirmed attacks on Oct 21 and 22. See the main kamikaze article for more details.

Also, I can find no record of a kamikaze/suicide attack on USS Princeton (CVL-23), which was destroyed by a bomb and resulting fire on Sept 24.

Grant65 | Talk 01:36, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• According to Trevor Dupuy's The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography, as well as supported by the listed references, the article lists the following:

...commander of the 26th Air Flotilla (1944) and was in that post during the Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 23-25); led air attack on U.S. Task Force 38, but tore off his insignia of rank before he took off, and stated his intention not to return alive (October 26); became legendary in the Japanese navy for having inaugurated the kamikaze campaign, although in fact these had begun with the attack on U.S.S. Princeton (CVL-23) on October 22.

MadMax 05:42, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

In that case Dupuy is totally incorrect about USS Princeton, which was sunk by a bomb which was not attached to a plane. And the date he gives for Masafumi's death is at odds with many web pages which give the date as October 13 or 15. We need to x-reference this in other books, which I will do when I get a chance. Grant65 | Talk 12:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Further to that, according to the material below, we also have the type of aircraft wrong (which would be my mistake) if this guy is correct:

Arima Myth

Posted By: richard dunn <mailto:rdunn@rhsmith.umd.edu?subject=Arima Myth>

Date: Saturday, 13 July 2002, at 12:08 p.m.

In Response To: The aircraft named "Niafu" (Saburo)

Saburo

Admiral Arima's sortie took place on 15th October not the 13th. It was not solo but one of three G4Ms (as pointed out by Katsuhiro) which were escorted by 65 Army fighters and nine Zeros. Their target was Task Group 38.4 which included Franklin. There was no suicide attack and no damage to Franklin from this attack. All the Japanese bombers were shot down by the CAP before they reached the ships. No aircraft were even sighted by the ships in this attack. None the less, a Japanese Army aircraft reported that a torpedo hit had been made on one carrier. This was later credited to the lead aircraft and eventually promoted to a suicide dive (very convenient example when actual recruitment of suicide pilots began four days later).

Franklin received damage from an attack several hours earlier which was carried out by twenty-five Zeros of which six (or seven according to some reports) carried bombs. One bomb hit the edge of Franklin's elevator causing relatively minor damage.

The Arima suicide attack myth has been published in otherwise reputable books. It looks suspiciously like propaganda propagated by Admiral Onishi in order to aid in his selling the Kamikaze idea to his subordinate commanders and pilots. However, I am not aware of the exact details on the timing and origin of the report of Arima's "suicide attack."

RLD[1]

Grant65 | Talk 16:27, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 20:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)