On May 28, 1943, American forces were about to complete the reconquest of the Aleutian archipelago with the assault on the Japanese garrison at Chichagof Harbor, on the island of Attu. Colonel Yasuko Yamasaki decided not to wait for the enemy's attack, and, believing that this would save his honor, he prepared a last desperate attack.
The Japanese goal was to cause as many casualties as possible and die fighting the Americans. A frontal assault on all or nothing. Of Yamasaki's 2,300 men, only about a thousand were fit to fight. Those who could not join this offensive were offered a gun to commit suicide or receive a lethal injection of morphine.
The assault began on the morning of May 29 and the surprise factor was on the Japanese side. His soldiers easily surpassed the first enemy positions. Americans had never seen anything like it. Despite this initial success, the Japanese contingents, prisoners of fanatical inspiration, advanced without any order, separating into small groups. For their part, the US troops, once they recovered from the initial shock, were able to organize a better defensive line.
The Americans were struck by the cries of “banzai” that their enemies uttered to encourage themselves in that all-out attack. Despite this display of courage, which seemed from another era, North American automatic weapons ended up prevailing. By the end of the battle, all 2,300 Japanese attackers and 529 Americans had died. The last episode of the reconquest of Attu represented 40% of the total Japanese casualties suffered throughout the campaign, fought between May 11 and 30, 1943.
The attack on Attu is considered by many historians to be the founding moment of the banzai charges against Western troops. This type of attack consisted of the Japanese launching their soldiers in waves, as a last sacrifice to achieve a glorious death, preferable to granting a surrender that they considered dishonorable.
It should be noted that the term “banzai charge” was coined by the Allied troops due to the aforementioned shouts that their enemies uttered before beginning the assaults; However, the Japanese military never used it.
The origin of the name is in the expression “tennōheika banzai”, which can be translated as “long live his majesty the emperor”. This display of loyalty to the throne of the Chrysanthemum has its origins in the 7th century, although over time it fell into disuse. It was recovered again in the Meiji era (1868-1912), when modernizing Japan needed to strengthen the adhesion of its population to the sovereign.
The expression was linked to a somewhat interested interpretation of the country's samurai tradition. The truth is that how these warriors had faced death in battle in past times was romanticized and exaggerated to set an example of sacrifice for the young recruits, who were going to fight in the wars waged by the Empire of the Rising Sun in Asia at the end. of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
With this climate of growing militarism, the formula began to be used to celebrate victories on the battlefield or to inspire courage in wars against China or Russia. Furthermore, over time it was shortened to simply “banzai”.
The new army of modernized Japan favored direct assault tactics to prevail over its enemies, due to the exhaustive training and discipline of Japanese soldiers. The intervention in the Boxer rebellion and the war against Russia (1904-1905) were a clear example of this way of fighting.
Although successful, such tactics soon proved to be very costly in lives, as seen when attempting to assault the heavily fortified Russian positions at the Siege of Port Arthur during the 1904-1905 conflict. But, although many soldiers died, they had not yet acquired the clearly suicidal character that they would have forty years later.
During the invasions of China in the 1930s, charges were a method of intimidating an enemy that was numerically superior, but less well trained and lacked sophisticated weaponry to establish firm defensive positions. Thanks to frontal assaults with fixed bayonets, Tokyo soldiers usually won.
Expertise in hand-to-hand combat was also characteristic of Japanese forces at the beginning of World War II, when hostilities spread across the Pacific. For example, in the Malaya campaign, at the beginning of 1942, the Tokyo troops prevailed over the British army units, despite being inferior in number on many occasions.
Likewise, the Americans had to face frontal assaults such as those on Makin Island or in the defense of Henderson Airfield, on Guadalcanal. Although, in these cases, the North American contingents were luckier than their allies. It was precisely in the Guadalcanal campaign where the turn of the tide in the Pacific War was certified, since Japan did not advance any further and became on the defensive.
With the new war scenario, the indoctrination that had begun in the Meiji era flourished and that the militaristic Japan of the 1930s had taken a step further by manipulating the samurai heritage. Their ultranationalist governments delved into the idea that death was preferable to a dishonorable surrender. Furthermore, soldiers and officers were convinced that if they fell into the hands of the Allied troops, they would be tortured or executed, which ultimately persuaded many not to allow themselves to be captured alive.
The tendency seen in Attu to fight until the end to try to cause heavy casualties to the enemy was repeated in the following battles, such as in the landing on the Tarawa atoll, in November 1943. There, the last three hundred defenders launched a desperate charge that was repelled by the superior firepower of the marines.
Aside from the “death before dishonor” speech, there was something else behind these suicide attacks. As Max Hastings recalls in his book Nemesis (Criticism, 2008), the Japanese authorities were aware that they did not have the resources to defeat the United States on the battlefield, but they wanted to impose such a cost of casualties for their victories that Washington would end up accepting a negotiation to settle the conflict.
The largest banzai charge of the war occurred during the Battle of Saipan, in the Marianas Archipelago. On July 7, 1944, after three weeks of fighting, American troops had occupied two-thirds of the island, cornering four thousand Japanese defenders. The commander of that contingent, General Yoshitsugu Saitō, considered that surrender was not an option and ordered a banzai charge in which a few Japanese civilians were also to participate.
The attack began at dawn on July 7. Saitō committed suicide shortly before through the ritual of seppuku (or harakiri, as it is better known in the West). The usual script was repeated. At first, the American lines were surprised by the violent attack. The assault lasted for about fifteen hours, and many positions were isolated from the Japanese push, just as had happened at Attu.
Luckily for the American forces, in the central sector of the front was a Marine unit that had already repulsed a banzai charge on Tarawa. His experience was essential to contain the Japanese offensive and buy time to bring in reinforcements and rebuild the defense. By the end of the day, four thousand Japanese were dead, as were 406 Americans (another 512 were wounded).
The sequences experienced in Attu, Tarawa or Saipan were a constant throughout the various battles in the Pacific. Despite their spectacular nature and their enormous cost in lives, banzai charges had no military use. At a strategic level, they did not serve to force the aforementioned negotiation, and, on the ground, they did not give results either. They could have a psychological impact on the Allied soldiers on the front line who had to repel them, but, thanks to training and superior weaponry, they were always able to repel them.
In fact, there were Japanese commanders who expressly prohibited them to their troops. This was done by General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, responsible for the defense of the island of Iwo Jima during February and March 1945, which he considered to be an absurd waste of life. Without resorting to fanaticism, he managed to resist the American assault for thirty-six days, when the US plans called for achieving victory in just five.
The last banzai charge of World War II occurred during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. The advance of the attackers was spectacular, causing heavy casualties to the Japanese troops of the Kwantung Army (considered an elite formation). One of the few points where the Asian military put up tough resistance was in the city of Mutanchiang (northeast China).
There, a few hours before Emperor Hirohito announced by radio the surrender of Japan, on August 15, 1945, the last soldiers holding out against the Soviet assault on the city launched a banzai charge without any hope, beyond fulfilling the destiny that had been instilled in them.
Curiously, in today's Japan the expression “banzai” is still used, although with very different connotations. In its shortened form, it literally translates as “ten thousand years,” and is a way of expressing prosperity or enthusiasm. Other Asian languages also have words with similar meanings: “wansui” (Chinese), “van tue” (Vietnamese) or “manse” (Korean).
