Yukio Araki

Corporal Yukio Araki (centre) holds a puppy in a group photo taken one day before his death, 26 May 1945

Yukio Araki was born in Kiryu, Japan and at the age of fifteen he had joined the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service's Youth Pilot Training Program.[1] In or around September 1943, he had began training at the Tachiarai Air Base. After he graduated he started working at the Metabaru Air Field, and in 1944 he got work at Heijo (nowadays Pyongyang).[2] He became the youngest kamikaze pilot during the Second World War when, at the age of seventeen, he took off from the Bansei Airfield, Kagoshima in a Ki-54 plane on 27 May 1945. It has been speculated that his plane was one of two that struck the USS Braine, killing 66 of its crew members; however, the destroyer ship did not sink.[1][2]

Araki had been home in April 1945, and left letters for his family, to be opened upon the news of his death. The letter to his parents noted:

Please find pleasure in your desire for my loyalty to the emperor and devotion to parents.
I have no regrets. I just go forward on my path.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 "Yuki wa juunanasai tokkou de shinda (Yuki died at 17 in a kamikaze attack)". Kamikaze Images. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  2. 1 2 Bos, Carole. "Kamikaze Attacks - Pacific Theater, WWII". AwesomeStories.com. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  3. ↑ Gordon, Bill (May 2005). "Last Letters of Corporal Yukio Araki". Kamikaze Images. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
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