Catch up TV

Episode 28 July 2025

On the Pacific front, towards the end of World War II, Japan's imperial armed forces launched 'kamikaze' attacks - suicide missions by aircraft laden with bombs. It was a mad operation with no hope of returning alive, but the nation went wild, and the attacks continued for ten months, literally until the very last day of the war. \n\nClose to 4,000 Japanese airmen died, and nearly 7,000 Allied military personnel were killed, and thousands more were injured by the attacks. How could this happen? \n\nUtilising 15 years' worth of extensive interviews with US and Japanese World War II veterans, Takayuki Oshima’s film delves into the mechanism of how a crazed madness swept through an entire nation.

Source: BBC 4