Independent Lens

Independent Lens

Wings of Defeat (10x21)


Air date: May 05, 2009

What were the Japanese Kamikazes thinking just before crashing into their targets? When Risa Morimoto discovered that her beloved uncle trained as a Kamikaze pilot in his youth, she wondered the same thing. Through rare interviews with surviving Kamikaze pilots, Morimoto retraces their journeys from teenagers to doomed pilots and reveals a complex history of brutal training and ambivalent sacrifice.

  • Premiered: Aug 1999
  • Episodes: 534
  • Followers: 24
  • Running
  • PBS
  • Monday at 22