Former sailors shake hands with Japan kamikaze
Sixty-two years ago they were bitter enemies -- one a Japanese pilot trained to crash his plane into U.S. ships on a suicide mission, the other two survivors of a ship sunk by one of the pilot's kamikaze comrades.
But on Friday the three now elderly men shook hands and blinked back tears during a meeting that the former U.S. servicemen said finally helped them come to terms with their traumatic past.
"You feel terrible towards the people who did this to you and as the years go on and we get older, it's a terrible burden to carry," said Fred Mitchell, an 81-year-old survivor of the U.S.S. Drexler, a destroyer sunk by kamikaze off Okinawa in 1945....
The meeting was arranged by the makers of a documentary on the kamikaze released in Tokyo on Saturday, which shows that not all the young men who trained for the missions faced their almost certain death gladly.
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But on Friday the three now elderly men shook hands and blinked back tears during a meeting that the former U.S. servicemen said finally helped them come to terms with their traumatic past.
"You feel terrible towards the people who did this to you and as the years go on and we get older, it's a terrible burden to carry," said Fred Mitchell, an 81-year-old survivor of the U.S.S. Drexler, a destroyer sunk by kamikaze off Okinawa in 1945....
The meeting was arranged by the makers of a documentary on the kamikaze released in Tokyo on Saturday, which shows that not all the young men who trained for the missions faced their almost certain death gladly.