Japanese Kamikaze Pilot Thought He’d Be Executed — But the Americans Saved Him Instead..

Lieutenant Junior Grade Kau Hagawa gripped the control stick of his P1Y Francis bomber as anti-aircraft fire exploded around his aircraft. Through the canopy, he could see the American task force spread across the ocean below battleships, cruisers, destroyers. Somewhere down there was his target, the cruiser USS San Francisco. This was Hagawa’s moment.

After two aborted kamicazi missions, he had made a promise to himself. I will go to the goal this time. The 21-year-old squadron leader from Nagoya commanded three bombers that morning, each carrying a 1,760lb bomb. Each pilot knew the mission’s outcome. Success meant death. There would be no return.

But Hagawa was not thinking about the explosion or the impact or the brief moment when his plane would tear through American steel. He was thinking about what would happen if he failed. He had heard the stories. Every kamicazi pilot had if you survived, if you were shot down before completing your mission, the Americans would execute you. They would torture you first, of course, make you pay for trying to kill them.

The propaganda officers had shown photographs they claimed were Americans posing with Japanese skulls. They had read testimonies from soldiers who said the Americans showed no mercy. And if by some terrible chance the Americans did not kill you immediately, Hagawa knew what awaited him back in Japan. He had seen how returned pilots were treated, the ones whose planes malfunctioned, who had been forced to abort.

The shame was unbearable. The dishonor was worse than death. As the battleship USS West Virginia opened fire on his bomber, Hagawa’s world narrowed to a tunnel of tracer rounds and black smoke. His aircraft shuttered with each near miss. Then he saw the destroyer, the USS Callahan wheeling around, her guns tracking his approach.

In that instant, Hagawa accepted his fate. One way or another, he would die today. either in the explosion when his bomb struck the San Francisco or at the hands of the Americans who would fish his broken body from the sea. He never imagined there could be a third option.

But what happened next would change everything he thought about Americans. The guns of the USS Callahan roared to life. 20-year-old boiler maker Robert Thatch would later recall, “Within less than 30 seconds, it was all over. We had him in the water.” Hagawa’s bomber took multiple hits. The aircraft shuddered, lurched, and began its death spiral toward the Pacific. He felt the impact as his plane hit the water, then nothing.

The force of the crash knocked him unconscious and threw him clear of the wreckage. When Hagawa’s two crew members did not surface, the ocean swallowed them. The young pilot floated alone in the water, unconscious, his flight suit heavy with seawater, injuries bleeding into the waves. On the Callahan’s deck, the battle continued…………

 

Lieutenant Junior Grade Kau Hagawa gripped the control stick of his P1Y Francis bomber as anti-aircraft fire exploded around his aircraft. Through the canopy, he could see the American task force spread across the ocean below battleships, cruisers, destroyers. Somewhere down there was his target, the cruiser USS San Francisco. This was Hagawa’s moment.

 After two aborted kamicazi missions, he had made a promise to himself. I will go to the goal this time. The 21-year-old squadron leader from Nagoya commanded three bombers that morning, each carrying a 1,760lb bomb. Each pilot knew the mission’s outcome. Success meant death. There would be no return.

 But Hagawa was not thinking about the explosion or the impact or the brief moment when his plane would tear through American steel. He was thinking about what would happen if he failed. He had heard the stories. Every kamicazi pilot had if you survived, if you were shot down before completing your mission, the Americans would execute you. They would torture you first, of course, make you pay for trying to kill them.

 The propaganda officers had shown photographs they claimed were Americans posing with Japanese skulls. They had read testimonies from soldiers who said the Americans showed no mercy. And if by some terrible chance the Americans did not kill you immediately, Hagawa knew what awaited him back in Japan. He had seen how returned pilots were treated, the ones whose planes malfunctioned, who had been forced to abort.

 The shame was unbearable. The dishonor was worse than death. As the battleship USS West Virginia opened fire on his bomber, Hagawa’s world narrowed to a tunnel of tracer rounds and black smoke. His aircraft shuttered with each near miss. Then he saw the destroyer, the USS Callahan wheeling around, her guns tracking his approach.

 In that instant, Hagawa accepted his fate. One way or another, he would die today. either in the explosion when his bomb struck the San Francisco or at the hands of the Americans who would fish his broken body from the sea. He never imagined there could be a third option.

 But what happened next would change everything he thought about Americans. The guns of the USS Callahan roared to life. 20-year-old boiler maker Robert Thatch would later recall, “Within less than 30 seconds, it was all over. We had him in the water.” Hagawa’s bomber took multiple hits. The aircraft shuddered, lurched, and began its death spiral toward the Pacific. He felt the impact as his plane hit the water, then nothing.

 The force of the crash knocked him unconscious and threw him clear of the wreckage. When Hagawa’s two crew members did not surface, the ocean swallowed them. The young pilot floated alone in the water, unconscious, his flight suit heavy with seawater, injuries bleeding into the waves. On the Callahan’s deck, the battle continued.

Japanese aircraft still swarmed the task force. Every gun crew remained at battle stations, their eyes scanning the sky for the next attack. The ship’s captain, Commander Charles M. Berthof, faced an impossible decision. Navy regulations were clear. In the middle of combat, you did not risk your ship and 320 crew members to save one man, especially not an enemy pilot who had just tried to kill you with a 1,760lb bomb. But Berthof gave the order anyway, “Launch rescue boats.

” As the battle raged above them, American sailors climbed into small boats and rode toward the floating Japanese pilot. Leo Jarbo, an 18-year-old gunner from Maryland, watched from his battle station as his shipmates pulled the unconscious enemy from the water.

 The pilot’s body was limp, his face pale beneath the oil and seawater. Standard practice, the crew would later explain. Friend or foe, if someone was in the water, you tried to save them. But Hagawa knew nothing of American naval tradition. He knew nothing at all. He remained unconscious as sailors hauled him onto the Callahan’s deck. They laid him down and immediately returned to their positions.

The battle was not over. For the next several minutes, Hagawa lay where they had placed him just another piece of equipment to be dealt with later. The destroyer men had more pressing concerns. Japanese planes still filled the sky.

 When Hagawa finally regained consciousness on the Callahan’s deck, his first coherent thought was simple and terrifying. This is where I die. He expected a bullet, a bayonet. Rough hands dragging him to the rail to throw him back into the ocean. He had tried to kill these men, tried to ram his bombladen aircraft into their ships, tried to send them to the bottom of the Pacific. Now they would have their revenge. He waited for the end. Instead, someone brought him water.

 The cup appeared in front of his face, held by a young American sailor who could not have been older than Hagawa himself. The sailor said something in English words Hagawa could not understand and gestured for him to drink. Hagawa stared at the cup. This made no sense.

 In all his training, in all the propaganda sessions, and all the stories whispered among kamicazi pilots in the barracks at night, no one had ever mentioned this possibility that the Americans would give you water. He drank. The sailor nodded and walked away. As the battle finally subsided and the adrenaline drained from the crew, more sailors approached.

 They assessed his injuries, burns, cuts, possible internal damage from the impact. Someone brought medical supplies. They were not gentle exactly, but they were not cruel either. They worked with the efficient professionalism of men who had patched up too many wounded sailors to count. We tried, even in war, to treat men like human beings, Robert Thatch would say 50 years later.

 But in that moment, Hagawa could not process what was happening. The cognitive dissonance was too great. These men should hate him. He had just tried to kill them all. The Callahan remained at battle stations for hours, still screening the task force against further kamicazi attacks. Hagawa lay on deck, drifting in and out of consciousness.

 Each time expecting that when he woke again, the mercy would have ended. Each time he was wrong. When the immediate threat passed, the Callahan transferred Hagawa to the battleship USS New Mexico. He was still barely conscious, still processing the impossible reality that he remained alive. Sailors carried him aboard the massive battleship, and for the first time since his capture, Hagawa was alone with his thoughts, and his thoughts were dark. In Japanese military culture, he had committed the ultimate failure.

 He had been assigned to a kamicazi mission, the highest honor, the purest expression of loyalty to the emperor, and he had failed. Worse, he had survived. The shame was crushing, absolute unbearable. Hagawa later recalled, “At that time, I thought it was dishonorable not to have succeeded in attacking the US ships.

 When I was captured, I was badly injured and did not see any reason to live.” Aboard the New Mexico, still weak from his injuries, Hagawa made his decision. He attempted to take his own life. The attempt failed. An American sailor assigned to watch over him discovered what was happening.

 The sailor raised the alarm and the battleship’s medical team rushed to save the Japanese pilot for the second time in as many days. The guard was later scolded by his superiors for not being more vigilant. But the message to Hagawa was unmistakable. Even when he tried to die, the Americans would not let him.

 The New Mexico transported Hagawa to Guam, where he would spend the remainder of the war as a prisoner. During that journey, something inside him began to shift. The American medical personnel treated his injuries without hesitation. They did not have to. He was enemy personnel, a failed kamicazi pilot who had tried to murder American sailors.

 But they set his bones, treated his burns, gave him medicine for the pain. The sailors assigned to guard him were not the monsters from the propaganda films. They were boys, really teenagers from small American towns with names like Maryland and Illinois and Pennsylvania. They showed him photographs of their families. They shared their rations.

 Some tried to communicate despite the language barrier using hand gestures and drawings. One sailor showed Hagawa a picture of his girlfriend back home. He pointed to the photograph, then to his heart, then smiled. Hagawa understood. This American boy was in love just like Japanese boys fell in love. He had a life waiting for him after the war, just like Hagawa once had.

 These were not the demons described in Japanese propaganda. These were human beings. At the prisoner of war camp in Hawaii, Hagawa encountered more contradictions to everything he had been taught. The Geneva Convention governed the treatment of prisoners of war, and the Americans followed it scrupulously. Hagawa received regular meals, not luxurious, but adequate. He received medical care.

He was housed in barracks that, while certainly not comfortable, were weatherproof and sanitary. Japanese military doctrine had taught him that surrender was the ultimate dishonor, that death was always preferable to capture.

 The propaganda had painted American prisoner of war camps as death camps where Japanese prisoners would be tortured and executed. Instead, Hagawa found a system built on rules and regulations, on documented procedures, and international law. The Americans kept records of every prisoner. They allowed Red Cross inspections. They followed protocols. This was not supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen.

 As the weeks turned to months, Hagawa had time to think, time to compare what he had been told with what he had experienced. Time to process the most fundamental question. Why? Why had the Callahan’s captain risked his ship to save an enemy pilot during battle? Why had American sailors pulled him from the water instead of leaving him to drown? Why had they given him medical care after he had tried to kill them? Why had they saved his life when he tried to end it himself? The answer, he began to realize, lay in something deeper than military doctrine or international law. It lay in the American character itself. He had tried

to murder these men. They had saved him anyway. Not because he deserved it. He knew he did not. but because they believed that even an enemy deserved basic human dignity. This concept was revolutionary to Hagawa. In the Japanese military, individual life was expendable in service to the emperor.

 But the Americans seemed to believe that every life had inherent value, even the life of someone who had just tried to kill them. On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender. The war was over. For Hagawa, sitting in a prisoner of war camp in Hawaii, the news brought a complicated mix of emotions, relief that the killing had ended, grief for his lost comrades, uncertainty about his future, and increasingly a profound confusion about everything he had believed. The propaganda had been lies, not exaggerations, not distortions, lies.

The Americans were not monsters. They were not demons who tortured prisoners and desecrated the dead. They were sailors who showed you pictures of their girlfriends. They were medics who treated your injuries. They were guards who tried to learn a few words of Japanese so they could communicate with their prisoners.

 Hagawa had volunteered for a kamicazi mission believing he was fighting evil incarnate. Now looking back on his experience, he was not sure what he had been fighting for at all. The treatment Haggawa received was not exceptional. It was standard American military procedure. Captain Berhoff’s decision to rescue him was not an act of extraordinary mercy.

 It was simply what American naval tradition demanded. This naval tradition ran deep in American military culture. Friend or foe, if someone was in the water, you tried to save them. It was a principle that went beyond military regulations, rooted in maritime tradition, and the fundamental belief that human life deserved respect.

The Geneva Convention provided the legal framework, but American adherence to these international laws went beyond mere compliance. It reflected core American values about human dignity, fair treatment, and the rules of civilized warfare. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and General George Marshall had made this philosophy explicit.

 American forces would treat prisoners according to international law, not because our enemies reciprocated, but because it was the right thing to do. Because it was who Americans were. This was not naive idealism. American military leaders understood the practical benefits of proper prisoner of war treatment. When enemy soldiers knew they would be treated fairly if captured, they were more likely to surrender rather than fight to the death. It saved American lives. It shortened battles.

 But more fundamentally, American leaders believe that how you treated the defeated defined who you were. You could win a war through brutality and still lose something essential about your own character in the process. The contrast with axis powers was stark and tragic. Japanese military doctrine explicitly forbade surrender. The military code issued to soldiers in 1941 stated that death was preferable to capture.

 By 1945, as American forces prepared to invade Japan’s home islands, copies of this code were distributed to civilians. Japanese treatment of Allied prisoners of war reflected this contempt for surrender. Prisoners were viewed as contemptable for having chosen captivity over death.

 The result was systematic abuse, starvation, and execution of prisoners. American prisoners of war in Japanese custody faced death rates of approximately 27% more than one in four never came home. In stark contrast, American custody saw survival rates above 95% for most prisoner categories.

 German treatment of Western Allied prisoners of war was generally better than Japanese treatment, adhering more closely to Geneva Convention standards. But even here, the distinction between how Germany treated Western prisoners versus Soviet prisoners revealed the darker truth. When Germans viewed their enemies as subhuman, the protections evaporated.

American forces maintained consistent standards regardless of who the prisoners were. Japanese, German, Italian all received the same basic treatment as outlined by international law. For Hagawa and thousands of other Japanese prisoners of war, this treatment produced a profound psychological impact.

 Everything they had been taught about Americans was wrong. The propaganda was not just exaggeration. It was complete fabrication. This cognitive dissonance forced them to question everything else they had been told. If the Americans were not demons, what else had been a lie? If American treatment of prisoners was humane, what did that say about Japan’s treatment of its enemies? If the war was not the righteous struggle against evil that propaganda had claimed, what had all the sacrifice been for? Decades later, Hagawa would

reflect, “When I was captured, I was badly injured and did not see any reason to live. I tried to commit suicide in the battleship New Mexico while being transferred to Guam. But after months of humane treatment, his perspective transformed entirely. Hagawa’s experience was not unique. By war’s end, the United States held approximately 425,000 Axis prisoners, including around 5,000 Japanese. The vast majority survived to return home after the war.

 Compare this to Allied prisoners of war in Japanese hands. of approximately 140,000 Western Allied prisoners, over 27,000 died a death rate of nearly 20%. American prisoners of war in German camps fared better with death rates around 1 to 2%. Though German treatment of Soviet prisoners of war was catastrophically brutal.

 The numbers tell a story of two fundamentally different approaches to warfare. One approach rooted in respect for international law and human dignity produced high survival rates and relatively humane conditions. The other rooted in contempt for the conquered and racial ideology produced death camps and atrocities.

 For Japanese prisoners of war and American custody, this reality was inescapable. They had been prepared for torture and execution. Instead, they received medical care, adequate food, and treatment as human beings. The contrast could not have been more stark. When the war ended, Hagawa returned to a devastated Japan. He enrolled at Kyoto University, married, and eventually built a remarkable business career.

 By 1995, he had risen to become president of Rango Company Limited, a major international corrugated packaging producer with over 4,000 employees. But for 50 years, questions haunted him. What ship had shot him down? Who were the men who had saved him? What had happened to them? The memory of that day, May 25, 1945, never faded. It was, as he later described it, the most important day of my life.

 The day he had expected to die in glory. The day he had survived in shame. The day Americans showed him an alternative to everything he had been taught. In the early 1990s, now a wealthy businessman with resources at his disposal, Hagawa began researching. He spent a year digging through war records, consulting with historians, piecing together the puzzle of that chaotic morning east of Okinawa.

Finally, he found his answer. USS Callahan DD792, the destroyer that had shot him down and pulled him from the water. There was more to the story though, more tragedy. On July 29, 1945, just 2 months after saving Hagawa, the Callahan was struck by another kamicazi attack. This pilot succeeded where Hagawa had failed.

 A bombladen biplane crashed into the destroyer and the Callahan sank, taking 47 of her crew to the bottom of the Pacific. She was the last Allied destroyer sunk in World War II, lost just days before the war ended. The ship that had saved Hagawa’s life had been destroyed by another kamicazi pilot. The irony was not lost on him.

 In July 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the Callahan sinking, a wreath ceremony was planned at the United States Navy Memorial in Washington District of Columbia. Hagawa contacted retired Navy Captain Bill Horn and asked for an invitation. He wanted to honor the ship that had saved him.

 He wanted to honor the men who had died and he wanted to meet the survivors, the men who had pulled him from the water 50 years earlier. The reunion took place in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee at the Callahan survivors annual gathering. About 100 gay-haired veterans filled the room when Hagawa entered. There was an awkward moment of silence. These men had fought the Japanese.

 Many had watched friends die in kamicazi attacks. And now standing before them was a former kamicazi pilot, one of the enemy who had tried to kill them. Hagawa spoke slowly through an interpreter. The enemy yesterday can be your friend today. At certain times, man has to fight against each other and nations against nations and peoples against peoples. But when the war is over, they become friends.

The veterans applauded. Leo Jarbo, now a retired plumbing foreman who had spent 30 years working in the United States Capital building, stood and embraced Hagawa. To come all the way from Japan to do this, Jarbo said, his voice thick with emotion, means a lot. Robert Thatch, the boiler maker who had watched Hagawa’s plane hit the water five decades earlier, put it simply, “The war ended 50 years ago, and I think it is time to put all that stuff behind us. I believe in forgiveness.

” That reunion was just the beginning. Hagawa donated $10,000 to the Navy Memorial Fund in appreciation for the Callahan’s crew. He began attending every Callahan reunion, flying from Japan each year to be with the men who had saved him. His generosity was extraordinary. He hosted elaborate dinners in Washington’s finest restaurants, bringing his entire staff to present gifts to every attendee.

 He invited highranking American admirals to these gatherings. Men like Admiral William Crowe and Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, turning them into celebrations of reconciliation. During one reunion, a Callahan crew member approached Hagawa with something he had kept for 50 years, the wristwatch Hagawa had been wearing when he was shot down.

 The sailor had retrieved it from the pilot’s possessions, and kept it all these decades. Hagawa was deeply moved. The following year, he presented that sailor with a jeweled Seiko quartz watch in return. In 2000, Hagawa paid all expenses for Leo Jarbo and two of the Callahan’s former executive officers, Jake Hymark and Buzz Bazetti and their wives to spend 10 days in Japan.

 He showed them his country, introduced them to his family, shared his culture with the men who had once been his enemies. Hagawa established a naval exchange program between American and Japanese students, funding opportunities for young people from both nations to learn about each other’s countries.

 He wanted future generations to understand what he had learned, that yesterday’s enemy could become tomorrow’s friend. Each year until his death in January 2004, Hagawa made the journey from Osaka to wherever the Callahan survivors gathered. The men who had shot him down and saved him had become his brothers. In a 1995 interview with Naval History magazine, Hagawa was asked how he had dealt with surviving his kamicazi mission with the fact that he had failed. His answer revealed how completely his worldview had transformed.

 At that time, I thought it was dishonorable not to have succeeded in attacking the United States ships. I should mention, however, that now I do not think that way. He had spent 50 years processing that day in May 1945. 50 years thinking about the Americans who had saved him when they could have let him die.

 50 years understanding that the propaganda had been lies, that his enemies were human beings, that war was waste and tragedy and loss. There are technically no kamicazi survivors, he told his interviewer, acknowledging the philosophical impossibility of his existence. By definition, a kamicazi pilot died on his mission.

 But Hagawa had survived because Americans valued his life even when he did not value it himself. That lesson he believed was worth sharing, worth remembering, worth celebrating with the men who had taught it to him. Kawaru Hagawa’s story is not just about one kamicazi pilot and one destroyer crew. It is about the power of treating enemies with humanity even in the midst of total war.

 Think about Captain Berhoff’s decision. In those crucial seconds on May 25, 1945, his ship was under attack. Japanese aircraft filled the sky. Every moment counted. By all military logic, he should have left that down pilot to drown and focused on defending his ship. He did not.

 He chose mercy over expedience, humanity over hate, civilization over vengeance. And that choice made in an instant during battle rippled forward through five decades. That choice eventually brought a wealthy Japanese businessman back to America year after year to honor the men who had saved him. It created friendships between former enemies. It funded exchange programs that would introduce American and Japanese students to each other.

 It became a story of reconciliation told around the world. One decision made in the heat of battle ultimately changed hundreds of lives. This is the power of maintaining your principles even when circumstances seem to justify abandoning them. The Callahan’s crew did not rescue Hagawa because they thought he was a good person. He had just tried to murder them.

 They rescued him because they believed that human life deserved respect, even enemy life, even in war. That belief acted upon consistently across millions of similar decisions by American service members shaped the post-war world. American treatment of access prisoners during World War II paid extraordinary dividends in the decades that followed. Consider the United States fought total war against Germany, Italy, and Japan.

 Millions died. Cities were destroyed. The fighting was brutal, often savage. And yet within a decade of war’s end, all three former enemies had become American allies. This was not inevitable. It required a conscious American choice to treat defeated enemies with dignity and to help them rebuild rather than simply punishing them.

 The Marshall Plan, which helped reconstruct Europe, grew from the same philosophy that governed Captain Bird’s decision to rescue Hagawa. that your former enemies could become your future friends if you treated them right. Germany and Japan both became crucial American allies during the Cold War.

 The soldiers who had fought against Americans in World War II lived to see their countries protected by American military power, rebuilt with American economic aid, and incorporated into a democratic alliance system. Would this reconciliation have been possible if American P camps had mirrored German or Japanese camps? If American soldiers had committed the same atrocities as their enemies? If America had won the war but lost its moral authority in the process? The answer is almost certainly no.

America’s relatively humane treatment of prisoners, while not perfect, created the foundation for post-war reconciliation. It is easy to dismiss Hosagawa’s story as a feel-good tale from a simpler time. It is not. The challenges that Captain Berthof faced in 1945 remain relevant today. In the heat of conflict, when emotions run high and danger is immediate, maintaining your principles is difficult.

 Preing enemies with basic humanity when they have just tried to kill you requires enormous discipline and moral clarity. But the lesson of the Callahan is that this discipline matters. It matters tactically. Treating prisoners well encourages surrender and saves lives on both sides. It matters. Strategically humane treatment of enemies makes postconlict reconciliation possible.

 And it matters morally how you treat the defeated defines who you are. The American sailors who rescued Hagawa were not thinking about strategy or post-war reconciliation. They were simply following their training and their principles. But their actions multiplied across thousands of similar decisions helped transform the American military into an institution that could win wars and win the peace that followed.

 50 years later, a Japanese businessman stood before a room full of American veterans and said, “The enemy yesterday can be your friend today.” He could say this because those veterans had chosen mercy over vengeance in a moment of chaos. That is worth remembering. That is worth celebrating. that is worth emulating.

 On May 25, 1945, Kawu Hagawa pointed his bomber toward an American cruiser, fully expecting to die in a ball of flame and twisted metal. He had been taught that success meant death and capture meant torture. He was wrong about both. The Americans shot him down. They pulled him from the water. They saved his life twice.

 They treated his injuries, fed him, housed him, and eventually sent him home to rebuild his shattered country. They did this not because he deserved it, but because they believed in something larger than vengeance. They believed in human dignity, even for those who had tried to kill them. 50 years later, Hagawa came back to America to say thank you.

 He came back every year until he died, spending his own fortune to honor the men who had shown him mercy. He did not just forgive his former enemies, he made them his brothers. This was not just American military doctrine at work. This was American character. The belief that every life has value. The conviction that rules matter even in chaos.

 The faith that yesterday’s enemy can become tomorrow’s friend. Kru Hagawa expected death on May 25, 1945. He found humanity instead. And that discovery changed not just his life, but the lives of everyone his story touched. The lesson endures. How we treat our defeated enemies defines who we are far more than how we defeat them.

 Do you have a family story about pals from World War II, American prisoners held by the Axis, or enemy prisoners in American custody? Share it in the comments below. These stories of humanity in wartime deserve to be remembered and