60 years later, fear is still a factor

Kamikaze suicide planes and typhoons rank right at the top of my nightmarish World War II reality fear factors. The dictionary defines a typhoon as a great wind. The Japanese kamikaze or Divine Wind was named for a typhoon, which saved Japan from annihilation by Kublai Khan the Mongol leader in 1281. This typhoon literally wiped out the invading armada.
Several months after V-J Day, Sept. 2, 1945, I met a young Japanese trained suicide pilot in Yokohama, Japan. He spoke fluent English. He said he was Catholic , and I asked why as a religious person he would become a kamikaze pilot and not give us a fighting chance. He replied, "I place my country before my religion."
During the invasion of Okinawa on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, U.S. Forces faced the full fury of the kamikaze planes. On Sept. 18, 1945, another type divine wind vented its wrath upon us. We were anchored in Yokohama, Japan, when there was a tremendous barometric pressure drop within an hour and the winds kicked up to 70 miles an hour. Our U.S.S LST 582 dragged anchor and we drifted into another LST without sustaining any damage.
On Oct. 16, 1945, while underway on the high seas off the coast of Japan, we were involved in a much more severe typhoon, where the swells were so big that other ships in the convoy were hidden from view. I was on engine room duty for four hours during the height of the storm and thought our ship would flip over like a pancake.
The kamikaze divine wind didn't get me, but I felt sure that this great wind would finish us of. Fortunately our U.S.A.- built LST (Landing Ship Tank) creaked and groaned, but didn't break apart and saved our lives. Even more fortunately, this came after the war, because during a war, weather can play a pivotal role in the outcome of a battle.
X Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and an inductee in the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame.