[DManA]

I have read that the Japanese were astonished when several of the pilots of crashing planes deliberately crashed into carriers. Way before they thought of the kamikaze strategy.

[katana]

I remember reading in one book about Midway this quote by a Japanese officer on the bridge of one of their ships, later used in the movie where it sounded contrived and made up: "These pilots die like Samurai!"

Most Japanese who may have visited or attended college in the US before the war never made it east of California and the rest based their opinions on Hollywood films. Few if any ever met a mean ass Alabama Bubba or had any inkling of what individual(istic) American warriors or our collective organizational and productive genius, harnessed to unimaginable resources, were capable of.

But they learned.