Possibly the oddest plane to ever fly, the Bachem Ba 349 Natter (Viper) is more properly thought of as a manned surface-to-air missile (SAM).   Erich Klöckner was tasked with developing the 'Natter' towards the end of 1944, when experienced combat pilots were in short supply and ways were being sought of maintaining the offensive against the Allied bombers. This aircraft was a manned, rocket-propelled single-flight projectile which could be flown by a pilot with only limited training in how to aim it at the enemy. It was to be launched vertically from a gantry and fire its nose-mounted load of 34 3-inch rockets into a bomber stream in a single salvo lasting 0.4 seconds. The pilot would then bale out, as the aircraft was simple, cheap and disposable. However, it was calculated that the average acceleration during the climb would be 2.2g, the highest projected altitude 52,000 feet, the average climb speed 420 mph and the horizontal speed while accelerating away from the fighter escort would be 620 mph! Exactly how the pilot was going to abandon the aircraft safely when his 7 minute fuel supply ran out was left to him!   Klöckner put in a less than enthusiastic assessment of the project and refused to fly it until a number of requirements had been met. He was then visited by two high-ranking SS officers, who did their best to persuade him that there was no time, the Führer needed the weapon and that nobody should shrink from his duty to defend the Fatherland in the hour of its greatest need. The word 'Ritterkreutz' (Knight's Cross) was mentioned, but when that failed there was something muttered about a pistol as they paced up and down the floor! A volunteer was eventually found and strapped in, but shortly after lift-off the plexiglass canopy blew off and at the speeds reached by the rocket it is likely that the pilot lost consciousness almost immediately. The engine of the 'Natter' ran all the way to the ceiling altitude, then the aircraft went into a steep dive and disappeared, crashing into the Danube valley. At least one Foo-fighter sighting appears to have been of a Bachem Ba349 'Natter' - The case in which in which pilot Lt. David L. McFalls and his radar-observer, Lt. Ned Baker, saw ‘[a] glowing red object shooting straight up, which suddenly changed to a view of an aircraft doing a wing-over, going into a dive and disappearing.’   Upon launch, the Natter would be guided, by ground-based radio-control, to a point above and in front of the target bombers. At this point the pilot would assume control of the aircraft and ‘push over’ for a gliding attack. Both in its appearance and its manoeuvres, this seems to agree with the Foo-fighter reported by McFalls and Baker. However, no flights were known to be made during nighttime with the Bachem Ba349 'Natter'. With the Allies decimating the Luftwaffe in 1944, desperate measures were thought up to address the issue. Although most of the Luftwaffe commanders pressed for more jet fighters like the Me 262, all sorts of crazy ideas were given the green light for development, typically at the behest of some high-ranking Nazi official. The problems were many. Jet engines of the era had serious problems throttling up during takeoff and landing, so airbases were death traps. Once in the air things got much better, but attempting to target a plane travelling 200 or more miles an hour slower was tremendously difficult. This wasn't too much of a problem for the Luftwaffe's cadre of experten pilots, but as the allies thinned their ranks the jets were being flown by "green" pilots who were completely ineffective. No amount of Me 262s would solve this problem, so some other solution was needed.   Various efforts had been underway to develop missiles for this purpose, but invariably problems with the guidance systems prevented these from seeing widespread use. Fitting a pilot to the top seemed like the only solution, which the Luftwaffe requested in early 1944. A number of simple designs were proposed, most using a prone pilot to reduce frontal area. The front runner for the design was initially the Heinkel P.1077 that took off from a rail and landed on a skid like the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet.   Erich Bachem's BP20 was a warmed-over design from when he worked at Fieseler, but considerably more radical than the other offerings. It was built using glued and screwed wooden parts with an armored cockpit, powered by a Walter HWK 509A-2 rocket, similar to the one in the Me 163. Four strap-on Schmidding rockets were used for launch, providing a combined thrust of 47 kN (10,582 lb) for 10 seconds before they were jettisoned. The plane rode up a rail for about 25 metres, by which time it was going fast enough for the flight controls to keep it flying straight.   The plane took off and was guided almost to the bomber's altitude using radio control from the ground, with the pilot taking control right at the end to point the nose in the right direction, jettison the plastic nosecone and pull the trigger. This fired a salvo of rockets (either 33 R4Ms or 24 Hs 217s), at which point the plane flew up and over the bombers. After running out of fuel the plane would then be used to ram the tail of a bomber, with the pilot ejecting just before impact to parachute to the ground.   Needless to say many thought the idea was crazy and rejected it out of hand. The design was in fact much more reasonable than any of the others in one aspect — they all required the non-existent pilots to actually fly the plane into a landing. After some political wrangling Bachem's design caught the eye of Heinrich Himmler at the SS. Suddenly, one day later, it was the winner of the design contest. The Luftwaffe nevertheless managed to include some minor redesigns to try to save as much of the plane as possible, as well as eliminating the ramming attack.   The resulting tiny plane was fired up a 50 foot wooden pole with the help of four solid fuel rockets, at the end of which it was already going fast enough for its control surfaces to work. The solids burned out after 12 seconds, at which point the main engine was long up to full thrust. The mission now had the plane guided to a point in front and above the bombers, where the pilot would turn off the autopilot, and push over for a gliding attack. After firing its armament of rockets it continued gliding down at high speed to about 3,000 m, at which point the plane "broke" when a large parachute opened at the rear of the plane, popping off the nose section and the pilot with it. Both would land under their separate parachutes, and only the cockpit and wooden wings went to waste.   Perhaps even more amazing than the design itself was the fact that it was actually built and tested. This was no small feat due to the incredible secrecy the SS placed on the project. After building wind-tunnel models early in the program, they were shipped off for testing and the only results returned to the Bachem designers were that it would be "satisfactory" up to speeds of about 685mph.   Full sized models were then completed and started flight testing in November 1944. The initial versions didn't include an engine, and were towed in the air by a Heinkel He 111 bomber for glide testing. Other test articles were equipped with extra solid motors for launch and autopilot tests. All of these went well, but during testing it was shown that any attempt to re-use the engine was hopeless, the landing speed was simply too high.   Construction of the production Ba 349A models had already started in October,and fifteen were launched over the next few months. Each launch resulted in some small modification to the design, and eventually these were collected into the definitive production version, the Ba 349B which started testing in January.   In February 1945 the SS funders decided that the program was not going fast enough, and demanded a manned launch later that month. The first, and possibly the only, time that the aircraft was tested in this way was on February 28, when Lothar Siebert flew a Ba 349A. Things went well at first, but at 500 m (1,600 ft) the cockpit canopy pulled off. The plane suddenly turned over and flew directly into the ground. Siebert was killed in the accident, and the cause was never explained. It was suspected that the canopy may simply have not been properly latched before launch.   US forces overran the factory at Waldsee in April, but small numbers of Bachem staff had moved and taken the remaining ten B models with them. Soon the US had caught up with them again, and six of the ten were burnt.   Several sources claim that an operational unit of Natters was set up by volunteers in Kirchheim but didn't carry out any operations, but the evidence for this not conclusive.

Kamikaze  (神風 from Kami - "god" and kaze - "wind") means 'divine wind' in Japanese. It refers to the typhoon which saved Japan from a Mongol invasion fleet in 1281. Background and definition By extension, during World War II the word came to be used for desperate suicide attacks, particularly by aircraft assigned to destroy US and Allied ships by flying directly into them. Japan had lost any pretext of having competitive fighters by 1944, and were hardly able to service them, so expending them as bombs was suggested by Admiral Takijiro Onishi in October 1944. The official name of the mission was 神風 (shinpuu; (same characters but different pronunciation from kamikaze) 特別 (tokubetsu) 攻撃隊 (ko-geki tai) literally meaning devine storm special force units. Due to that name, Japanese often know kamikaze as tokko or 特攻 (from tokubetsu kogeki). The idea of kamikaze has been applied later in other parts of the world when the situation is hopeless. Instances are Selbstopfer in Nazi Germany in late World War II and terrorism that employs suicidal attack such as the September 11 terrorist attack, and suicide bombing in Israel by Palestinians. The First Kamikaze The first sortie by the Special Attack Force (Tokkotai, or Kamikaze Squadron) took place at the Battle of Leyte Gulf of the Philippines. The Japanese forces had lost the power they had at the beginning of the Pacific War (known officially as the Great Eastern Asian War in Japan) after their defeat at the Battle of Midway, and the US forces, with their rich resources and strong industrial power, were cornering the Japanese. On July 15 1944, Saipan, which was the important base for the defense of Japanese mainland, finally fell to the Americans. The capture of Saipan made it possible for the US forces to strike the Japanese mainland with B-29 Superfortress long-range bombers. After the capture of Saipan, the US captured the Philippines, the islands where General MacArthur promised to return, and tried to make these islands the base for the attack on Japanese mainland. The Philippines were strategically important since the islands were located between the oil fields of Southeast Asia and Japan. For that reason, the Imperial Headquarter was forecasting that the Americans would try to capture the Philippines. On October 17, 1944, the US forces started to land on Suluan Island at the entrance of Leyte Gulf. On the next day, the Imperial Headquarter officially announced Shou ichi gou sakusen (Operation Syou No.1) in order to defend the Philippines. In this operation, Kurita fleet, which was supplied in Burney, Borneo Island, was supposed to storm into Leyte Gulf and destroy the US forces. In addition, the Ozawa fleet  joined the operation as decoy, and the Nishimura fleet and Shima fleet  joined the operation as mobile forces. Also, the First Air Fleet joined the lines to support the operation. However, the First Air Fleet at that time only had 40 airplanes, which were 34 Zeros, 1 reconnaissance plane, 3 Nakajima B6N Tenzan (Jill), 1 Mitsubishi G4M1 (Betty), and 2 Yokosuka P1Y1 Ginga (Frances). In order to make it possible for the mobile forces to destroy the US landing forces in Leyte Gulf, it was necessary to stop the movement of the US task forces. The goal of the First Air Fleet was to fight the US task forces, however it seemed totally impossible to carry out the mission with only 40 airplanes. Given the impossibility of the mission, the First Air Fleet was therefore the first squadron ever to form a Kamikaze Special Attack Force and the commandant of the First Air Fleet, Vice Admiral Onishi Takijirou, was known as the father of kamikaze attack. 　 Vice Admiral Onishi was assigned to Manila on October 17, 1944. Two days later, he went to Magracut Airport. At the 201st Navy Flying Corps headquarter in Magracut, a historical meeting was held. Finally, Vice Admiral Onishi suggested to his men. "I don't think there would be any other certain way to carry out the operation than to put a 250kg (app. 552lbs)-bomb on a Zero and let it crash into a US carrier, in order to disable her for a week." The captain of the 201st Flying Corps, Commander Tamai, is said to have responded by telling Vice Admiral Onishi that he couldn't make any decision without a presence of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku. Vice Admiral Onishi told Commander Tamai that he already had Admiral Yamamoto's approval, however, and so Commander Tamai asked for a time to consider the proposal. Discussing the suicide missions with Lieutenant Shijuku, Commander Tamai, known for his gentleness and modesty, finally decided that there was no choice but to carry out the suicide mission, and his agreement was conveyed to Vice Admiral Onishi. With the official formation of the special attack force, Commander Tamai asked twenty-three pilots from the Class-A Student Pilots of the 10th Session Training, who Commander Tamai had personally trained, to participate in the operation. All pilots agreed to join the operation, raising both their hands. Although it was already becoming obvious at this point that Japan was starting to lose the war, the morale of the soldiers was very high. For the commander of the special attack force, Lieutenant Seki Yukio, the 70th graduate of the Naval Academy, was named. When Lieutenant Seki was asked by Commander Tamai to be a commander of the special attack force, Lieutenant Seki closed his eyes and thought for ten seconds, hanging down his head. Then finally, he told Commander Tamai "please let me do that." Therefore the first 24 kamikaze pilots were chosen. The name of the special attack force was officially decided to Kamikaze Special Attack Force. The names of each four units, which were Unit Shikishima, Unit Yamato, Unit Asahi, Unit Yamazakura, was taken from a patriotic poem (waka or tanka) by an old Japanese classical scholar, Motoori Norinaga, which reads; If someone asks about the Yamato (Japanese) spirit of Shikishima (Japan), It is the flowers of yamazakura (mountain cherry blossom) that is fragrant in the Asahi (rising sun). The first kamikaze strike came on October 25, 1944, off the Philippine island of Leyte. Twenty-six Mitsubishi Zeros were split into four groups to attack shipping, and five of these were able to hit the US aircraft carrier St. Louis with their load of 250kg of explosives, and sink her. Others hit and damaged several other carriers, and a submarine attack added to the confusion. Sequence This success was followed by an immediate expansion of the program, and over the next few months over 2,000 planes made such attacks. This included new types of attacks, including purpose-built Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka rocket-bombs, small boats packed with explosives, and manned torpedoes. Their "high-point" came during the Battle of Okinawa, when waves of planes made hundreds of attacks. The effort included a one-way mission by the battleship Yamato, which failed to get anywhere near the fight after being set upon by US fighters several hundred miles away. Starting with destroyers on "picket duty" and then moving on to the carriers in the middle of the fleet, the kamikaze aircraft attacks created enough havoc to threaten the Allied mission. By the end of the battle just under 30 ships had been sunk, and over 160 more damaged, expending 1,465 planes in the process. As stocks of older planes started to dry up, a new kamikaze-only plane, the Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi, was designed to provide a simple, easy-to-build plane that could use up existing stocks of engines in a wooden airframe. The undercarriage was non-retractable, to be jettisoned shortly after take-off for a suicide mission, to be reused. Prior to the proposed invasion of mainland Japan ('Operation 'Olympic’  on November 1, 1945) the Japanese military speeded up its preparations to attack the Allied invasion force while still at sea, coming up with some very desperate ideas for suicide attacks of differing kinds: Thousands of volunteer pilots were hastily trained for airplane suicide attacks. Over 500 aircraft of all types were available for these kamikaze missions. Around 400 Koryu and Kairyu suicide submarines (five and two-man versions of the Kaiten) would set out on their one-way journey. Also prepared to sacrifice their lives were 300 volunteers for the Shinyo human torpedoes. Most bizarre of all were the hundreds of strong swimmers who would swim out with deadly mines strapped to their backs to explode against the hulls of the Allied ships. Just when all was set for the greatest military mass suicide in history, the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese ordered all kamikaze operations to cease. The originator of the first kamikaze attack, Vice Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, committed suicide by disemboweling himself. By the end of the Pacific war on September 2, 1945, a grand total of 1,228 Japanese suicide pilots had given their lives for their Emperor. Their score was 34 US ships sunk and 288 damaged. These included three escort carriers and fourteen destroyers. No battleships or cruisers were sunk. According to a Japanese tally, suicide attacks accounted for up to 80 percent of American losses in the final phase of the war in the Pacific. The military effect of kamikaze tactics was significant but not overwhelming. Even so, the psychological effect on Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen was profound.   It seems that the usage of the phrase suicide bombing dates back to as early as 1947. The Times (London) of April 15, 1947, page 2, refers to a new pilotless, radio-controlled rocket missile thus: ' Designed originally as a counter-measure to the Japanese "suicide-bomber," it is now a potent weapon for defence or offence '. The quotes are in the original and suggest that the phrase was an existing one. An earlier article (Aug 21, 1945) refers to a kamikaze plane as a "suicide-bomb".