Kashima Naval Air Group 2nd Sakigake-tai Special Attack Sortie

The Kashima Naval Air Group was commissioned on 15 December 1938 at Oyama in Anju Village, Inashiki District, Ibaraki Prefecture (now Miho Village), on the shore of Lake Kasumigaura. It was a training unit for seaplane crews, flying types such as the Type 93 intermediate trainer, the Type 95 and Type 0 reconnaissance seaplanes and the Type 2 floatplane fighter. In the final months of the Pacific War, when the Navy committed even reconnaissance floatplanes to special attacks off Okinawa, the Kashima Naval Air Group — originally a seaplane training unit on Lake Kasumigaura — was ordered to organize a special attack (tokko) squadron. The unit formed the 2nd Sakigake-tai (第二魁隊), composed of volunteer pilots from the base.

The 1st Sakigake Squadron, formed from the neighbouring Kitaura Naval Air Group, had gone first: it staged through Takuma in Kagawa Prefecture to Ibusuki and sortied on 4 May together with the Kotohira Suishin Squadron, when 40 men in 18 aircraft were lost and Type 94 seaplanes sank the US destroyer Morrison. On May 11, 1945, five Kashima aviators launched from Ibusuki Air Base in Kagoshima Prefecture, flying south toward the Allied fleet assembled off Okinawa. Three men crewed a Type 0 Reconnaissance Seaplane (Aichi E13A / 'Jake'), while two flew a Type 94 Reconnaissance Seaplane (Kawanishi E7K / 'Alf'). Both aircraft were floatplanes — slow, vulnerable craft never designed for combat attack roles — making the mission especially desperate. None of the five men returned.

Additional Kashima personnel were subsequently transferred to bases in Kyushu to prepare for further special attack operations, but were still awaiting orders when Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945. In total, several dozen members of the Kashima Air Group lost their lives during the war, in aerial combat and special attacks and including those killed in Allied strafing raids on the base.

After the war most of the base served from 1946 to 1997 as the Kasumigaura branch hospital of Tokyo Medical and Dental University, and part of the land has been used by the National Institute for Environmental Studies since 1974. A Kashima Naval Air Group monument erected on the former base in 1999 records the sortie of the five men of the 2nd Sakigake Squadron. The headquarters building, catapult foundation, vehicle garage and other remains survive and were opened to the public on 22 July 2023 as the Kashima Naval Air Group Site (Oyama Lakeside Park).