On the night of May 24, 1945, near the end of World War II, Giretsu Kuteitai — an airborne special forces unit of the Imperial Japanese Army deployed to execute attack missions on U.S. forces in Okinawa Prefecture as a last-ditch attempt to reduce and delay U.S. bombing raids on Japan’s mainland — departed the now-defunct Kengun airport in the city of Kumamoto.
Twelve aircraft carrying 168 commandos headed to Okinawa Prefecture to conduct forced landings on an airfield that had been brought under the control of the U.S. military.
While one of the planes made a successful crash landing at an airfield in the village of Yomitan in Okinawa Prefecture during the night, its paratroopers catching U.S. troops off guard and blowing up a large number of parked U.S. aircraft, most of them were shot down. A total of 113 Japanese soldiers died in the mission.
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