What happens...: "
How do you solve a problem like Minoru Honda?
What happens when a fighter pilot amazingly and unexpectedly returns from the dead? Well, in Ensign Minoru Honda’s case, you send him immediately back out to his death..
In September 1942, Honda - of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service was forced to make an emergency landing on Kolombangara - one of the Solomon Islands, where:
”..He was approached by a group of curious natives. Honda held up a bag of candy in one hand and a Browning automatic in the other. The natives were friendly, and tended for Honda’s needs until he was rescued”
It seems that, on his return to his unit after ten days missing, Honda was chastised by his superiors. Having been officially written off for dead - and given a rare double posthumous promotion - he was sent on lone long-range combat missions into enemy territory for seven consecutive days - in the hope that he would not return alive.
“Finally, when a senior officer learned of this matter, he was taken off the suicide missions, brought back to ‘life’, and stripped of his double promotion - such an increase in rank for a living enlisted man would have been unprecedented..”
Later in the war, Honda fought in the Philippines, and finally in the defence of Japan. He has been credited with achieving 17 kills.
Honda survived the war.
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(Bottom image from (and of!) Flickr user trumpetsaxdrums: a wrecked Zero fighter on Kolombangara. Honda’s, perhaps…?”)
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