The man behind the Kamikaze Headband
The printed Kamikaze headbands that dealers try to sell as those worn by Kamikaze pilots, have long been exposed as fabricated fantasy. They were actually worn by factory workers or more specifically, student girls, who were conscripted into the war-time production labor force. The famous printed example was made as a “tenugui”, hand towel with the name of Saburo Endo and his title of Chief of the Aircraft Production Bureau (of the Ministry of Munitions) below. He was an army Lt. General, who held that office between 1st November 1943 and 25th August 1945. The Ministry of Munitions was the Japanese counterpart of Germany’s successful Ministry of Armaments and Munitions headed by Albert Speer.
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