Armoured flight deck
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An armoured flight deck is an aircraft carrier flight deck that incorporates substantial armour in its design.
HMS Formidable on fire following a kamikaze strike, Okinawa, 9 May 1945. Total casualties, 3 dead and 19 wounded.
USS Franklin listing, with crew on deck, due to two armor piercing bomb hits penetrating the unarmoured flight deck, 19 March 1945. Total casualties, 807 dead and 487 wounded.
Kamikaze
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Kamikaze , officially Shinpū Tokubetsu Kōgekitai , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to destroy warships more effectively than with conventional air attacks. About 3,800 kamikaze pilots died during the war, and more than 7,000 naval personnel were killed by kamikaze attacks.
USS Bunker Hill, an aircraft carrier, was hit by two kamikazes on 11 May 1945, resulting in 389 personnel dead or missing and 264 wounded.
Kamikaze was a reference to the two typhoons that sank or dispersed Kublai Khan's invading Mongol fleets.
Lt. Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex on 25 November 1944. The attack left 15 killed and 44 wounded. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank trails fuel vapor and/or smoke.
Model 52c Zeros ready to take part in a kamikaze attack (early 1945)