forces despite their tremendous firepower. On 15 November 1944, Ugaki was recalled to Japan and ordered to duty with the Naval General Staff. On 10 February 1945, he was appointed commander of the 5th Air Fleet, based in Kyūshū and overseeing all naval aircraft in the region from his headquarters in a cave bunker to protect him from the growing threat of U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress attacks. In March 1945, he launched a long-range strike by kamikaze aircraft against the U.S. fleet anchored at Ulithi Atoll. After the Battle of Okinawa began on 1 April 1945, he ordered the first waves of Operation Kikusui ("Chrysanthemum Water"), which involved hundreds of kamikaze attacks against U.S. Navy ships in the vicinity of Okinawa during April 1945. Though such air attacks continued throughout the Okinawa campaign and caused fearsome superficial damage and crew casualties to a great number of Allied vessels, no Allied warship larger than a destroyer were sunk directly by kamikazes during the spring of 1945. Meanwhile, Ugaki gathered more aircraft and hid them from Allied attack in Kyushu, planning to use them in kamikaze attacks during the expected Allied invasion of Japan. Ugaki planned to hit the invasion forces with hundreds of aircraft and Shin'yō suicide attack motorboats over the course of a few hours in Operation Ketsu-Go (Decisive Operation). Final mission On 15 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito made a radio announcement conceding defeat and calling for the military to lay down their arms. After listening to the announcement of Japan's defeat, Ugaki made a last entry in his diary noting that he had not yet received an official cease-fire order, and that as he alone was to blame for the failure of his valiant aviators to stop the enemy, he would fly one last mission himself to show the true spirit of bushido. His subordinates protested, and even after Ugaki had climbed into the backseat of a Yokosuka D4Y (Allied reporting name "Judy") dive bomber piloted by Captain Tatsuo Nakatsuru, Warrant Officer Akiyoshi Endo—whose place in the kamikaze roster Ugaki had usurped—climbed into the same space that the admiral had already occupied. Thus, the aircraft containing Ugaki took off with three men (piloted by Captain Tatsuo Nakatsuru, reconnaissance by Flight Sergeant Akiyoshi Endo, and Ugaki), as opposed to two each in the remaining ten aircraft. Prior to boarding his aircraft, Ugaki posed for pictures and removed his