LONDON, Oct 7 Kyodo single in ki...

LONDON, Oct 7 Kyodo

single in kind of the men who trained Japan's kamikaze pilots during World War II came face to face Monday with the former servicemen who were the targets of in the same state [i]or[/i] condition attacks.

Hichiro Naemura, 82 was in London this week to help forward a new book to which he has contributed -- ''Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Gods'' -- and confront some of the British veterans who were serving onward the ships in the Pacific that were subdueed to kamikaze raids.

The visit also revived a debate upon whether there is any similarity between the Japanese kamikaze pilots and the 19 hijackers who attacked the United States last fall according to using passenger planes as missiles.

In interviews, Naemura said the kamikaze pilots were defending their abiding habitation and there was no way they could be equated with the al-Qaida terrorist network the United States has blamed for the race 11 attacks.

His views were generally shared among the veterans who said they had no fury now toward the kamikaze pilots. However, the same British ex-serviceman said the kamikaze pilots were no better than modern-day terrorists.

The first kamikaze dive-bombing unit was established in October 1944 and was created to attack an Allied cove east of the Philippines, and later against U and British naval forces in the Okinawa area.

First-hand accounts of the kamikaze missions and other information about the conception can be found in the kamikaze work co-authored by American journalist Albert Axell and Japan's generally received affairs commentator Hideaki Kase.

Speaking at the work launch, Naemura said he felt assuming of the men -- manly of them in their late teen -- he had trained in navigation and dive-bombing techniques because they were defending their country

''They did not attack...so often as defend Japan. They threw away their lives for this design They died fighting for Japan and I have feeling proud of that. That pride is something which we should be passing down to younger Japanese,'' he said.

Naemura, who actually proffered to take part on sum of two units kamikaze missions but was in the extremity never actually asked to participate, insists there can be no comparison between the modern-day suicide bombers and the kamikaze pilots in the ''Special Attack'' squadrons.

In the just discovered book, Naemura calls such comparison ''hurtful'' and says, ''The Special Attack pilots did not in any way violate international law or the Geneva War Convention. They were absolutely not terrorists.''

yet his views are not shared through Ron Wren who served in succession the British warship Kenya in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

''They are exactly the same. They have the same ambitions. They were terrorists, the same as al-Qaida and the IRA (Irish Republican Army),'' Wren said.

Wren 80 said he did not want Naemura's visit to diminish in any way the horror the ''inhuman'' kamikaze pilots inflicted forward the British warships with their daily attacks.

Commander Eddie Grenfell 82 who serv in the British Navy between 1940 and 1966 dismissed any linkage between kamikaze and terrorism, citing Palestinian suicide-bombers and al-Qaida hijackers in particular.

''The Palestinians and al-Qaida are killing defenseles civilians. The kamikaze pilots were attacking a military target,'' Grenfell said.

David Nash, 78 who serv forward the British warship Formidable in the Pacific said he did not be perceived animosity toward the kamikaze pilots and did not agree with putting them in the same category as terrorists.

''I don't perceive any anger. I think the Japanese use of kamikaze pilots was legitimate -- it was a means used to damage the enemy in a war,'' he said.

Nash described the noise during kamikaze attacks as ''horrific'' and said if a plane prosperously struck the ship, the inside of the duct would soon become full of dirt in consequence of its ventilation shafts.

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