Ohka, anyone?

[Craig G. Bleakley]

Just brushing up on WW II via Gerhard Weinberg's "A World at Arms" which
discusses  Japanese non-"kamakazie" suicide squads and their delivery
systems.  One of these was the Kaiten, or "long-lance," a naval torpoedo
that was "fitted with a tiny coning tower and held one man who was to steer
the torpedo to its target" (877).

Perhaps more relevant for our purposes, Weinberg also mentions a "guided
bomb" called the ohka, or oka:

The ohka was a steered mini-plane carried to the vicinity of a target by a
two-engined bomber, released in the air, and aimed by its own pilot, who
activiated the rocket engines which gave the ohka such speed that it could
in practice not be shot down.  The problem with this device--after the first
fifty had gone down with the *Shinano*--was that the airplanes which carried
the ohka were generally so slow and had to come so close to allied ships to
release their ohkas that most were shot down on the way by the experienced
American and British pilots. (877)  

Anyone know anyhing about these ohka gadgets?  Like where I might find more
info or a picture?  I'm not actually interested in owning one, nice lawn
ornament though it would be. . . .   

Weinberg, by the way, is a very good chronicler, a bit too much of a
cheerleader for the USA (and takes a stiff "lie in your bed" approach to
Russia's pre-war machinations and the attendent sufferings they caused).  Is
it Robert Coover, in "The Public Burning" maybe, who claims that the Allies
lost WWII (because "we were *fighting* facism, remember?")?  Or Lord Acton?

Craig Bleakley