was an

ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the c ...

fighter pilot in the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrend ...

(IJN) during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Participating in many of the Pacific War battles and campaigns as a member of several units, Minami was officially credited with destroying 15 enemy aircraft. He was killed in November 1944 attempting to crash his aircraft into enemy ships off

Leyte Leyte ( ) is an island in the Visayas group of islands in the Philippines. It is eighth-largest and sixth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 2,626,970 as of 2020 census. Since the accessibility of land has be ...

as a participant in

Kamikaze , officially , 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 t ...

operations.

References

* 1915 births 1944 deaths Kamikaze pilots Japanese naval aviators Japanese World War II flying aces Japanese military personnel killed in World War II Military personnel from Kagawa Prefecture Imperial Japanese Navy officers {{Japan-mil-bio-stub