Yukio Seki

In 1942, Seki returned to Japan and enrolled in the Naval flying academy at Kasumigaura, Ibaraki. After basic training, he was transferred to Usa in Ōita Prefecture, to be trained as a dive bomber operating from carriers. In January 1944, he became an instructor at Kasumigaura. Seki became friends with the Watanabe family living in Kamakura and fell in love with their daughter Mariko. Once when he was out drinking with his colleagues, one of them suggested that all of them should get married on the same day. They all agreed. The same weekend, Seki went to Kamakura and proposed to Mariko while her mother was present. Mariko accepted, and they were married May 31, 1944. Seki's mother Sekae was the only relative from his side to take part in the wedding. After the wedding, she lived with the young couple for a month and then left saying, "Young couples need some time alone". Soon after, they moved into a house close to the flying academy.

In September 1944, Seki was transferred to Tainan, a city in Taiwan. He had to leave his wife behind because Tainan was not safe enough for them to go together. Mariko followed Seki to Yokohama to say goodbye to him. Three weeks after he had arrived in Tainan, he was transferred again, this time to the 201st Flotilla in the Philippines as leader of the 301st fighter unit. Their base was originally in Nichols Field south of Manila, but was later moved to Clark Field in Mabalacat, away from increasing attacks by the Americans.

On October 25, 1944, Lt. Seki's squadron of five kamikaze A6M2 Model 21 Zeros, each carrying a 250 kg (550-pound) bomb, took off with an escort of 4 A6M5's flown by legendary ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Misao Sugawa, Shingo Honda and Ryoji Baba. Their target was Vice Admiral Clifton Sprague's "Taffy 3" task force during their desperate defense of the landings in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, having only a short while earlier survived an attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy Center Force led by Admiral Takeo Kurita that included the IJN flagship Yamato in the Battle off Samar before Kurita ordered the Center Force to return home after expending much of their ammunition meant for the Leyte landings against Taffy 3, only succeeding in sinking the escort carrier USS Gambier Bay, the destroyers USS Johnston and USS Hoel and destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts before withdrawing. At 1050, Seki's squadron made their attack on four escort carriers of Taffy 3:

In 1938 he applied to enroll in the War Academy of both the Imperial Navy and the ground forces. He was accepted to both; he chose the Japanese Naval Academy at Etajima. During this time, his father died and his mother closed the antiques shop and lived alone. In 1941, one month before the Pearl Harbor attack, Seki graduated and was ordered to the battleship Fusō. In June of the same year, he was promoted to lieutenant. Soon he was transferred to the seaplane carrier Chitose.

Yukio Seki (関 行男, Seki Yukio, August 29, 1921 – October 25, 1944) was a Japanese naval aviator of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. As a kamikaze pilot, Lieutenant Seki led one of the three fighter groups of the second official kamikaze attack in World War II (the first official attack was an unsuccessful attempt led by Yoshiyasu Kunō [ja] on October 21, 1944). Seki's final action took place on October 25, 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. He led a unit of five bomb-armed Mitsubishi Zero fighters, crash-diving his plane deliberately into the USS St. Lo's flight deck, being the first kamikazes to sink an enemy ship.

Yukio Seki was born 1921 in Iyo Saijō, a small town in Shikoku. His parents ran an antiques store specializing in tea ceremony utensils. At an early age, Seki was exposed to naval training courses at his middle school and planned a career in the Navy. Since naval personnel were fully prepared to die in battle, and since Yukio was an only child, the family adopted a daughter nearly Yukio's age to carry on the family affairs.