Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi was in charge of the Japanese Air Force in Manila. He understood that it was impossible to win the battle with so few aircraft and trained pilots. For this reason, he decided to form a suicide attack force, the Special Attack Unit. A group of 24 student pilots volunteered for the mission. The Special Attack force was organized into 4 groups, "Unit Shikishima", "Unit Yamato", "Unit Asahi", and "Unit Yamazakura". These names were taken from a patriotic poem ("waka" or "tanka"), written by the Japanese classical poet, Motoori Norinaga: (敷島の 大和心を 人問はば 朝日に匂う 山桜花). The poem reads: ""Shikishima no Yamato-gokoro wo hito towaba, asahi ni niou yamazakura bana"