Why Did Kamikaze Pilots Wear Helmets?

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

This is something of  a trick question, as they technically didn’t wear “helmets,” but leather “flight caps” that covered the head and ears. These kept the pilots from getting cold or going deaf while flying with their cockpit canopies open, which they sometimes did to get a better view when taking off, landing, or looking for landmarks.

Even if the kamikazes had access to the helmets of modern aviation wearing them would not have been pointless on a mission to crash their planes into American warships. If you are familiar with aviation or gravity, you will know a pilot’s helmet will do little in most crashes. A plane colliding with another solid object abruptly normally results in death, no matter what the pilot had on thier head. What a helmet, or even a softer leather flight cap, is good for is protecting a pilot’s head from getting knocked by the cockpit canopy during high-speed, mid-air maneuvering, like having to avoid gunfire while nosediving into a ship.

Couple this with, kamikazes sometimes had to abort their missions before the explosive finale due to turbulence, weather or visibility issues, and the pilots’ protective headgear becomes an aid to help in completing their mission, not necessarily to survive it.