MABALACAT, Philippines (Kyodo) -- Around 150 people from the Philippines and Japan attended a ceremony held Friday in Mabalacat on Luzon island to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the first suicide air attack conducted by Japanese forces against U.S. warships during World War II.

The airplanes of the Imperial Japanese Navy's kamikaze special attack unit took off from a Mabalacat airfield and hit American warships in Leyte Gulf in the central part of the Philippines on Oct. 25, 1944, sinking one of the warships.

The ceremony was organized by Clark International Airport Corp. in partnership with the Tokyo-based Tokkotai Memorial Foundation, which honors fallen members of the unit. Local people and representatives of the foundation offered prayers and wreaths at the event.

Nancy Paglinawan from the corporation that manages a shrine for the special attack unit pilots said, "The kamikaze shrine is an important reminder that there are no victors, but only victims in any war, and that this kamikaze experience must never happen again."

While Paglinawan expressed regret that wars persist in some parts of the globe today, Shigeru Iwasaki, director of the Japanese foundation, said, "The greatest deterrence to aggression is the spirit of every citizen for their motherland and their compatriots."

It is believed that nearly 4,000 Japanese died in the suicide air attacks conducted in war zones of the Pacific until World War II ended with Japan conceding defeat in August 1945.