Details are hazy, but I can’t seem to get any search engines to give me any information except about Kamikaze pilots. Blah.
The Kamikaze (Divine Wind) was a typhoon that wiped out a Mongol force trying to invade Japan in the late 13th century.
Eschew Obfuscation
I believe the word was first used to refer to a storm that destroyed a Korean invasion fleet. Eleven hundred something?
Oh, you meant the first time the term Kamikaze was used…
October 20, 1274. Japan was invaded by an army of 30,000 from the continent, but possibly/partly because of a fierce storm, they retreated quickly. They (the Japanese) considered the storm to be divine intervention and called it Kamikaze (or Shin-pu), the divine wind.
You can find it on the web, but it helps to know Japanese.
I thought it was named after Fred Kamikaze, a warrior who died defending Japan single-handed at a mountain pass against 400,000 Mongol hordes under Ghengis (“Jim”) Khan. The tragedy of the story was that the Mongols didn’t realize Japan was an island, and didn’t have boats, so Fred’s noble sacrifice was pretty much in vain. And he was facing the wrong way. Besides, the actual cause of death was cancer of the liver. And this was in 1986. But the story of Fred’s noble sacrifice lived on and inspired the use of his name in legend and art.
ROCKCHICK!!! YOU HAVE DISHONORED YOURSELF!!! YOU HAVE FAILED THE DIVINE & CELESTIAL CECIL ADAMS!!! DO THE RIGHT THING----SEPUKKU!!!
And, hey–havr a nice day, you hear?
It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose.
AAAAAAGHHHHHHH!!! They wore leather flight helmets because the radio headsets were mounted in them!!! And there were no ejection seats until the jet age of POST WWII.