"Divine Wind"

—USS Lexington —

Kamikaze, meaning "divine wind," was an echo from Japan's legendary past. It was the name of a wind god who was said to have sent a typhoon that repulsed a mongol invasion fleet heading for Japan in the year 1281. Nearly seven centuries later, the divine wind again became the anathema to an invading Armada.

What the U.S. Navy did not know was that Japan had no other choice in weapons or tactics. The air battles from the Coral Sea to the Marinas had stripped the nation of its best pilots, and American submarines had sunk so many oil tankers that training flights had been severely curtailed. Many student pilots had no time to learn conventional bombing torpedo tactics. Faced with these grim realities, Admiral Takhiro Onishi, the tactician who more than three years earlier had favorably assessed the idea of attacking Pearl Harbor, conceived the extreme measure of using navy planes to crash dive into enemy ships. The result was a Kamikaze Corps of young volunteers, glad to have the opportunity to serve in so special a role. The Japanese base their lives on obedience to Emperor and Nation. On the other hand they wish for the best place in death, according to Bushido (Bushido was the ancient warrior code). One Kamikaze pilot had simpler explanation of his role. "I am nothing," he wrote on the eye of his sacrifice
"but a particle of iron".

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