August 15: A Divine Wind

On 15 August 1281 a 神風 (also known as a Kamikaze or Divine Wind) destroyed the invading Mongol fleet thus saving Japan from being taken over by China.

For the 1281 invasion, the Mongols sent two fleets to Japan. The first was made up of 900 ships with 40,000 troops. The second fleet had 100,000 troops sailing on 3,400 ships. Japan had 40,000 troops; both samurai and others. Because they were so greatly outnumbered, Japan’s prospects appeared hopeless—until the typhoon destroyed all but a few hundred Mongol ships and drowned most of the Mongol force. In Japanese, kami translates to “divine” and kaze means “wind.” The typhoon was seen as a divine wind sent by the gods to save Japan.

The 1281 defeat was the second attempt Kublai Khan had made to add Japan to his empire. The first attempt had been made in 1274. Because of concerns in other parts of the Mongol Empire, Kublai Khan did not make a third attempt to invade Japan.
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Almost seven centuries later, the Japanese pilots who flew their planes in suicide missions were known as Kamikaze pilots. The name was a direct reference to the 神風 that saved Japan in 1281. Like the typhoon, the Kamikaze pilots were a divine wind whose mission it was to defeat Japan’s enemies.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Photo Caption: 日本武士末永在元朝軍隊的箭林彈雨下沖鋒。 (top) Kamikaze pilot Hoshikawa Hachiro (bottom).

2 Responses

  1. Benjamin Puninske says:

    At the turn of the twentieth century, conflicts between China and Japan arose once more. The first Sino-Japense war broke out in 1 August 1894. The Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China, waged war against Meiji Japan (Meiji referring to a time in Japan’s history in which their imperial ideals were being formed).

    The Japanese sought to invade Korea, a region in which they saw much value in. Using their naval supremacy to their advantage, the Japanese won victories all along the Korean Peninsula. After months of military success from the Japanese, China pushed for peace in 1895. This marked the shifting of power in Eastern Asia away from China and towards its island neighbor, Japan.

  2. wilker32 says:

    During World War II the Japanese were attacking the Pearl Harbor in 1941 many battles were won and lost, but what hit the Japanese people were that they had lost a lot of ships and airplanes and most of the good pilots had died in battle. Getting low on their resources and the Allied forces moving in on them the Japanese started to fall back to the Philippines. It is said that the group of Philippines were very important to the Japanese, though it did not clearly say why they were so important to them. None the less now that the Japanese were in familiar territory they were able to find resource to fight the war such as oil. Even though the Japanese had resources to use in World War II they did not have time to rebuilt or build more ships and warplanes. The Japanese started to get discouraged from this and thought they would lose the battles and the war.
    One of the only things that they Japanese thought they could do to win the war was to have a lot of aircrafts, but the big problem was that they did not have any good pilots for it to make a difference. The people looked toward to emperor to help them and think of a strategy that would win them the war. Since the chances of wining this war was slim to none and everyone knew it including the emperor he decided to form something called a “special attack unit” or “Kamikaze”.
    The emperors idea was to get 24 random people and have them fly aircrafts and crash into as many enemy soldiers and ships and kill as many as they possibly could. Many people volunteered for this suicide mission and believed that it was very honorable and brave.But, even some of the Japanese people who volunteered, didn’t want to do it. If someone was told or asked to volunteer or did not volunteer they were called a coward and it was very dishonorable to their country, family and the emperor. Whether the Japanese pilots wanted to or not the ones that did it got a headband and flowers were thrown into the air by pilots as their last mission and that they would never come back again.
    The very first Kamikaze attack was in 1944 on October. The Australians had no idea what was coming their way and when they figured it out it was too late, the Kamikaze killing 30 sailors on the navy ships. Even if the Japanese enemies figured out what they were doing it still would not help them because there was no way to prevent an attack like that. All together the Allied force that was attacked by the Kamikaze and killed was about 5000 American sailors.

    http://www.english-online.at/history/kamikaze/kamikaze-suicide-pilots-worldwar.htm

    -Shari Wilke

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