About 3, kamikaze pilots died during the war in attacks that killed more than 7, Allied naval personnel, [ 2 ] sank several dozen warships, and damaged scores more. Kamikaze aircraft were pilot-guided explosive missiles , either purpose-built or converted from conventional aircraft.
About 19 percent of kamikaze attacks were successful. By late , Allied qualitative and quantitative superiority over the Japanese in both aircrew and aircraft meant that kamikaze attacks were more accurate than conventional airstrikes, and often caused more damage.
Some kamikazes hit their targets even after their aircraft had been crippled. The attacks began in October , at a time when the war was looking increasingly bleak for the Japanese. They had lost several decisive battles; many of their best pilots had been killed, and skilled replacements could not be trained fast enough; their aircraft were becoming outdated; and they had lost command of the air and sea. Japan was losing pilots faster than it could train quality replacements, and the nation's industrial capacity was rapidly diminishing relative to that of the Allies.
These factors, along with Japan's unwillingness to surrender, led to the institutionalization of kamikaze tactics as a core aspect of Japanese air warfare strategy as Allied forces advanced towards the home islands. A tradition of death instead of defeat, capture, and shame was deeply entrenched in Japanese military culture; one of the primary values in the samurai way of life and the Bushido code was loyalty and honor until death.
The Japanese word kamikaze is usually translated as "divine wind" kami is the word for "god", "spirit", or "divinity", and kaze for "wind". The word originated from Makurakotoba of waka poetry modifying " Ise " [ 7 ] [ clarification needed ] and has been used since August to refer to the major typhoons that dispersed Mongol-Koryo fleets which invaded Japan under Kublai Khan in and A Japanese monoplane that made a record-breaking flight from Tokyo to London in for the Asahi newspaper group was named Kamikaze.
