kamikaze
/ˌkamɪˈkɑːzi
/noun
1(In the Second World War) a Japanese aircraft loaded with explosives and making a deliberate suicidal crash on an enemy target.In all subsequent amphibious campaigns - Luzon, Iwo Jima, Okinawa - the carriers battled land-based Japanese kamikazes, striking their airfields and other strategic targets....
- One point Hanson alludes to is the real difference between the Japanese kamikaze as a tactical weapon of terror and the fanatical suicide zealot as a terrorist.
- Admittedly, people have made too much of the apocryphal remark attributed to Adm Chester Nimitz that no surprises occurred in the Second World War in the Pacific except the kamikazes.
1.1The pilot of a kamikaze aircraft.The next mistake concerns the Japanese decision to use suicide troops, or kamikazes, in the later stages of the war....
- The Homeland Defence Force had the potential to run into many thousands in the area and the kamikazes had shown the Allies that the Japanese were quite willing to die for the emperor and Japan.
- The Pacific fighting had taken a new and terrible turn and the kamikazes were a totally alien idea to American culture, a fact that surrounded the suicide planes with even more horror.
adjective [attributive]
1Relating to or denoting a kamikaze attack or pilot: a kamikaze attack...
- Suicidal attacks by undisguised military forces, exemplified by Japanese kamikaze attacks during World War II, are not a violation of the laws of war.
- Their value to the fleet was highlighted during the invasion of Okinawa, when kamikaze attacks upon the Fifth Fleet created high numbers of casualties among the forces afloat.
- At Okinawa in 1945, out of 193 kamikaze attacks, 169 planes were destroyed.
1.1Reckless or potentially self-destructive: he made a kamikaze run across three lanes of traffic...
- Yet there are worrying signs that the prime minister plans to end his war against the real Labour party with kamikaze attacks on its most cherished values.
- Richard does a kamikaze run in minus 20 celsius and snowing weather, getting pelted with paintballs.
- Lee bounds to the crease like jello on springs, Collingwood dabs him down and England take another kamikaze run.
Origin
Japanese, from kami 'divinity' + kaze 'wind', originally referring to the gale that, in Japanese tradition, destroyed the fleet of invading Mongols in 1281.