in World War II, a member of the Japanese air force who volunteered to crash an aircraft laden with explosives suicidally on a target
an aircraft used in such an attack
Japanese kamikaze, literally ‘divine wind’. The word kamikaze was originally applied to a providential storm that destroyed a Mongol fleet attacking Japan in 1281; the name was revived in 1944 when Japan resorted to desperate measures to hold off the advancing US fleet