Nothing is more tied to the Japanese Navy than the Kamikaze attacks on allied shipping. Kamikaze means divine wind in Japanese. In 1274 and 1281 a series of storms helped protect Japan from invasion fleets sent by Kublai Khan. The fortune of these two storms helped keep Japan safe from almost certain destruction at the hand of Khan’s military. The storms that help save Japan were called divine wind, Kamikaze, kami is the word for "god", "spirit", or "divinity", and kaze for "wind".

When the tide of the war in the Pacific turned so abruptly against Japan another divine wind was needed to save the homeland from destruction. It was felt that by sinking large numbers of allied ships the military could force the allied nations into peace negotiations and the war could be ended.

The military had used different types of suicide weapons during the war. These included speedboats, human torpedoes, divers, and submarines. In fact Germany also used suicide weapons during the war, Selbstopfer aircraft and a planned piloted version of the V1.

A mission profile for a kamikaze pilot was simple. Fuel the aircraft with just enough fuel to reach the approaching fleet. Load the plane with extra explosives and finally crash the plane into the ship. It was preferred to attack the carriers of the approaching fleet. Prior to the actual forming of special units pilots had been know to crash their stricken planes into ships. During the Battle of the Philippine Sea a Japanese pilot crashed his plane into a torpedo headed to his own carrier.

The exact date of the first official kamikaze attack is up for debate. But when the first actual unit was formed is known, to have been formed in October 1944. The first official kamikaze attacks took part during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The first official ship sunk by a kamikaze pilot was the USS Sonoma, an ocean going tug.

The attacks did have an impact on US plans and countermeasures were taken to prevent the planes from striking ships. These plans pretty much included throwing up a curtain of steel around the fleet and knocking down any and all Japanese planes in the area. Then during the invasion of Okinawa the US set up Radar picket ships to warn the fleet of approaching aircraft. These single ships were then targeted by the kamikaze.

Near the end of the war poorly trained pilots were rushed into service and the effectiveness of the attacks slackened. All told during the use of specific Kamikaze units the toll on allied shipping were small. Estimates on ships sunk by direct kamikaze attack range from 40-65 ships. No major ship was sunk, cruiser or larger, by aircraft related kamikaze. Several fleet carriers were damaged, but were eventually repaired and returned to service. Three escort carriers were also sunk as direct result of kamikaze attack.

According to one US Air force web site source…

Approximately 2,800 Kamikaze attackers sunk 34 Navy ships, damaged 368 others, killed 4,900 sailors, and wounded over 4,800. Despite radar detection and cuing, airborne interception and attrition, and massive anti-aircraft barrages, a distressing 14 percent of Kamikazes survived to score a hit on a ship; nearly 8.5 percent of all ships hit by Kamikazes sank.