Divine Wind

Chariots of fire
Racing against the tide
Blowing in the wind
Rushing into the fire

Struck by lightning
Roaring like thunder
Defying the gods
of the sea and sky.

Goaded by the blazing sun



Restless spirits
Wandering souls
Warriors of the past

Kamikaze!



Too young to die
For a cause that
We will never fully
Understand.




Two days from now on October 25 will mark the 62-year anniversary of the first successful attack of the Japanese Special Attack Units (tokubetsu kōgeki tai) popularly known albeit erroneously in the West as the Kamikaze Special Attack Force. It was recorded on the U.S. escort carrier St. Lo to mark the beginning of a new form of warfare never seen before in the annals of war that brought terror in the eyes of the Allied Navy during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the waning months of the Pacific War.

"Kamikaze" roughly translated in English as Divine Wind (kami= god; kaze= wind) was the name of the legendary typhoons that crushed the Mongol Fleet in the Sea of Japan in an attempted invasion by Kublai Khan in 1274 & 1281 and thus save the Kamakura Shogunate from annihilation by the Mongols in the 13th Century.

The "Kamikaze" in the Second World War had its birth in the young pilots of the 201st Air Group of the Japanese Imperial Navy’s First Air Fleet based in Mabalacat Airfield, Pampanga Province in the Philippines that history will tell us as one of the most bizarre undertakings made by the desperate Japanese forces to delay the US Forces' juggernaut to the their homeland.

For ten long months, young and brave fanatical Japanese pilots mostly in their late teens to early twenties plunged to their deaths that in the end did not prevent the inevitable-- the Victory of the Allies against Imperial Japan.

By the end of the Second World War --1,228 Japanese Pilots were lost and a total of 34 US Ships sank while damaging 288 more with heavy loss of life.

War--

--no matter whose side you are on or whatever cause you are fighting for is always sad and tragic and let us not forget the lessons of history as we move on with our daily lives and confront the issues that our world is facing nowadays.

And to quote the ex- Beatle named John, “All we are saying is to give PEACE a Chance.”






"Like cherry blossoms
In the spring,
Lets us fall
Clean and radiant."