Myth of the Kamikaze: The “Divine Winds” of the Mongol Invasion and Wartime Propaganda

The legend of “divine winds” thwarting the Mongol Invasion of Japan in the thirteenth century has long been cited in Japanese history. In the twentieth century, a belief in the nation-preserving kamikaze led to the tragic suicide-attacks by Japanese pilots in World War II. But did a typhoon actually strike Japan as it fought the invaders? Records describing the Battle of Bun’ei in 1274 and the Battle of Kōan in 1281 speak of storms assaulting the Yuan fleet, but the impact of these gales on the outcome of the conflicts remains a matter of debate. How then did the stories of these storms spawn a myth that kamikaze would preserve the nation in times of crisis?

Digging into the Past

Historians have long searched for evidence of the typhoons legend says devastated the invading Yuan forces. Recent geological research has turned up hints of violent storms along the Kyūshū coast around the time of the invasion, raising new questions about the veracity of the kamikaze tale.

In 2016, a group from Osaka City University led by associate professor Haraguchi Tsuyoshi, now a visiting professor at Tōhoku University, studied the sedimental deposits at the bottom of Daija (Ikeda) Pond, a fresh-water body in Amakusa in Kumamoto Prefecture on Kyūshū’s western coast. The investigation was part of a larger project to look for signs of tsunami that was launched in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.

Measuring 800 meters in circumference, Daija Pond is separated from the sea by a small strip of sand. (Courtesy Amakusa Municipal Department of Culture)

Haraguchi and his team took core samples from the pond and discovered several event layers that indicated waves had breached the narrow sandspit and inundated the pool at different times through history. The layers consisted of sand and the shells of unicellular animals called diatoms. “Deposits of this type,” explains Haraguchi, “are formed by major events like large typhoons, tsunami, or storm surges that introduce sediment from the seabed.”

Radiocarbon dating revealed most of the layers to be of very ancient origins, but one 63-centimeter band located 1.28 meters below the surface dated to around the thirteenth century. Studying the strata, Haraguchi says that while a tsunami cannot be completely ruled out, he argues that the characteristics of the deposit are more in line with an intense typhoon of the sort that were known to make landfall in the area. “It’s very possible that we’re looking at evidence of the storm that struck during the Battle of Kōan in 1281.”

If Haraguchi’s theory is correct, it was a giant tempest. His premise is bolstered by the discovery in 2010 of the remains of Yuan ships at the bottom of Imari Bay in Saga Prefecture, some 120 kilometers due north of Daija Pond. The boats are believed to have been part of the Yuan Southern Route Army that was dispatched from mainland China—a second group, the Eastern Route Army, was sent from the vassal state of Goryeo on the Korean Peninsula—and evidence strongly suggests that the vessels sunk in a storm as they sought shelter in the bay.

Entrusting to the Gods

Whether a typhoon foiled the Mongol Invasion at the Battle of Bun’ei remains a matter of debate, but mounting evidence indicates that weather played a role at the Battle of Kōan seven years later. A storm arriving at such a desperate moment would have certainly been seen as the hand of providence by the ruling class, who since time immemorial had turned to the native deities to protect the nation from outside forces.

The Hakozaki Shrine in Fukuoka offers a shining example of the belief in the protective powers of Japanese kami. Founded in 923, the shrine is dedicated to Hachiman, a highly revered deity associated with victory in war. A plaque bearing the phrase Tekikoku kōfuku, which loosely translates as “surrender of the enemy,” hangs from the rōmon, the main tower gate. The original work was purportedly written by Emperor Daigo (r. 897–930), and after the shrine was destroyed in the Battle of Bun’ei, Emperor Kameyama (r. 1259–74) inscribed the words anew to petition Hachiman’s favor in preserving Japan from the Yuan army.

A giant plaque reading Tekikoku kōfuku hangs on the rōmon of Hakozaki Shrine. (© Mochida Jōji)

Along with mustering its military might, the Kamakura shogunate entreated the gods, ordering the nation’s Buddhist temples and Shintō shrines to conduct invocations to “exorcise” the foreign threat. The appearance of a typhoon as the Battle of Kōan raged would have stood as irrefutable proof that their pleas had been answered.

It can be argued that the shogunate would have been aware that it was the height of typhoon season when the Yuan ships arrived at Imari Bay in August, making a storm not beyond the realm of possibility. However, in the absence of any reliable way of predicting the weather, let alone that a large typhoon was approaching, it is natural that the shogunate interpreted the destruction of the invading fleet as a heavenly act. This sowed the seeds for what became a belief in Japan as an unconquerable land of the gods.

Japanese shrines and temples played a central role in propagating the kamikaze myth in their eagerness to benefit from the propitious outcome of the conflict, which they did by emphasizing their roles in stirring the gods to action. For instance, Eison, the head priest at Nara’s Saidaiji, claimed that the winds began to blow as he was fervently praying for the salvation of the nation. The historical record from the period is filled with such claims by religious leaders, who facing growing encroachment by the warrior class on their rural landholdings were keen to have their titles reinstated by the shogunate. Institutions like the Usa Hachiman Shrine in what today is Ōita Prefecture, an area with a strong connection to Hachiman, succeeded in the strategy, with the government restoring its estates.

Hattori Hideo, professor emeritus at Kyūshū University and an expert on the Mongol Invasion, says that the warrior class did not embrace the kamikaze myth. “Having fought tooth and nail against the enemy, killing and being killed in droves,” he explains, “they had a very different perspective of the outcome.” He says that they went to battle expecting to be rewarded for their efforts, but after defeating the Yuan forces, they received little for their sacrifices. This stirred dissatisfaction among the warrior class, setting in motions events that would bring about the fall of the Kamakura shogunate a half century later.

Appropriating History

More than a half-millennium after the Mongol Invasion, the kamikaze myth was revived as part of Japan’s imperialistic campaigns of the early twentieth century. The 1931 Manchurian Incident, in which officers of Japan’s Kwantung Army created a false pretext for invading Manchuria, unleashed a tidal wave of patriotism in Japan, pushing the country further toward authoritarianism.

The government had gradually been shaping the national consciousness based on the imperial edict aimed at inciting national spirit following the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, and the Manchurian Incident, coming 650 years after the Battle of Kōan, revitalized interest in Japan’s victory against the Mongol Invasion. Events were held across the country commemorating the anniversary of the conflict. Tōhoku University professor Yanagihara Toshiaki cites one newspaper account of a gathering in Kagoshima Prefecture that featured a performance by army lieutenant general Sata Takehiko of “Genkō,” a military song penned in 1892 celebrating Japan’s victory against the Yuan army six centuries earlier.

School textbooks, which serve as a metric for gauging the government’s response to external challenges, also gave a patriotic spin to the Mongol Invasion. Authorities revised national school texts five times between 1903 and 1945, including the kamikaze myth in elementary history books for the first time in the fourth edition, adopted in 1934, a year that saw Japan take great strides toward totalitarianism. Novelists Handō Kazutoshi and Hosaka Masayasu, and scholar Katō Yōko writing in their book on the Pacific War describe how the Army Ministry took over the revision process and brought marked change to the tone and content of textbooks, exploiting the nation’s history and other aspects of the past to instill nationalistic ideas in young students.

The textbooks framed the typhoon in stirring terms, describing how the “kamikaze blew, sinking swaths of the invading ships.” The works also emphasized the spirit of shogunate leader Hōjō Tokimune, saying that he “showed great determination,” and that “the people of Japan rose up as one, uniting in heart and mind” to expel the foreign invaders.

However, there is scant evidence to suggest such a great banding together of the populace in the face of the Mongol Invasion. Kondō Shigekazu, a history professor at the distance learning institute The Open University of Japan, stresses that even for the warriors involved in the confrontation, preservation of the nation was a foreign idea and that their main concern was winning fame and reward on the field of battle, often at the expense of their comrades. By warping the realities of the period in government-designated school textbooks, authorities actively promoted the kamikaze myth for nationalistic purposes. According to historian Miike Yoshimasa, “The Mongol Invasion was a proxy for the enemies Japan faced at the time and was appropriated to encourage national unity and boost the morale of the Japanese populace.“

A Myth Unchecked

Following Japan’s devastating defeat at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, which shifted the tide of the Pacific War toward the Allied forces, authorities ramped up propaganda in school history textbooks. Space dedicated to the Mongol Invasion more than doubled in texts adopted from February 1943 compared to the previous version published in 1940. Reflecting Japan’s growing desperation as its wartime situation continued to deteriorate, chapters dealing with the Mongol Invasion replaced references to Hōjō Tokimune with full-throated glorification of the “divine winds” and that framed Japan as “land of the gods.”

A page from a 1943 elementary school history textbook with a highlighted section describing warriors sacrificing their lives in defending the country, stirring the gods to summon the winds and waves in their defense. (Courtesy National Diet Library)

One passage, for instance, strikes an unabashed jingoistic tone, declaring, “As Japan is a divine land, the wind blew fiercely against the surging hordes of ships.” Continuing, it asserts that “the divine nature of our country delivered us from this great crisis . . . the defenders battled without regard for their own lives, driving back the surging foe. Moved by their valor, the kami stirred the waters of Hakata Bay to life, bringing winds and waves.” Perverting the historical record, the account offers a parable to its young readers that it is righteous and correct to sacrifice their lives for the cause of winning the Pacific war.

Hattori describes the wartime textbooks as unadulterated propaganda passed off as history. Media like newspapers and radio also carried the message that the kamikaze would once again rise to preserve Japan, building a myth of Japanese invincibility.

Female workers wear headbands printed with the word “kamikaze” in a photo printing in wartime propaganda magazine Shashin Shūhō. (Courtesy Hattori Hideo)

Inundated by an endless deluge of propaganda, the Japanese populace bought into the ideas that they were fed. Those who harbored doubts about the direction the nation was heading had little recourse but to go along with the mass hysteria, their voices muffled by the authoritarian mood of the day. “The myth that Japan could never be defeated,” Hattori explains, “drove the population to unquestionably support a reckless war.”

Ultimately, the authorities cited the kamikaze myth to justify sending wave after wave of youths to their deaths in suicide attacks. Although facing an increasingly hopeless cause, officers until the very end of the conflict assured the doomed pilots that their attacks would bring victory for Japan.

(Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo: A plaque on the tower gate of Hakozaki Shrine bearing the phrase Tekikoku kōfuku [surrender of the enemy]. © Mochida Jōji.)