ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Kamikaze

Kamikaze is a word that refers to a type of attack that was done by airplane pilots during a very big war called World War II.

Imagine you are playing a game where you have a toy airplane and you need to crash it into something. Now imagine that the pilots in the war did something like that, but with real airplanes and real targets.

Kamikaze pilots were Japanese airplane pilots who were given a very important job in the war. They were asked to fly their planes very fast towards big enemy ships or other important things that they wanted to damage or destroy.

The pilots knew that this job was very dangerous, and that they might not make it back home. But they still did it because they wanted to help their country and believed in their mission.

So they would get into their planes and fly towards the enemy targets, often with bombs or other weapons on their planes, and crash right into them. This caused a lot of damage and destruction, but it also meant that the pilots sacrificed their own lives to do it.

Kamikaze pilots were seen as very brave and loyal by their country, but some people also think that this type of attack was very dangerous and caused a lot of unnecessary death and destruction.