Kamikaze (Japanese: 神風; literally: ""god-wind""; usual translation: ""divine wind"") is a word of Japanese origin. It comes from the name the Japanese gave to a typhoon that destroyed the Mongol ships in the 13th century and saved the country from invasion. In Western culture, the word "kamikaze" is used to mean the suicide pilots of the Empire of Japan. Those pilots attacked the ships of the Allied Powers in the final years of World War II, during which they flew their planes into enemy ships. It has also come to mean other kinds of suicide attacks.