This episode of Japanese history is little known in America and there are revisionist accounts of the Mongol invasions of Japan by some American authors, asserting that the typhoons played a little role in the defeat of the Mongol armada, such as In Little Need of Divine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga's Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan (Cornell East Asia, No. 113). But without the "divine intervention" or freak typhoons, which sank hundreds of Mongol transport ships loaded with tens of thousands of Mongol soldiers, Japan would have been conquered by the Mongol Empire. Japan got a lucky break from being invaded by the world's most ferocious army which would have killed millions upon landing on Japan's shores. As a result, the legend of the ancient kamikazes (divine winds) was born, which was later exploited by the Japanese militarists who misleadingly believed that Japan would never be invaded by foreign forces.
