Toward the end of World War II, following a series of military defeats, and faced with a rapidly deteriorating ability to defend the homeland, Japan began launching aerial suicide attacks on Allied forces in the Pacific.
These were called kamikaze attacks, which had a dramatic effect in the closing months of the war, sinking or badly damaging more than 300 Allied vessels and terrifying the crews of countless more as aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service became pilot-guided missiles.
The most significant effect of the kamikaze program was to convince the United States that Japan was willing to continue the fight whatever the cost, and that drastic measures — including the use of atomic weapons — were needed to end the war.