Kamikazes were both a tactical and a propaganda expedient. The militarist junta was alarmed by the public’s waning spirits and its rising doubts about the veracity of domestic war reporting. Faith in ultimate victory must somehow be restored. The suicide air corps and other novelties—such as the oka, kaiten, and intercontinental balloon bombs—were analogous to the “miracle weapons” (wunderwaffe) advertised by the Nazis during the same period. To a certain extent, all were propaganda gambits aimed at shoring up the Axis regimes’ deteriorating credibility and consolidating their grip on power.
