Kamikaze War in the Pacific

In the 21st Century suicide bombing has become part of warfare, but in the 1940's it was hard for US and Allied soldiers to comprehend this ultimate act which led only to certain death. How were these men inspired? Was it genuine national fervor or fear and the desire to belong that drove them to thorw their lives away? Do we understand their fanatacism over 50 years later? The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 was ruthlessly carried out but it was a plan based upon many fatal flaws. The attack did not knock the US out of the war and, with hindsight, it was suicide for Japan to make war on the world's greatest military power. Some Japanese leaders believed this to be true at the time.