There was the US Navy program in the Pacific in 1943 that resulted in video-guided kamikaze drones that may have actually been the inspiration for the real kamikazes. The Japanese didn't start deploying Kamikazes until very late 1944- prior to that, though, the would have seen American "planes" diving and crashing into Japanese targets in the Pacific, part of trials of some very effective drones by the Navy.

The drones actually worked very well, with success rates of around 25%, compared to bombing hit rates of 2% for conventional attacks. And the drone attacks were risk-free for the crews, because they stayed kilometers away from the targets. Zero casualties in all the test missions they flew.

But the Navy brass in their infinite wisdom killed the project because they felt they had enough conventional aircraft available to do the job, and losing five or ten aircrew on any particular target was perfectly fine as far as they were concerned.

So American drones may have been the inspiration for the Kamikaze.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/drone-strike-180964753/