Abstract
With the start of the “Fifteen-Year War” against China by the outbreak of the Manchurian Incident on September 18, 1931, the press reports of the period came to be focussed on military operations in mainland China. The nation-wide hurly-burly in wartime, brought about by dramatic changes of the social situation, prepared a way to the establishment of war footing. In this atmosphere “Sensou Bidan” or “amazing stories of self-sacrificing warriors” were fabricated to “applaud their valiance.” Was it the State Power that forced the press to invent such tales? Or was it the press which prepared the path to this propagation? In order to see that the state power and the press went hand in hand in each stage of the war, I will take up “Nikudan Sanyushi” ( “In Praise of the Three Suicide-Bombing Heroes”) which marked the summit of the campaign.
