Mitsuo Fuchida
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| Mitsuo Fuchida | |
|---|---|
| 3 December 1902 – 3 May 1976 | |
 Lieutenant-Commander Mitsuo Fuchida in October 1941 in training for attack on Pearl Harbor |
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| Place of birth | Nara Prefecture, Japan |
| Place of death | Northern Mariana Islands |
| Allegiance | Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service |
| Rank | Lieutenant-Commander |
| Unit | 1st Air Fleet |
| Commands | Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service |
| Battles/wars | World War II (China, Korea, Attack on Pearl Harbor, Attack on Darwin, Battle of Midway) |
Mitsuo Fuchida (December 3, 1902 - May 30, 1976) was a Lieutenant-Commander (少佐) in the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and a pilot before and during World War II.
He headed the formation that led the first wave of attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was the individual responsible for the coordination of the actual aerial attack working under the overall fleet Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. He was the lead pilot or aerial commander per se during the attack on Pearl Harbor and bombing of Darwin. He coordinated the 1st Air Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
After World War II ended with Japan's defeat he became a Christian and considered himself an evangelical until the end of his life.
Fuchida graduated at the Japanese Naval Academy at Eta-Jima. Considered one of Japan’s most skillful fliers, he had gained combat experience during air operations over China in the late 1930s.
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[edit] Early life
Mitsuo Fuchida was born in Nara Prefecture, Japan. He entered the Naval Academy at Eta-Jima in 1921 where he met and befriended classmate Minoru Genda and discovered the interest of flying airplanes. Specializing in horizontal bombing, Fuchida gained such prowess, that he was made an instructor. Considered one of Japan’s most skillful fliers, he had gained combat experience during air operations over China in the late 1930s. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Commander and was accepted into the Naval Staff College. Fuchida joined the aircraft carrier Akagi in 1939 as a flight commander where he was now an experienced pilot with over 3,000 hours of flight experience.
[edit] Service in World War Two
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack force under the command of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, consisting of six carriers with 423 planes, is about to attack. At 6 A.M., the first attack wave of 183 Japanese planes takes off from the carriers located 230 miles north of Oahu and heads for the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
At 06:20, Fuchida, commanding the air group, led the way down the island's eastern side, then banked west and flew along the southern coast, past the city of Honolulu. He believed his approach had not been detected by the Army radar station, but it had been. Two alert soldiers notified a superior officer of the discovery but the officer chose to ignore it, believing that the blips were probably caused by U.S. bombers arriving from California that morning.
Meanwhile, Fuchida had ordered "Tenkai" ("take attack position"). Seeing all peaceful at Pearl Harbor, at 0740 Hawaiian Standard Time, Fuchida slid back the canopy of his Nakajima B5N2 Typ 97 Modell 3 torpedo bomber, and fired a green flare, the signal to attack, with his flare gun.
At 0749 hours, Fuchida instructed his radio operator, Petty Officer 1st Class Norinobu Mizuki, to send the coded signal "To, To, To" (Totsugeskiseyo, or charge) to his planes. Fuchida’s pilot Lieutenant Mitsuo Matsuzaki guided the B5N in a sweep around Barber’s Point.
At 0753, Fuchida ordered Mizuki [1] to send back to the carrier Akagi, the flag ship of 1st Air Fleet, the code words "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (虎 tora is Japanese for "tiger", but in this case, "To" is the initial syllable of the Japanese word 突撃 totsugeki, meaning "charge" or "attack", and "ra" is initial syllable of 雷撃 raigeki, meaning "torpedo attack"). The three word message meant that complete surprise had been achieved in the attack.
The first Japanese assault wave, with 51 D3A dive bombers, 40 B5N torpedo bombers, 50 B5N carrying bombs for high level attacks and 43 A6M fighters, commences the attack.
As the first wave of the attack made its way back to its carriers, Fuchida remained over the target in order to assess damage and to observe the second wave attack. He returned to his carrier after the second wave successfully completed its mission.
Upon returning from Pearl Harbor, Fuchida inspected his B5N and found 20 large antiaircraft holes and the main control wire barely held together by a thread. Although he was not in any sense "religious," this was the first of a series of near-death incidents that made him believe something was watching over him.[2] The successful attack against the United States made Fuchida a national hero, earning him an audience with Emperor Hirohito himself. This, mixed with typical Japanese military patriotism, added to his sense of destiny.
On February 19, 1942, Fuchida led the first of two waves of 188 planes in a devastating air raid on Darwin, Australia.
In June, Fuchida was wounded at the Battle of Midway, when he broke both of his ankles after he fell from a ladder during the fire fighting after the Akagi was hit by U.S. bombers. He spent the rest of the war as a staff officer.
Fuchida wrote that he was in Hiroshima the day before the atom bomb was dropped, attending a week-long military conference with the Army. He had received a long distance call from Navy Headquarters, asking him to return to Tokyo.
After the war in 1949, Fuchida encountered a Free Methodist missionary, Jacob DeShazer, himself a former U.S. Army Air Force Corporal and bombardier of the famous Doolittle Raiders, who converted him to Christianity. In 1951 he along with a colleague published an account of the Battle of Midway from the Japanese side. In 1952, Fuchida himself became a Christian missionary and toured the United States as a member of the Worldwide Christian Missionary Army of Sky Pilots. He spent the remainder of his life as a Christian missionary.
Fuchida died of diabetes in Kashiwara, near Osaka on May 30, 1976.
