Mitsuo Fuchida | |
---|---|
Native name | 淵田 美津雄 |
Born | 3 December 1902 Katsuragi, Nara, Japan |
Died | 30 May 1976 73) Kashiwara, Osaka, Japan | (aged
Allegiance | Empire of Japan |
Service | Imperial Japanese Navy |
Years of service | 1924–45 |
Rank | Captain |
Unit | 1st Air Fleet |
Commands | Akagi: 1st (flag), 2nd and 3rd air squadrons |
Battles / wars | |
Other work |
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Mitsuo Fuchida (淵田 美津雄, Fuchida Mitsuo, 3 December 1902 – 30 May 1976) was a Japanese captain [1] in the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and a bomber observer in the Imperial Japanese Navy before and during World War II. He is perhaps best known for leading the first wave of air attacks on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Working under the overall fleet commander, Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, Fuchida was responsible for the coordination of the entire aerial attack.
After the war ended, Fuchida became a Christian convert and evangelist, traveling across the United States and Europe to tell his story. He later settled in the U.S. (although never taking American citizenship for himself). [2] Some of Fuchida's wartime claims have been challenged as self-serving by historians, including his claimed advocacy for a third wave attack on Pearl Harbor.
Mitsuo Fuchida was born in what is now part of Katsuragi, Nara Prefecture, Japan to Yazo and Shika Fuchida on 3 December 1902. He entered the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy at Etajima, Hiroshima, in 1921, where he befriended classmate Minoru Genda and discovered an interest in flying. [3] Specializing in horizontal bombing, Fuchida was made an instructor in that technique in 1936. [4] He gained combat experience during the Second Sino-Japanese War, when he was assigned to the aircraft carrier Kaga in 1929 [5] and then to the Sasebo Air Group, [6] He was promoted to lieutenant commander on 1 December 1936 and was accepted into the Naval Staff College. [4] Fuchida joined the aircraft carrier Akagi in 1939 as the commander of the air group. [7] Fuchida was made commander in October 1941. [8]
On Sunday, 7 December 1941, a Japanese force under the command of Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo—consisting of six carriers with 423 aircraft—was ready to attack the United States base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At 06:00, the first wave of 183 dive bombers, torpedo bombers, horizontal bombers and fighters took off from carriers 250 mi (400 km) north of Oahu and headed for the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
At 07:40 Hawaiian Standard Time, Mitsuo Fuchida, who by this time had achieved the rank of commander, arrived with the first attack wave on Oahu's north shore near Kahuku Point. The first attack wave then banked west and flew along the northwest coast. Fuchida ordered "Tenkai" (Take attack position), and upon seeing no U.S. activity at Pearl Harbor, Fuchida slid back the canopy of his Nakajima B5N2 torpedo bomber, tailcode AI-301, and fired a single dark blue flare known as a "black dragon", the signal to attack.
Passing Waimea Bay at 07:49, Fuchida instructed his radio operator, Petty Officer 1st Class Norinobu Mizuki, to send the coded signal "To, To, To" (totsugekiseyo—"to charge") to the other aircraft. Fuchida, thinking Lt Cmdr Shigeru Itaya's Zeroes had missed the signal, fired a second flare. Lt Cmdr Kakuichi Takahashi, overall leader of the first wave dive bombers, saw both flares and misunderstood the signal. Thinking the dive bombers were to attack, he led his dive bombers into immediate attack position. Lt Cmdr Shigeharu Murata, overall leader of the torpedo bombers, observed both flares and saw Takahashi's planes gliding into attack formation. He knew there was a misunderstanding which could not be rectified, so he led his torpedo bombers into attack positions. At this point, Cmdr Fuchida's pilot, Lieutenant Mitsuo Matsuzaki, guided their bomber along with the remaining horizontal bombers in a formation sweep around Kaena Point and headed down the western coast of Oahu.
At 07:53, Fuchida ordered Mizuki to send the code words "Tora! Tora! Tora!" [a] back to the carrier Akagi, the flagship of 1st Air Fleet. The message meant that complete surprise had been achieved. [9] Due to favorable atmospheric conditions, the transmission of the "Tora! Tora! Tora!" code words from the moderately powered transmitter were heard over a ship's radio in Japan by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the naval commander, and his staff, who were sitting up through the night awaiting word on the attack. [10]
As the first wave returned to the carriers, Fuchida remained over the target to assess damage and observe the second-wave attack. He returned to his carrier only after the second wave had completed its mission. With great pride, he announced that the U.S. battleship fleet had been destroyed. Fuchida inspected his craft and found 21 large flak holes: the main control wires were barely holding together. The successful attack made Fuchida a national hero who was granted a personal audience with Emperor Hirohito.
On 19 February 1942, Fuchida led the first of two waves of 188 aircraft in a devastating air raid on Darwin, Australia. [11] On 5 April, he led another series of air attacks by carrier-based Japanese aircraft against Royal Navy bases in Ceylon, which was the headquarters of the British Eastern Fleet, in what Winston Churchill described as "the most dangerous moment" of World War II. [12] [13]
On 4 June 1942, while on board Akagi , Fuchida was wounded at the Battle of Midway. Unable to fly while recovering from an emergency shipboard appendectomy a few days before the battle, he was on the ship's bridge during the morning attacks by U.S. aircraft. After Akagi was hit, a chain reaction from burning fuel and live bombs began the destruction of the ship. When flames blocked the exit from the bridge, the officers evacuated down a rope, and as Fuchida slid down, an explosion threw him to the deck and broke both his ankles.
After spending several months recuperating, Fuchida spent the rest of the war in Japan as a staff officer. On 15 October 1944, he was promoted to captain. The day before the first nuclear weapon was dropped on Hiroshima, he was in that city to attend a week-long military conference with Japanese army officers. Fuchida received a long-distance phone call from Navy Headquarters asking him to return to Tokyo. The day after the bombing, he returned to Hiroshima with a party sent to assess the damage. Many members of Fuchida's party later died of radiation poisoning, but Fuchida exhibited no symptoms. [14] Fuchida's military career ended with his demobilization in November 1945 during the American-led occupation of Japan. [15]
After the war, Fuchida was called on to testify at the trials of some of the Japanese military for Japanese war crimes. This infuriated him, as he believed this was little more than "victors' justice". In the spring of 1947, convinced that the U.S. had treated the Japanese the same way and determined to bring that evidence to the next trial, Fuchida went to Uraga Harbor near Yokosuka to meet a group of returning Japanese prisoners of war. He was surprised to find his former flight engineer, Kazuo Kanegasaki, who all had believed had died in the Battle of Midway. When questioned, Kanegasaki told Fuchida that they were not tortured or abused, much to Fuchida's surprise. He then went on to tell him of a young lady, Peggy Covell, who served them with the deepest love and respect, but whose missionary parents had been killed by Japanese soldiers on the island of Panay in the Philippines.
For Fuchida, this was inexplicable, as in the Bushido code revenge was not only permitted, it was "a responsibility" for an offended party to carry out revenge to restore honor. The murderer of one's parents would be a sworn enemy for life. He became almost obsessed trying to understand why anyone would treat their enemies with love and forgiveness. [16] [17]
In the fall of 1948, Fuchida was passing by the bronze statue of Hachikō at the Shibuya Station when he was handed a pamphlet about the life of Jacob DeShazer, a member of the Doolittle Raid who was captured by the Japanese after his B-25 bomber ran out of fuel over occupied China. In the pamphlet, "I Was a Prisoner of Japan" [18] DeShazer, a former U.S. Army Air Forces staff sergeant and bombardier, told his story of imprisonment, torture and his account of an "awakening to God." [19] This experience increased Fuchida's curiosity of the Christian faith. In September 1949, after reading the Bible for himself, he became a Christian. In May 1950, Fuchida and DeShazer met for the first time. [20] Fuchida created the Captain Fuchida Evangelistical Association based in Seattle, Washington and spoke full-time of his conversion to the Christian faith in presentations titled "From Pearl Harbor To Calvary".
In 1951, Fuchida, along with a colleague, published an account of the Battle of Midway from the Japanese side. In 1952, he toured the United States as a member of the Worldwide Christian Missionary Army of Sky Pilots. Fuchida remained dedicated to a similar initiative as the group for the remainder of his life.
In February 1954, Reader's Digest published Fuchida's story of the attack on Pearl Harbor. [21] Fuchida also wrote and co-wrote books, including From Pearl Harbor to Golgotha, a.k.a. From Pearl Harbor to Calvary, and a 1955 expansion of his 1951 book Midway, a.k.a. Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy's Story. [22] His autobiography, titled "Shinjuwan Kogeki no Sotaicho no Kaiso", was published in Japan in 2007. This was translated into English by Douglas Shinsato and Tadanori Urabe and published in 2011 under the title, "For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor". Fuchida's story is also recounted in God's Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor by Donald Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon and Gordon W. Prange. [23]
In 1959, Fuchida was among a group of Japanese visiting the tour of U.S. Air Force equipment given by General Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Fuchida recognized Tibbets and had a conversation with him. Tibbets said to Fuchida that "[y]ou sure did surprise us [at Pearl Harbor]" in which he replied "what do you think you did to us [at Hiroshima]?" Fuchida further told him that:
You did the right thing. You know the Japanese attitude at that time, how fanatic they were, they'd die for the Emperor ... Every man, woman, and child would have resisted that invasion with sticks and stones if necessary ... Can you imagine what a slaughter it would be to invade Japan? It would have been terrible. The Japanese people know more about that than the American public will ever know. [24]
According to Fuchida's son, his father had a green card allowing permanent residence in the U.S. but he never obtained U.S. citizenship. This is contrary to the assertions of several authors.[ quantify ] [25]
Fuchida died of complications caused by diabetes in Kashiwara, near Osaka on 30 May 1976 at the age of 73.
Fuchida was the author of three books: one on the Battle of Midway, one a memoir, and one on his conversion to Christianity.
Fuchida was an important figure in the early portion of the Pacific War, and his written accounts, translated into English and published in the U.S., were highly influential. [28] However, the veracity of Fuchida's statements on several topics has been subsequently called into question. This process began in Japan in 1971, with the publication of the Japanese official war history volume on the Battle of Midway, which explicitly contradicted Fuchida's version of events. [29]
In 2001, historians H.P. Willmott and Haruo Tohmatsu in their Pearl Harbor, dismissed Fuchida's rendition of having demanded a third-wave against Pearl Harbor's fuel tanks as "blatant and shameless self-advertisement" regarding "an episode which never took place." [30] These criticisms were repeated by historian Jonathan Parshall [31] and Mark Stille's Tora! Tora! Tora! Pearl Harbor 1941. [32] Alan Zimm's 2011 Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions, reinforced and enlarged these earlier criticisms [33] and added new charges, including Fuchida having fabricated a battle damage assessment that was presented to Emperor Hirohito. [34] Zimm subsequently accused Fuchida of lying about important decisions and signals he made as strike leader immediately prior to the attack, while blaming others for his own errors. [35]
With respect to the Battle of Midway, Fuchida's account of the readiness of the Japanese counterstrike aircraft during the American dive-bomber attack has been disputed by historians Parshall and Anthony Tully in their 2005 work Shattered Sword , [36] as well as Dallas Isom's Midway Inquest, [37] Craig Symonds' The Battle of Midway, [38] and Evan Mawdsley, [39] with Mawdsley noting "Parshall and Tully compellingly contradict Fuchida." [40] Parshall also disputed Fuchida's uncorroborated claims of attendance on the battleship USS Missouri during the Japanese surrender ceremony in 1945, [31] these criticisms being later amplified by Zimm. [41]
In the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! , Fuchida was portrayed by Japanese actor Takahiro Tamura.
Fuchida's hand-drawn map showing the post-Pearl Harbor attack destruction sold at auction for $425,000 in New York City on 6 December 2013. The map had previously been owned by Malcolm Forbes. [42]
The map was purchased by the Jay I. Kislak foundation, who then donated it to Miami-Dade Library. The library then sold it to the Library of Congress in 2018. [43]
Isoroku Yamamoto's sleeping giant quotation is a film quote attributed to Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto regarding the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by forces of Imperial Japan.
Tora! Tora! Tora! is a 1970 Japanese-American epic war film that dramatizes the events leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, from both American and Japanese positions. The film was produced by Elmo Williams and directed by Richard Fleischer, Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku, and stars an ensemble cast including Martin Balsam, Joseph Cotten, So Yamamura, E.G. Marshall, James Whitmore, Tatsuya Mihashi, Takahiro Tamura, Wesley Addy, and Jason Robards. It was Masuda and Fukasaku's first English-language film, and first international co-production. The tora of the title, although literally meaning "tiger", is actually an abbreviation of a two-syllable codeword, used to indicate that complete surprise had been achieved.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, the United States, just before 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941. At the time, the United States was a neutral country in World War II. The attack on Hawaii and other U.S. territories led the United States to formally enter World War II on the side of the Allies the day following the attack, on December 8, 1941. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning.
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō north of Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare", while naval historian Craig Symonds called it "one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, and Tsushima Strait, as both tactically decisive and strategically influential."
Kaga was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Originally intended to be one of two Tosa-class battleships, Kaga was converted under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty to an aircraft carrier as the replacement for the battlecruiser Amagi, which had been irreparably damaged during the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. Kaga was rebuilt in 1933–1935, increasing her top speed, improving her exhaust systems, and adapting her flight decks to accommodate more modern, heavier aircraft.
Sōryū was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the mid-1930s. A sister ship, Hiryū, was intended to follow Sōryū, but Hiryū's design was heavily modified and she is often considered to be a separate class. Sōryū's aircraft were employed in operations during the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s and supported the Japanese invasion of French Indochina in mid-1940. During the first months of the Pacific War, she took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Wake Island, and supported the conquest of the Dutch East Indies. In February 1942, her aircraft bombed Darwin, Australia, and she continued on to assist in the Dutch East Indies campaign. In April, Sōryū's aircraft helped sink two British heavy cruisers and several merchant ships during the Indian Ocean raid.
Akagi was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Though she was laid down as an Amagi-class battlecruiser, Akagi was converted to an aircraft carrier while still under construction to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. The ship was rebuilt from 1935 to 1938 with her original three flight decks consolidated into a single enlarged flight deck and an island superstructure. The second Japanese aircraft carrier to enter service, and the first large or "fleet" carrier, Akagi and the related Kaga figured prominently in the development of the IJN's new carrier striking force doctrine that grouped carriers together, concentrating their air power. This doctrine enabled Japan to attain its strategic goals during the early stages of the Pacific War from December 1941 until mid-1942.
Chūichi Nagumo was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II. Nagumo led Japan's main carrier battle group, the Kido Butai, in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Indian Ocean raid and the Battle of Midway. He never recovered from the crushing defeat at Midway, and committed suicide during the Battle of Saipan.
The Nakajima B5N was the standard carrier-based torpedo bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) for much of World War II. It also served as a high level bomber.
Gordon William Prange was the author of several World War II historical manuscripts which were published by his co-workers after his death in 1980. Prange was a professor of history at the University of Maryland from 1937 to 1980 with a break of nine years (1942–1951) of military service in the United States Navy during World War II, and in the postwar military occupation of Japan, when he was the Chief Historian on General Douglas MacArthur's staff. It was during this time that Prange collected material from and interviewed many Japanese military officers, enlisted men, and civilians, with the information later being used in the writing of his books. Several became New York Times bestsellers, including At Dawn We Slept, The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor and Miracle at Midway.
Midway, released in the United Kingdom as Battle of Midway, is a 1976 American war film that chronicles the Battle of Midway, a turning point in the Pacific Theater of Operations of World War II. Directed by Jack Smight and produced by Walter Mirisch from a screenplay by Donald S. Sanford, the film starred Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda, supported by a large international cast of guest stars including James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Ed Nelson, Hal Holbrook, Robert Webber, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, Pat Morita, Dabney Coleman, Erik Estrada and Tom Selleck.
General Minoru Genda was a Imperial Japanese Navy flight officer, JASDF general and politician. He is best known for helping to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the war he became the third Chief of Staff of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.
Captain Richard Eugene Fleming was a United States Marine who received the Medal of Honor for his heroism in World War II during the Battle of Midway. Fleming piloted a Vought SB2U Vindicator dive bomber in an attack on the Japanese cruiser Mikuma.
The 1st Air Fleet, also known as the Kidō Butai, was a combined carrier battle group comprising most of the aircraft carriers and carrier air groups of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the first eight months of the Pacific War.
Jacob Daniel DeShazer participated in the Doolittle Raid as a staff sergeant and later became a Christian missionary in Japan.
Shigekazu Shimazaki was a Japanese career officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service during World War II.
The Pacific War is a series of alternate history novels written by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen with Albert S. Hanser. The series deals with the Pacific War between the United States of America and the Empire of Japan. The point of divergence is the decision of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, to take personal command of the 1st Air Fleet for the attack on Pearl Harbor, rather than delegate it to Adm. Chūichi Nagumo.
The Battle of Dutch Harbor took place on 3-4 June 1942, when the Imperial Japanese Navy launched two aircraft carrier raids on the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Fort Mears at Dutch Harbor on Amaknak Island, opening the Aleutian Islands campaign of World War II. The bombing marked the first aerial attack by an enemy on the continental United States and was the second time in history that the continental U.S. was bombed by someone working for a foreign power, the first being the accidental bombing of Naco, Arizona, in 1929.
The attack on Pearl Harbor has received substantial attention in popular culture in multiple media and cultural formats including film, architecture, memorial statues, non-fiction writing, historical writing, and historical fiction. Today, the USS Arizona Memorial on the island of Oahu honors the dead. Visitors to the memorial reach it via boats from the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The memorial was designed by Alfred Preis, and has a sagging center but strong and vigorous ends, expressing "initial defeat and ultimate victory". It commemorates all lives lost on December 7, 1941.
The Hikōtaichō (飛行隊長) was a senior naval aviation position in the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, normally held by a Lieutenant Commander or a very senior Lieutenant, who commanded all flight personnel in an air group.
Breaking the vicious cycle of hate and revenge: the true life story of 'Wounded Tiger', a lesson from history
Originally published in 1969, The Japanese Navy in World War II was virtually the only thing available that looked at the Pacific war as experienced by the Japanese officers who helped plan, command, and fight it. As such, the book quickly becoming an essential read for anyone interested in the naval war in the Pacific, and a revised and expanded second edition appeared in 1986, which is the edition under review here, available in paperback for the first time.