Captain Mitsuo Fuchida died on 30 May 1976. His last public
appearance was with Jacob DeShazer, one of Doolittle’s Raiders, on the Rex
Humbard Show shortly before becoming ill and being hospitalized.
Below we reprint two articles: One is from a pamphlet,
authored by Fuchida, which briefly tells of Fuchida’s life, how he came to
meet DeShazer, and how two former enemies became fighters for a single cause
which they both came to believe in. The second is an article reprinted from the
August 1975 issue of the West Michigan IPMS News.
I am grateful to Don Bratt for providing the two articles,
the photos, and the permission to use them; and to Larry Provo for details of
Fuchida’s passing.
From Pearl Harbor to Calvary
by Mitsuo Fuchida
I was born in Japan, 3 December 1902. While still a young
boy, I was much interested in the armed services and aspired to be a military
man. Upon graduating from high school at the age of eighteen, I enrolled in
the Japanese Naval Academy. Three years later I graduated and desiring to
be an aviator, I joined the Japanese Naval Air Force.
During the next fifteen years I served mostly as an aircraft
carrier pilot, and logged a flying record of ten thousand hours, which made me
the most experienced pilot in the Japanese Navy at that time. Hence, I was
chosen as the chief commander to lead the air attack upon Pearl Harbor.
The year was 1941 and the day was December 7th. On that
early morning I was leading the Japanese air squadron of 360 planes which
took off from six aircraft carriers 200 miles to the north of Pearl Harbor,
the base for the American Pacific Fleet. After seeing that the main force of
the American Pacific Fleet was at anchor in the bay, I gave my first order:
“All squadrons, plunge in to attack!” The time was 7:49 a.m. and from that
moment the terrible war was open in the Pacific.
Suddenly torpedo planes, dive bombers, level bombers, and
fighters struck with fury. My heart was ablaze with pride for our success in
catching the entire main force of the American Pacific Fleet at anchor. I put
my whole effort into the battle that followed which resulted in the misery now
familiar to everyone today.
Having thus initiated the war in the Pacific, I directed
all my energy, being a most patriotic soldier, for my mother country
throughout the following four years. During the war I faced death a number
of times, but was miraculously saved every time. Thus I survived to see the
war’s termination. Looking back, I can see now that the Lord had laid His hand
upon me so that I might be saved and serve Him. However, at that time I did not
know who my Lord was since I had never heard the name of Jesus Christ during my
forty-seven years.
When the war ended, the Japanese military forces were
disbanded, and after twenty-five years as a Navy career officer, I retired to
my native town near Osaka and took up farming. It was, indeed, a path of thorns
for me. I had never in my life realized so keenly the unreliability of
other men as I did during these years. Since Japan lost the war and I lost my
occupation, I was very discouraged and was bitter about the occupation policy
of the occupied forces. Then the war crime trials were opened, and though my
name never appeared as being accused of any war crime, General Douglas MacArthur
summoned me on several occasions to be a witness of the war crime trials for
the Japanese who did commit war atrocities against American prisoners of war.
One day, as I was summoned by General MacArthur to his
Tokyo headquarters, I went up, and when I got off my train at the Shibuya
station, I saw there an American missionary handing out pamphlets to the
passersby. He gave me one. Even at first glance I became much interested in
the pamphlet for the title was “I Was a Prisoner of Japan.” After all, I was
involved in the affairs of war prisoners. I became more interested when the
story began with the attack on Pearl Harbor.
While I was in the air over Pearl Harbor on December 7th,
an American soldier named Jacob DeShazer, was on KP duty at a U.S. Army camp
somewhere on the West Coast. Suddenly it was announced over the radio that
Pearl Harbor had been bombed. With this sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the
hatred against the Japanese was born in his heart, and throwing the potatoes in
his hand, he shouted, “Jap, wait and see what we will do to you!”
One month later he volunteered for a secret mission to be
carried out by the Jimmy Doolittle squadron … a surprise raid on Tokyo from
the aircraft carrier Hornet. On 18 April 1942, they bombed Tokyo. Sergeant DeShazer
participated as a bombardier. As he dropped the bombs, he was filled with
elation for now he was getting his revenge for that Pearl Harbor attack. After
the bombing they flew on to China, but on the way when their bomber ran out of
gas, the crew had to parachute into Japanese-occupied territory in China. The
next morning he was captured and became a war prisoner of Japan.
He was in prison for forty long months. He was cruelly
treated. At one time he said that he almost went insane because of his violent
hatred against the Japanese guards who treated him brutally.
However, one day during his imprisonment, he began to feel a
strong desire to read the Bible. He begged for a copy of the Bible. His request
was denied at first, but finally after asking again and again, he was given a
Bible. He read the Bible eagerly every day, and while he was reading the Bible,
he found Christ and was saved in the Japanese POW camp.
The Bible says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creature; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians
5:17). Now Sergeant DeShazer was a new creature. His hatred toward the
Japanese was turned to love and he promised God to return to Japan after the
war as a missionary.
When the war was over, DeShazer returned to the United
States and he enrolled at the Seattle Pacific College to study the Bible.
Immediately after his graduation, he went back to Japan and began working
faithfully among the Japanese people telling them how to come to know Jesus
Christ.
I marveled at this beautiful story. And I realized it was
when he had read the Bible that his great experience had happened to him.
This inspired me to get a Bible so that I could read this wonderful book for
myself. I bought a Bible and I, too, read the Bible eagerly day after day.
One day when I was reading the Bible, I came to Luke 23:34
where Jesus said while hanging on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do.” Now there was Jesus Christ, Son of God, nailed to the
cross of Calvary asking God to forgive those who crucified him. Right at that
moment I met Jesus. He came into my heart and I understood clearly what Christ
had done on the cross. He died for me, too. Right away I accepted Jesus Christ
as my personal Savior. How I praise God for sending His only Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ to die for my sins, for he has truly changed my bitter and sinful
heart into a cleansed and loving one. This is my testimony … how this typical
Japanese military man became a Christian, and it is no secret what God can
do.
Since the love of Christ has transformed my life, I have
dedicated the balance of my life to serve the Lord. Today I am doing full time
interdenominational evangelical work. I believe Jesus Christ is above all
and this is the biggest calling for me … preaching the gospel of his wonderful
salvation. You will forgive me for saying this, but whenever I spoke under the
title “From Pearl Harbor to Calvary,” people came to hear what I had to say. I
feel God has blessed me greatly to draw a great number of people so that I
could tell them about Jesus Christ. Surely, I can say with my heart as did the
Apostle Paul in Philippians 1:12, “I want you to know, brethren, that what has
happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.”
Fuchida
by Don Bratt
Clutching my Profile No. 141 (on the Nakajima B5N) and with
a factory-fresh copy of Nichimo’s 1/48th scale “Kate” (price in Japan: $1.70)
tucked in my flight bag, my missionary host and I entered the labyrinth that is
Tokyo’s Grand Central train station. Even with his eighteen years of living in
Japan and his complete familiarity with the language, there was a prolonged
search amidst the crush of people as we looked for the ticket window for the
famed Bullet Train.
In time we found it … attended by our faithful three-man
Japanese camera crew. I was in Japan on assignment to direct a documentary
movie tracing twenty-five years of missions in Japan for my denomination, the
Christian Reformed Church, and our trip south was two-fold: to shoot some
scenes at a seminary staffed by our church and to film and interview
Commander Mitsuo Fuchida … the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor and who
had become a Christian after the war. Fuchida had appeared at a Crusade with
my missionary host some years earlier and now the arrangements were set for my
historic meeting.
The kaleidoscope that is modern Japan rushed past our
windows as we whizzed along at 130-150 miles per hour. Rice paddies. Factories.
Blue tile roofed villages. Mount Fuji (shrouded in clouds). Schools. Fishing
villages. Urban sprawl. Traffic jams. Garish signs. And people. Everywhere you
look you see people … all busily at work. Some of the passengers sit and doze
in air-conditioned comfort … everyone else is either reading or drinking green
tea from a little spouted plastic pot sold at the station. Our crew is busy
double-checking, cleaning and fine tuning the Ariflex. For days they could
sense the importance of this day to me and the air of anticipation was
electric.
The three-and-a-half hour trip to Osaka, Japan’s second
largest city, passed in a flash. My host had telephoned from the train to the
Avis rental car agency in Osaka. Yes, they had five cars(!) and one was available
for us. Stowing all our gear we used up every square inch in the tiny Toyota
and with all aboard, and our assistant cameraman at the wheel, we were off to
Nara Prefecture through an absolute maze of unidentified Japanese roads.
Our camera crew members were all in their early thirties
and, by their questions, evidenced a surprising lack of acumen about the
Pacific War. Even our chief cameraman, Fumio Suzuki, who had been a member
of the Japanese film crew on the “Tora! Tora! Tora!” movie, had only a cursory
knowledge of the war. Yet, they were all most interested, talked freely, asked
some penetrating questions, and were astounded that any American would ever
want to meet the man who led the sneak attack which cast our country into total
war.
Rounding the bend at the school playground in Kashiwara
City, we spotted the double-hung, wrought iron, latticework, residential gates.
The remaining perimeter wall seemingly encompassed about an acre and a half … a
ranch, by Japanese standards! We pulled up and tumbled out of the car. We had
been stuffed in it for two-and-a-half hours. Though stiff and cramped, it had
seemed like minutes.
Fervent bowing preceded our entry through the gates, opened
by an elderly, smiling woman who had pattered down the crushed stone driveway
suggesting we drive in with all our gear. We presented her with a basket of
fresh fruits … then caught sight of a figure coming out of a cottage by the
enclosed orchard.
He walks with a slow, measured step. Slightly bowed. But his
eyes gleam. Sharp. Perceptive. Alert. Authoritative. He’s been expecting us and
has chairs set up in his garden. While my missionary host exchanges
pleasantries with him, our crew catches my eye and instinctively site
themselves and their equipment in perfect position … a peony patch! The hair
on my arms straightens as the cameras whir. Commander Fuchida is telling my
host of his conversion to Christianity via a Gospel tract handed to him
after the war by a man who had been shot down on Doolittle’s raid and brutally
incarcerated in a Japanese POW camp. My missionary host still hands out tracts
today. That’s the story and the filming is soon completed.
It turns out it was Mrs. Fuchida who met us at the gate and,
during the filming, she had set up a table with green tea and rice cookies.
This was my chance and, frankly, I was ready!
First question: “How did you know Officer Genda?” [The man
who masterminded the sneak attack plan.] Commander Fuchida was rather startled.
I guess he hadn’t expected an American Christian to be knowledgeable about
Genda, a powerful but obscure individual, overshadowed by the famous
Admirals Yamamoto and Nagumo. It was the right question, though, for it instantly
established my credentials. Fuchida replied that he knew Genda well … then
excused himself and, in a half-speed Oriental shuffle, headed toward his house.
Now what??!! With anguish in my voice I asked my missionary
host if I had breached Oriental courtesy. He said “no” … but admitted he
couldn’t explain the abrupt departure. Mrs. Fuchida caught my obvious concern
and told my host that the Commander had gone to get “his book.” I thought,
what book? I had read everything Fuchida had ever authored or co-authored.
And then he returned with a tabbed diary the size of a
Manhattan phone book. It detailed all the events of his life: actual
hand-written plans of the Pearl Harbor attack; maps with penciled flight
routes showing how the attack would proceed; other battles; photos; and
signed, full-dress portraits of Genda, and Nagumo, and … Yamamoto! I was thunder-struck!!
Here was a monumental. historical document that should, no doubt, become a
prize possession in some museum or war college and he’s just hauled it off some
shelf and showing me the whole thing! I guess I was obviously delirious because
my faithful crew, bless ’em, grabbed the still cameras and popped off a couple
of rolls … a few of which I’ve shared.
For nearly an hour the questions, and straight answers,
flowed freely. To my everlasting delight, the Commander spoke English rather
well and we had a fantastic time together. As I’m sure you would have.
I can’t begin to capsulize our conversation (this article
is already too long) but one question I wanted to clear up that has always
bugged modelers like myself who specialize in Japanese aircraft, was this:
“What was the actual color scheme of your plane at the time of the attack?”
You see, Profile No. 141, prepared with Fuchida’s
assistance, depicts an all-silver ‘Kate’ with unique stripped yellow-orange and
red tailplane markings. But, for years, guys have searched every bit of movie
footage and got eyestrain squinting at scores of still photos of the attack
without once finding an all-silver plane. If the Profile is correct, where in
the world was Fuchida? Certainly, he should show up someplace!
At last, the answer: Fuchida’s ‘Kate’ was camouflaged
while aboard the carrier en route to Pearl!
Bratt: Why then?
Fuchida: All during pre-attack maneuvers and extensive
preparatory drills my very gleaming plane built spirit among our aviators. I
participated. I led. I showed how. I tried to be everywhere… seen by everyone.
I was their teacher/commander, you see. That’s why my tails were painted so
brightly. High visibility. Great for practice and, we expected, great for the
attack. My aviators would know I was there … just like in practice drills.
Spirit! However, en route, the thought was raised that perhaps I would be too
visible. Too much of a target. That was all right with me. But my countrymen
said they did not want to lose their spirit. So their decision was made to
camouflage my craft with available brown and green paint but to leave the tails
untouched so they would know I was leading them in the conflict.
Bratt: What exact colors were they and how were they
applied?
Fuchida: (Pointing to the ‘Kate’ kit lid, which he
autographed for me) Greens and browns like that. But applied crudely,
gleefully, and hastily. By brush.
I whipped out the Nichimo plans and asked, “Are any of these
four schemes close?”
Fuchida: Yes … the second one. Very close … but mine was
sloppier. (A hearty laugh.)
Bratt: What about the cowl?
Fuchida: As shown, but not a deep black.
The “deep black” threw me so I asked Reverend Maas Vander
Bilt, my host, if he could clarify in Japanese. What I got back was that this
was a matt charcoal black.
Bratt: Were the wings also painted in the same way?
Fuchida: Yes, but only the tops. The bottoms and the
fuselage remained bright. Gleaming.
Bratt: Did you have yellow recognition markings on the
leading edges?
Fuchida: No.
Bratt: Did anyone else have them?
Fuchida: I don’t remember … that was a long time ago and I
had other things on my mind at the time. (!!!)
Bratt: Were you pleased with the attack?
Fuchida: Every one of our planes had a specific target ship
for which they were responsible, for which the crews practiced long. Very long.
Our aviators were very skilled. And very well prepared. Each attack flight was
logged for its own target. And we were very confident of our success.
Bratt: Were there any surprises?
Fuchida: Yes … two big ones! The carriers Enterprise and
Lexington were missing. Our latest reports showed them to be in port and they
were to have borne the brunt of our attack … and surely would have been sunk. I
was dismayed when they were gone and could have terminated our attack but our
spirits were so high and our skills at such a peak of efficiency that I gave
the order. [Tora! Tora! Tora! … which means ‘tiger’ and was the code word for
“attack.” Actually, Fuchida, in his excitement at seeing all the sitting ducks
at Pearl, repeated the code two more times than called for causing a tizzy
back aboard the monitoring carriers.]
Bratt: Then what?
Fuchida: Our attack was a bit muddled because the many
planes assigned to carrier destruction flight routes had nothing to do but seek
targets of opportunity and there was much sallying back and forth trying to
decide which ship to take. (He shows me the famous picture he took in which
five ‘Kates’ are visible.) You can see we owned the sky but some of our
aviators are off track here choosing plumes. (!)
Bratt: I understand you were Japan’s most experienced
pilot yet sat in the center seat for the attack.
Fuchida: Yes, as observer, I went along for the ride … and
obeyed every minute of it!
A point of reference. I stand 5 feet 10 inches and the
Commander was nearly as tall as me, so, back in 1941, he must have towered
above his troops the way King Saul did in the Old Testament!
All photographs were made as the Commander was showing me
his personal log book and diary. From a historical standpoint, the shot where
he is showing me his own personal hand-drawn map of the Pearl Harbor anchorage
is most important. Not visible are all the coded attack routes; he knew where
every plane was supposed to be during the entire attack. Again, this was not
some printed map from the Navy intelligence section, rather, it was a
special map Fuchida had drawn for his own use and it was loaded with copious
notes, none of which I could read, of course, but what a treasure that map
alone would make.
Another snapshot shows the page opened to Fuchida in his
“graduation” uniform. You’ll note these are in the back of his file, which is
really the front … the Japanese begin their books at our “back.” These shots
also give some indication of the girth of his diary … and the many tabbed
indexes, some of which separate notes for each of the attacking flights.
Fuchida literally sat in the center seat of the ‘Kate’ and cradled this book on
his lap during the entire Pearl Harbor attack. Pure history, man, and what a
thrill to have had the experience to see it and share it with this most
gracious historical giant.
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| Mitsuo Fuchida with Don Bratt at his home in Japan, 1970s. Fuchida is holding the tabbed diary mentioned in Don Bratt’s article and they are examining a chart showing the attack plan for Pearl Harbor. |
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| After the Pearl Harbor raid, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida prepared a report that offered grossly inflated numbers of successful hits by Japanese aircraft. In fact, during the second wave, only 17 out of 78 Vals had attacked their assigned targets, scoring a mere fraction of the hits for which they were credited. |
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| Beginning in December 1927, Fuchida, far right, began flight school at Kasumigaura. |
