Mitsuo Fuchida was a Captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy, who planned and led the initial wave of attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. His was the plane that sent the signal back to the Japanese fleet that the attack had been a complete surprise, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” He remained over the target until the second wave had completed their mission. Upon returning to his carrier, he found that his plane had 21 large flak holes and his main control wires were nearly severed. The successful attack made him a national hero and he was granted a personal audience with Emperor Hirohito.
Later in the war, Fuchida led an air raid over Darwin, Australia, and led a carrier-based attack against the British Eastern Fleet Headquarters in Ceylon, a moment Prime Minister Churchill called “the most dangerous moment” of the war.
On June 4th, 1942, Fuchida was on the bridge of the carrier Akagi, recovering from an emergency appendectomy, during the Battle of Midway. He narrowly escaped death after American attacks, and during evacuation an explosion knocked him to the deck where he broke both ankles.
He was assigned to the staff of Vice Admiral Kakuta, who was stationed in Guam. Just prior to the American attack, he was recalled to Tokyo. Had he remained there, he would have participated in the ritual suicide with Admiral Kakuta as defeat loomed. Recalling this, he later mentioned to a reporter, “Again, the sword of death had missed me only by inches.” He spent the rest of the war as a Staff Officer in Japan.
In early August, 1945, he was attending a military conference in Hiroshima when he was recalled to Tokyo for an intelligence briefing. The day after he left, the world’s first nuclear weapon used in combat was dropped on Hiroshima. Fuchida was assigned to lead a delegation to assess the damage. All the members of his team died of radiation poisoning, but he showed no symptoms. Decommissioned, and returning to his family farm after the war, he later recalled, “Life had no taste or meaning…I had missed death so many times and for what? What did it all mean?”
Fuchida was compelled to testify at the war crimes trials, related to treatment of prisoners of war. He felt the trials were a farce, and bitterly sought evidence to prove the Americans treated Japanese POWs just as badly. It was in this quest that he was reunited with his former flight engineer, whom he had presumed to have died at Midway. In speaking with his friend, he learned that rather than abuse and torture, he had been treated very humanely, and even with kindness. His friend told him of a young American woman named Peggy Covell, who treated him and his fellow prisoners with kindness and dignity – even though Japanese soldiers had killed her missionary parents in the Philippines. The code Fuchida knew not only permitted revenge, it demanded it. This woman, however, instead offered compassion. Fuchida became obsessed with finding out why anyone would treat their enemies with love and kindness.
In the fall of 1948, he was given a pamphlet which described the testimony of Jacob DeShazer, a Staff Sergeant participating in the Doolittle raid, who was captured and imprisoned by Japanese forces. DeShazer, by this time a missionary to Japan, told of his imprisonment and torture by Japanese forces, and how this led to his own spiritual awakening while a POW. This pamphlet led Fuchida, a practicing Buddhist, to acquire a Bible and read it. In 1949, he became a Christian. He wrote later, “Looking back, I can see now that the Lord had laid his hand on me so that I might serve him.” DeShazer and Fuchida became close friends, even collaborating in some missions endeavors.
Fuchida wrote a book of his journey to faith, entitled “From Pearl Harbor to Calvary,” and spoke all over the United States and Asia as an evangelist, leading many to Christ. He authored many books, some faith-based, some of his experiences in the war. He was offered American citizenship, but declined. He died in Japan in 1973.
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/mitsuo-fuchida-christian-evangelist/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuo_Fuchida#Postwar_activities
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