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Naval Captain (Colonel) Mitsuo Fuchida Was an Imperial Japanese Navy Bomber Pilot During the Second World War

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Naval Captain (Colonel) Mitsuo Fuchida Was an Imperial Japanese Navy Bomber Pilot During the Second World War Naval Captain (Colonel) Mitsuo Fuchida was an Imperial Japanese Navy bomber pilot during the second World War. He graduated from the Japanese Naval Academy in 1921, specializing in horizontal bombing. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out on July 7th, 1937, he was based on the 38,813-ton heavy aircraft carrier Kaga, and gained valuable combat experience, by supporting not only Japanese ground troops along the central China coast and around Shanghai, but also further inland. Fuchida was promoted to Commander (Lieutenant Colonel) in October 1941. He was the tactical aerial strike commander for the attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7th, 1941, and personally led the first wave in a Nakajima B5N2 Type 97 bomber, tail-number AI-301. He returned only to his carrier after the second wave had completed its mission. After inspecting his plane for battle damage, he found 21 large holes caused by anti-aircraft fire, and the main flight control wires were barely holding together. On February 19th, 1942, Fuchida led the first of two waves in a devastating air raid on Darwin, Australia, which was the largest attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. The number of bombs dropped on Darwin exceeded the amount released over Pearl Harbour. Nearly 100 air raids against Australia would follow during the years of 1942 and 1943, inflicting heavy losses, especially among the cargo ships. On Easter Sunday, April 5th, 1942, Fuchida again led the first of another series of air attacks against the Royal Navy on British Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The targets were warships, docks, harbour installations, and air bases. Japanese combat experience was evident. The Royal Air Force lost 27 aircraft, opposed to 5 Japanese losses. The dive bombers scored hits within 90% accuracy. Two British heavy cruisers, HMS Dorsetshire and Cornwall, were sunk. Fuchida did not take part in a flying role during the battle of Midway on June 4th, 1942, as he was recovering from an emergency appendectomy operation. He was on the bridge of the aircraft carrier Akagi when it was attacked by American carrier based dive bombers. One of three bombers, led by Lieutenant Commander Richard H. Best, scored a hit with a 1000-pound bomb. It detonated in the upper hangar, setting off explosions among fully armed and fuelled B5N torpedo bombers that were being prepared for an air strike. The fire broke through the flight deck, and the heat and smoke forced personnel to evacuate the bridge. Fuchida and other sailors repelled down from the bridge and in the process, Fuchida broke both his ankles, and was later evacuated to the light cruiser Nagara. After recovering, he was assigned staff officer to Vice Admiral Kakuji Kakuta, and promoted to Captain. Fuchida would not fly again for the rest of the war. He was attending a military conference in Hiroshima, just one day before the nuclear bomb was dropped. His military career ended with the surrender of Japan. After the war, Fuchida was called to testify at trials of Japanese war crimes. This infuriated him as he believed this was little more than "victors' justice". Convinced that U.S. servicemen had treated Japanese prisoners the same way, he confronted a group of returning Japanese prisoners of war. He was surprised to find his former flight engineer among them, Lieutenant Kazuo Kanegasaki, who was believed to have been killed during the Battle of Midway. When questioned, Kanegasaki revealed that they were neither tortured nor abused, but instead explained how well he had been treated by the American captors. He also spoke highly of an extraordinary young assistant nurse, Peggy Covell. She treated them with respect and love, despite the fact that her parents had been killed by Japanese soldiers in the Philippines. When she was asked by the prisoners why she would be so kind towards them, her gentle reply was, “The Japanese army killed my parents, yes. But the Holy Spirit has washed away my hatred and has replaced it with love.” For Fuchida, this was inexplicable, for the Bushido-code, the unwritten Samurai code of conduct, required to exact revenge upon people who took the lives of one’s parents, in order to restore honour. He became obsessed with trying to understand why anyone would treat their enemies with love and even forgiveness. In 1948, Fuchida came across a small booklet about Staff Sergeant and B-25 bombardier Jacob DeShazer, a member of the Doolittle Raid, who was captured by the Japanese and became a prisoner of war for 40 months. DeShazer wrote about being severely beaten and malnourished while two of his crew, the pilot and gunner, were executed by firing squad. DeShazer mentioned in this book that during his imprisonment, he experienced an awakening to God, which gave him hope. This fact increased Fuchida's curiosity about Christianity and one year later, he converted and became a Christian. In May 1950, Fuchida met DeShazer for the first time and they became friends. On occasion, DeShazer and Fuchida preached together as Christian missionaries in Japan. In 1959, DeShazer even moved to Nagoya to establish a Christian church in the city that he had bombed. In the same year, Fuchida met Brigadier General Paul Tibbets, the former aircraft commander of the B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay, that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Tibbets said to Fuchida that, "you sure did surprise us at Pearl Harbour," to which he replied, "what do you think you did to us at Hiroshima?" Fuchida further told him, “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 even 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.” Some two years later, Fuchida toured the United States as a member of the Worldwide Christian Missionary Army of Sky Pilots, and published an account of the Battle of Midway from the Japanese side. According to Fuchida's son, his father had a green card allowing permanent residence in the United States, but he never pursued citizenship. Fuchida died of complications caused by diabetes at the age of 73 near Osaka, Japan. His burial place is not on public records. His family wishes to keep it private. .
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