Mitsuo Fuchida - Service in World War II

Service in World War II

On Sunday, 7 December 1941, a Japanese attack force under the command of Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo consisting of six carriers with 423 aircraft was poised to attack the United States base at Pearl Harbor, Oahu. At 06:00, the first wave of 183 Japanese dive bombers, torpedo bombers, level bombers, and fighters took off from the carriers located 370 km (230 mi) north of Oahu, and headed for the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

At 07:20, Fuchida, commanding the air group at the rank of 海軍中佐 Kaigun Chūsa (Commander), led the way down the island's eastern side then banked west and flew along the southern coast past the city of Honolulu.

Meanwhile, Fuchida had ordered "Tenkai" ("take attack position"). At 07:40 Hawaiian Standard Time, seeing all peaceful at Pearl Harbor, Fuchida slid back the canopy of his Nakajima B5N2 Type 97 Model 3 "Kate" torpedo bomber and fired a green flare, the signal to attack.

At 07:49, Fuchida instructed his radio operator, Petty Officer 1st Class Norinobu Mizuki, to send the coded signal "To, To, To" (Totsugeki seyo, or "attack!") to his aircraft. Fuchida’s pilot Lieutenant Mitsuo Matsuzaki guided the B5N in a sweep around Barber’s Point, Oahu.

At 07:53, Fuchida ordered Mizuki to send back to the carrier Akagi, the flagship of 1st Air Fleet, the code words "Tora! Tora! Tora!" The three-word message meant that complete surprise had been achieved in the attack. Due to favorable atmospheric conditions, the transmission of the "Tora! Tora! Tora!" code words from the moderately powered transmitter were heard over the ship's radio in Japan by Admiral Yamamoto and his staff, who were sitting up through the night awaiting word on the attack.

The first Japanese assault wave, with 51 Aichi D3A "Val" dive bombers, 40 "Kate" carrying torpedoes, 50 "Kates" carrying bombs for high-level attacks and 43 A6M Zero fighters, commenced 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. With great pride, he announced that the U.S. battleship fleet had been destroyed; USS Arizona, Oklahoma, West Virginia, California and Nevada were sunk. Upon returning from Pearl Harbor, Fuchida inspected his "Kate" and found 21 large flak holes and the main control wires barely held together by a thread. The successful attack against the United States made Fuchida a national hero earning him an audience with Emperor Hirohito himself.

On 19 February 1942, Fuchida led the first of two waves of 188 aircraft in a devastating air raid on Darwin, Australia. 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.

In June, while onboard 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 present on the ship's bridge during the morning attacks. After Akagi was hit by U.S. bombers, a chain reaction from burning fuel and live bombs began the destruction of the ship. When flames blocked the doorway out of the bridge, the officers evacuated down a rope and as Fuchida climbed down, an explosion threw him to the deck, breaking both of his ankles.

After recuperation, Fuchida spent the rest of the war as a staff officer. He was in Hiroshima the day before the atom bomb was dropped, attending a week-long military conference with the Imperial Japanese Army. Fuchida had received a long distance call from Navy Headquarters asking him to return to Tokyo. He returned to Hiroshima the day after the bombing on a party sent to examine and assess the damage of the bomb. Later, all members of Fuchida's search party died from radiation poisoning but Fuchida suffered no symptoms.