From Bushido to Christian: Japan's Mitsuo Fuchida

From the Military Heritage special 70th anniversary issue on Pearl Harbor.

Japan's Lt. Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida is best-known for leading the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but that didn't end his World War II activity. In Feb. 1942, he led a destructive attack on Darwin, Australia, that caused so much damage. In April, he led the attack on British Naval facilities on Ceylon.

However, he had appendicitis at Midway and was unable to fly and just narrowly was able to escape from the burning Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi.

He spent the rest of the war as a staff officer and saw no action. He was in Hiroshima the day before the atom bomb was dropped attending a conference, but ad to leave for Tokyo. He later returned with a delegation to asses the damage and was the only one not to die of radiation poisoning.

As the few Japanese captured in the war were returning to Japan in 1947, he was amazed to hear how well they were treated. Among those was his flight engineer, Kazuo Kanegasaki, who said he had been treated well by a young woman whose missionary parents had been killed by Japanese troops in the Philippines.

After that, Fuchida became a Christian and an ardent one until hus death in 1976.

An Interesting Story. --GreGen