Mitsuo Fuchida The original strike assessment sketch drawn by and presented to Emperor Hirohito in person by lead pilot of the attack Commander Mitsuo Fuchida in a briefing three weeks afterwards (says December 8th because the IJN used Tokyo time wherever they were): A bombing instructor, then carrier combat veteran against the Chinese, made CAG of carrier Akagi in 1939, Fuchida led Japanese torpedo bombers on the first wave of the attack on Pearl Harbor and personally issued the "Tora! Tora! Tora!" radio message, indicating complete surprise achieved. He remained aloft to observe the second wave and begin his BDA and returned his aircraft to the carrier with 21 flak damage holes and a vital control cable parted by all but one strand, making him a national hero. He was granted an incredibly rare audience with the emperor where he presented the sketch above. Temporarily grounded by appendicitis, Fuchida was on Akagi's bridge at Midway, breaking both ankles when a bomb blast blew him off a rope he was climbing down to evacuate. Permanently medically grounded as a result of his wounds he spent the rest of the war doing staff work. He was ordered out of Tinian two weeks before it fell and all his co-workers there committed ritual suicide. He was called away from a conference in Hiroshima the day before it was destroyed by the first atom bomb, vaporizing all of his coworkers. He returned the day after as part of a damage assessment team, a somber mirror image of his prideful Pearl Harbor strike assessment. All of the Hiroshima damage assessment team except Fuchida shortly died of radiation exposure and he was hospitalized. He got out just in time to attend the surrender ceremony aboard the Missouri. Farming post-war While scratching a living as a chicken farmer he was called to testify at a war crimes trial which infuriated him with proof of widespread Japanese torture and murder of POW's. Determined to present evidence at the next trial that the US was no better he went to meet a friend returning from a POW camp in Colorado, but his friend described good treatment and told him how he had been befriended by a nurse named Peggy Covell, who had shocked the Japanese POW's when she shared her personal story. Peggy Covell Peggy was fluent in Japanese, having grown up in Japan as the daughter of Christian missionary parents. Peggy's parents recognized the change in atmosphere in Japan as it drifted towards war and sent their children to safety in the United States while they moved their mission to the island of Panay, Philippines in 1939. Family of missionaries Rev. James and Charma Covell Yokohama Japan (early 1930's) Peggy is the older girl Japan invaded the Philippines simultaneously with Fuchida's attack on Pearl Harbor. Horrified by reports of Japanese soldiers' cruelty and the massacre of wounded and prisoners, James and Charma Covell and several other missionaries fled to an isolated mountain hamlet, which the refugees renamed Hopevale, aided by Filipino Baptist pastor Reverend Dianala, where they secretly ministered for the next 20 months on meager supplies of smuggled food. In February 1943, Panay guerrillas ambushed a convoy carrying Lt. Gen. Shizuichi Tanaka, the new Commanding General of the Japanese 14th Army who was visiting the island. Tanaka escaped unharmed, but the Japanese were infuriated by the humiliation and launched a punitive expedition to wipe out the guerrillas - and punish the population. The Japanese burned villages as they went and more than 10,000 civilians died, men women and children, some beheaded by the Japanese CO himself, Captain Kengo Watanabe. Rubber salesman Albert King had been on the run for 18 months when he decided to fight and was commissioned as a 2nd Lt in the Panay guerrillas. But soon afterwards the guerrillas were scattered by the Japanese expedition and an exhausted King was captured and tortured: "In December of 1943, as the punitive force was moving south along a tributary of the Aklan river, we bumped into a bushy-bearded American. He was in a torn pair of shorts, bare-footed and limping. Captain Watanabe himself sternly investigated this man. He identified himself as Mr. King, and said, "I used to be a guerrilla officer, but with the Japanese campaigns, my unit scattered. Since I am conspicuously an American, neither the guerrillas nor the locals want to take me in. So I have been wandering along the river." From what he said further, Captain Watanabe found out there were more Americans near Egue near the town of Tapaz, 13 kilometers north of Calinog. Watanabe instantly dispatched the whole company and found more than ten Americans..." The Japanese seized Hopevale on Sunday December 19, 1943. The Covells begged for the lives of the Filipino civilians at least and the missionaries offered themselves as ransom, and James Covell was persuasive enough that Watanabe radioed his superiors for instructions. But they were without mercy and replied with a death sentence for all. On December 20th the 17+ prisoners (five couples, three single women, a single man, and three young children of the missionaries, plus several Filipino families who had been captured near by) were granted time to pray, and an hour later they told the Japanese they were prepared to die. Watanabe beheaded the adults one by one on a hilltop, starting with Charma Covell, and the children were bayoneted. Lt. King was last, made to watch the others. Peggy Covell, attending college, learned of her parents' fate in the spring of 1944 through the guerrilla network. Peggy decided that it was God's plan to test her faith to the utmost, so she volunteered as a counselor at a hospital near Fort Collins, Colorado, treating Japanese prisoners of war, who she set about befriending and forgiving. Fuchida's preconceptions were shattered by his friend's tale. Called to testify at another war crimes trial, Fuchida was passing through a Tokyo train station when he was handed the pamphlet "I Was a Prisoner of Japan" by Doolittle Raid bombardier Jacob DeShazer, who was captured during the 1943 raid and subjected to 34 months of torture and solitary confinement by the Japanese while three of his crew were executed and one died of starvation. Jacob DeShazer The crew of Doolittle Raid Plane #16, Bat Out of Hell, poses on the deck of the U.S.S. Hornet. From the left: George Barr, Navigator; William Farrow, Pilot; Harold Spatz, Turret Gunner; Robert Hite, Co-Pilot; Jacob DeShazer, bombardier. William Farrow and Harold Spatz were executed by firing squad in Kiangwan, China, on October 15, 1942 DeShazer became a devout Christian late in his captivity and resolved to do missionary work in Japan after the war. DeShazer felt guilt for the 50 Japanese killed and 400 wounded by the Doolittle Raid, some of whom were civilians, and in 1948 he had returned to Japan to preach mercy and forgiveness, starting with the pamphlet in Fuchida's hand and later building a church in the city he bombed, Nagoya. After this second blow Fuchida was moved to read the bible, converted to Christianity and befriended DeShazer, and spent the rest of his life as a missionary. Fuchida lived in the United States off and on; accounts differ as to whether he became a US citizen. He passed away in Japan on May 30, 1976. In 1959 Fuchida was in a USAF tour group guided by Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets and had a brief conversation with him; reportedly Tibbets said the Japanese had sure surprised the Americans at Pearl Harbor, Fuchida replied that the Americans had sure surprised the Japanese at Hiroshima. https://christiantreasury.org/content/mitsuo-fuchida-forgotten-story-faith https://www.hhhistory.com/2018/01/1942-1943-terror-in-tropics-plus.html?spref=pi https://www.internationalministries.org/hopevale-martyrs-75th-anniversary-tragedy-to-victory/ https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/blog/post/former-pow-jacob-deshazer-returns-to-japan https://burninghorse.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/inspiration-by-faith-part-1-james-charma-covell/ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/224761141/albert-edward_washington-king
Very interesting story, the only reason we won the war was because we were allowed to win. Today you would be hard pressed to win any war with so many shoe salesmen in our government. Each attempting to out do the other with their bleeding heart mentalities. Korea was the first step in never winning another war, just think of the money we threw away. Not to mention the lives of so many men. Having young people today in America laugh when ask if they want to serve is the time stamp left for history.