Mitsuo Fuchida

A Deadly Surprise

On the morning of December 7, 1941, as the sun rose over Hawaii, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida led more than 180 Japanese aircraft in a surprise assault on the U.S. Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. From high above the harbor, Fuchida radioed a single coded message back to his superiors: “Tora! Tora! Tora!” The phrase signaled complete tactical surprise. The Americans had not seen it coming.

Under Fuchida’s command, bombs fell, torpedoes struck, and ships burned. In just under two hours, more than 2,400 Americans were dead, and the United States had been thrust into World War II. In Japan, Fuchida returned a national hero. He had delivered a masterstroke of military precision, and for the next several years, he remained at the heart of Japan’s war effort.

FROM PEARLHARBOR.ORG – Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, who served as the air operations leader for the Japanese Imperial Navy. 

A Warrior’s Journey

Fuchida flew mission after mission. His plane was shot down once, but he survived. He was on an aircraft carrier that was bombed and sank beneath the waves, but he escaped just in time. By war’s end, he had survived 18 combat missions, including the pivotal Battle of Midway, and had received Japan’s highest military honors.

But when he returned home, everything had changed. Japan was defeated. The cities were in ruins. The empire had fallen. The government was dismantled. His military career was over. And Fuchida himself was suffering from radiation sickness after visiting Hiroshima in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.

The warrior who had once been celebrated now found himself in a broken country with no purpose and no future. The war had ended, but the hatred – both inside and around him – lingered.

Hiroshima, reduced to ashes – one of the many costs Fuchida never could have imagined when the war began.

Encounters with Grace

It was in this emptiness that Fuchida began to hear stories. First, the story of Peggy Covell, a young American woman whose missionary parents had been killed by Japanese soldiers during the war. They were executed without trial. Their bodies left behind.

Fuchida expected vengeance. Instead, he learned that after the war, Peggy had volunteered in Japanese POW camps. She cared for Japanese prisoners – soldiers from the same army that had taken her parents from her. She fed them, bandaged their wounds, listened to their stories. She forgave them.

Then came the story of Jacob DeShazer, an American airman who had flown in the Doolittle Raid on Japan and had been captured. For years he endured starvation, torture, and 36 months in solitary confinement. But after the war, DeShazer returned to Japan – not as a soldier, but as a missionary. He came to share the gospel, not to seek revenge.

Fuchida was stunned. These were Americans who had every reason to hate Japan. Yet their response was not hate, but compassion. Not retaliation, but forgiveness. They were not loving their enemies because their enemies had earned it. They were loving because they had been transformed by a greater love.

Peggy Covell and Jacob DeShazer had every reason to hate, but they chose love instead.

A Heart Transformed

Fuchida couldn’t stop thinking about these stories. He began to wonder what kind of power could move someone to that kind of grace. So he picked up a Bible for the first time.

There he encountered Jesus – betrayed, beaten, and nailed to a cross – praying for his enemies. “Father, forgive them,” he said. “For they do not know what they are doing.”

For Fuchida, it was a moment of piercing clarity. The hatred he had carried for so long began to crumble. He saw that the war had ended years ago, but he was still fighting it – still living by its rules, still shaped by its rage.

He didn’t want to live that way anymore.

In 1950, Mitsuo Fuchida became a Christian. He began to speak publicly about his faith, about the power of forgiveness, and about the transformation he had experienced. Reflecting on his journey, he later wrote, “I came to realize that the greatest weapon is not a sword or a bomb, but love. Christ showed me that loving your enemy brings peace not only to the world, but to your own soul.”

From enemies to brothers, Mitsuo Fuchida and Jacob DeShazer share the gospel that transformed them both.

A Legacy of Love

For the rest of his life, Fuchida worked to be a messenger of peace and reconciliation. He traveled across Japan and the United States, telling his story and listening to the stories of others. At one point, he even shared a stage with Jacob DeShazer, the American prisoner whose decision to forgive had first stirred something in him.

Together, the former enemies spoke about the power of Jesus’ words and the freedom that comes when we choose love over vengeance.

Fuchida’s story does not erase the horrors of war. It does not excuse the violence of the past. But it does reveal something Jesus was trying to teach all along: that loving your enemy isn’t about ignoring justice or forgetting pain. It’s about refusing to let hate have the last word.

It’s about becoming the kind of person who can say, even to those who have done harm, “Father, forgive them.”

And in doing so, finding freedom ourselves.