Admiral Mitsuo Fuchida

I was on assignment with Pacific Stars and Stripes Newspaper while stationed in Tokyo in the late 1960’s. That is when I interviewed Admiral Mitsuo Fuchida of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the commander of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Admiral Fuchida quoted the words he shouted into the microphone from his fighter bomber: “I’ve succeeded in the surprise attack: tiger, tiger, tiger!” The war of the Pacific had begun. Fuchida’s plane was the first over Pearl Harbor and the last one to leave.

Now, are you ready for this? At the time of my interview with Admiral Fuchida in 1969 he was Japan’s best known evangelist! He had become a Christian in 1950. He told me: “the turning point of my life came in 1949 when I was handed a pamphlet by an American missionary at a train

station in Tokyo." After reading the pamphlet he began to study the Bible.

Fuchida proclaimed his faith at hundreds of conferences and meetings in several nations. He told me his favorite Bible verse is Luke 23:34: “Then Jesus said, Father, forgiven them; for they know not what they do.”

Now, that is grace!

Bob Bernhardt
IMB Media Missionary