When I visited Mrs. Harada, she was making her living by running the Irene Dressmaking School. Her eldest daughter, Kikue, was 18 years old and was away studying at the University of Hawaii. Her other children, 17 year-old Zenichi and 15 year-old Yasuko were with her at home. When her father, Yoshio, died, Yasuko was three years old, and Harada was 39 years old, the same age as I was when the incident occurred.
The war caused an incredible misfortune to the family, and I apologized to Irene from the bottom of my heart. However, she said, “I am puzzled that you apologize so much. There is nothing wrong for the US military authority to have convicted me for treason, as I am an American citizen born in the United States. However, under our skin, the blood that flows is Japanese. Therefore, I do not think that my husband did anything wrong.”
I could not help but feel true respect for what she said. Then, after a brief pause, she said that war was terrible. Knowing that I was on Kauai Island for Christian missionary work, she said that she was very pleased and that she would definitely attend the assembly at Kapaa Christian Church that night.
Thus, by July 20th, Monday, I completed my missionary work on Kauai Island and continued to have assemblies on Hawaii Island on the 21st and 22nd, on Maui Island on the 23rd and on Molokai Island on the 24th. As I felt somewhat tired, I took time off to rest in the remaining days in Kona on Hawaii Island. I headed for home on August 17th, Monday, leaving from Honolulu on board the President Wilson. I arrived at Yokohama Port on August 21st, Friday, and my tour in the United States that extended for 10 months was finally over.
62
Myocardial Infarction
In early June, 1968, I was asked to do missionary work in Wakayama, which is located in the Kansai region of Honshu, and famous for its mikan [Mandarin oranges]. I was 65 years old then, and Mr. Tadao Nakajima of the Wakayama Church wrote an article in the July edition of the Christ Taishu Shimbun [Christ Public Journal] regarding the progress of my missionary work as follows.
“The Reverend Fuchida has been used for missionary work to spread the Gospel in many places of the world, and he has achieved what will be remembered as major accomplishments in the history of missionary work throughout the world. However, I am afraid that he might have exhausted himself by forcing himself beyond his physical endurance for his age. Twice, he had to sit down and rest while walking up the steps leading to the observation platform overlooking Wakanoura, the scenic area outside Wakayama City. It appeared to me that both his physique and heart were weakened more than mine—and I will never be like an ordinary person again after my long struggle against disease. However, his spirits still soared to the heavens, and he said that, from June 15th, his schedule was filled with visits to Okinawa and then on to Taiwan over the next two months. I fear that during his missionary tour, someday and somewhere, Reverend Fuchida might collapse. For me, I am reminded of the conversion of the Apostle Paul and his subsequent mission of explosive passion, just like the vision that now enfolds the Reverend Fuchida. I can only pray that some time of physical relief should be given to him.”
My wife was touched by this article. Mr. Nakajima was the only person to tell the truth, and she clipped the article and sent it to me, adding that I should take good care of myself. However, I was already in Taiwan, and taking care of myself was not the issue. It was quite tough for me with church assemblies scheduled for forty consecutive days and held in places of blazing summer heat from late June to early August. Still, the assemblies were packed full every day with enthusiastic audiences. The faith of a Christian soldier led me to go wherever Christ dictated that I should go.
After I returned from Taiwan, I attended a conference in September in Tokyo to await the Advent and even extended my trip to Saitama Prefecture, near the capital city. In October, I did missionary work in Tokushima, on Shikoku Island, for 10 days. After I returned from Tokushima, I performed special missionary work for the Sakai Church for three days from October 11th.
Returning home on the 14th, I was in bed all day feeling somewhat fatigued. The next morning, I stayed in bed until late in the morning. I got up around 10:00 AM and went to the backyard to see small white, red and yellow chrysanthemums that were in full bloom. Because I had been away and was not able to take care of the garden, the flowers were hidden by weeds, undermining their beauty. Then, as I squatted down to pull out the weeds, I started to feel a dull pain around my stomach. Before long, I felt like I was suffocating: my stomach was upset, and I vomited. I wondered if I had eaten something bad, but the breakfast I had just finished was oatmeal, a fried egg, toast and coffee, my usual morning meal. Then, I tried to extend my back and took a deep breath, but the ache only became more intense, and this made me feel very uncomfortable.
I stopped my gardening work and sat down for a while, but my condition remained unchanged. I went back to the house and went to bed. I felt very uneasy, so I asked my wife to call a doctor in town who lived nearby. He had been her doctor for 10 years, and he was soon at our house to take an electro-cardiogram, which indicated that I was probably suffering a heart attack. This time, the doctor himself got rattled. He called a nearby university hospital to admit me for hospitalization. However, all the sick rooms were full with no likelihood of an available bed for a week or so. Then, the doctor took my blood sample, injected me with some medicine and, as he was leaving, told me to call him immediately, even at night, if I should feel any pain again.
After the doctor left, it seemed that my pain became more acute, but I was in a deep sleep, perspiring a great deal, probably due to the combined effect of the morphine and tranquilizer. But I was having a dream. Where my chest ached, someone’s hand was extended and pulled out the weed growing around my heart. One by one, from left to right, it seemed that the hand pulled out more than a dozen weeds. Every time the weeds were pulled out, my pain gradually became milder, and it was finally gone when all the weeds were pulled out.
The next morning, when I woke up, I remembered the dream so vividly that I told my wife about all the details. She said it was simply because I was overly concerned about the unfinished job of pulling out weeds around the chrysanthemums. But as far as I was concerned, I believed that it was the hand of Jesus Christ, who took away the veins that were tangled around my heart. My wife’s younger sister came to our house to find out what had happened, and I told her my story. She told me not to tell such a silly thing to others as they might take me to be insane. This is to be expected from faithless people, but in my faith, I am convinced that Jesus alleviated my pain.
After lunch, the doctor came to check on me and asked about my symptoms. I did not tell him about the dream, but I told him the pain in my chest was completely gone. When I told him, however, that I felt extreme stiffness in both shoulders and arms, he said it was a symptom of myocardial infarction. He again took an electro-cardiogram. He said that there was nothing wrong with his diagnosis as the electro-cardiogram clearly showed I had had a heart attack, but I was lucky that the range of readings was very narrow.
He added that it was like fishing with a paper net to pick up a goldfish. I had to take absolute bed rest even though the injury was slight; there was a risk that a serious rupture could result from too much stress. He said that according to statistics, thirty percent of those who suffered from myocardial infarction died within a month, and more than half of those died suddenly within several hours after the attack, typically described as, “He was so healthy…” Therefore, any second attack could be fatal, and rest and recuperation were absolutely essential. He added that the therapy should be 3:3:3, meaning complete rest in bed was required during the first three weeks, some quiet movements inside my room would be allowed during the next three weeks, and, during the last three week-period, I would be allowed to take some short walks in the garden. This meant that I could not make any strenuous movements at all for the next nine weeks, or approximately two months. My wife was happy telling me that Jesus meant to force me to rest.
There was a diet
therapy requirement as well. It said, “Cut down the intake of animal fat, coffee and sugar to moderate amounts and refrain from excess smoking.” I used to be a heavy smoker before, but it was no longer a problem as I stopped smoking 10 years ago to avoid misguiding people who were trying to approach Jesus Christ. I was not eating sugar as well because I suffered from diabetes. However, what bothered me was cutting my intake of animal fat and coffee as both were my most favorite food and drink. But the doctor said that excessive intake of animal fat would result in an increase in cholesterol deposits, which would lead to further hardening of the arteries. And too much coffee increases the amount of fat in the blood veins. The development of medical treatment in our modern civilization is also a blessing of God. Therefore, to follow a doctor’s advice is to follow the will of God. I made the hard decision to cut beef, pork, chicken and coffee from my diet and regretfully cancelled all reservations for evangelistic tours from mid-October to the end of March of the following year.
They say a rumor spreads one thousand miles. Within a few days, I got a call from Vice Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka in Takarazuka.
“Hello, Fuchida. I understand that you have myocardial infarction. Again, I am your senior; I have the disease as well. I was hospitalized for 40 days. It’s not so serious now, but I still always carry nitroglycerin in my pocket. I advise you to relax and take your time for a year or so, and try to live longer by even one minute or one second.”
Kusaka was very senior to me. He was always above me as my direct senior officer. When I was a flight student at Kasumigaura, he was an instructor of military strategy. When I was a Lieutenant Commander and aviation leader of the Akagi, he was the Captain of the Akagi; and when I was the Lead Commander of the air squadrons of the Pearl Harbor attack, he was a Rear Admiral and Chief of Staff of the Pearl Harbor Task Force Fleet. When I finally became a Captain and Head of the General Fleet’s Aviation Staff, he was a Vice Admiral and the Combined Fleet’s Chief of Staff. I can never be ahead of him. This time, once again, he got the disease before me.
But why should he use nitroglycerin? My understanding of nitroglycerin is that it is an explosive material. It sounded unsafe that he was always carrying dynamite in his pocket. When the doctor came, I asked him about this, and he said it was a sublingual tablet of nitroglycerin, used as a painkiller when an attack occurred. He said that the fact Vice Admiral Kusaka used nitroglycerin suggested that his disease was angina. He added that my heart attack was caused by myocardial infarction, and nitroglycerin did not work.
Then I asked him about the difference between angina and myocardial infarction. According to the doctor, the most frequent and risky of heart diseases is coronary sclerosis. Coronary arteries, he explained, are two veins to transport fresh blood to the heart, and they branch off minutely leading to muscles of the heart. When fat is accumulated inside these coronary arteries, the blood vessels become narrow, causing hardening of the coronary arteries. Then, the necessary blood supply is not sufficient, and the heart muscles therefore receive insufficient oxygen. This is angina. On the other hand, myocardial infarction is a symptom indicating that hardened coronary arteries might be clogged with formed blood clots. I nodded but did not really understand.
I asked one more thing—which had the higher rate of sudden death? He replied, “If myocardial infarction were a yokozuna [sumo wrestling champion], angina would be an ozeki [second rank below yokozuna]. I gloated at his comment. Finally, this time I excelled over Vice Admiral Kusaka.
They say that the usual case with myocardial infarction is live-or-die. It probably equates to what the first-generation Japanese-Americans called a “heart attack” and what we used to call “heart failure” in Japan. I heard that once the attack occurs, sometimes you feel acute pain in the chest, painful enough to tumble about wanting to be killed instead, and die in a few hours. Anyway, if you pass the age of 65 years, it is time for you to retire, and you cannot avoid the symptoms of aging. It is rather refreshing to know that my killer will be myocardial infarction. The last thing that I want in life is to live endlessly, paralyzed, with saliva dribbling from my mouth.
Our life in this world was something given by the Lord. What is destined to decay cannot be succeeded by something which does not decay. Therefore, your life lived in the flesh will be taken up by the Lord sooner or later, but those who are with the Lord are guaranteed eternal life which will never decay.
As Paul the Apostle said, for me to live is to live with Jesus. My desire is to be always with Jesus after leaving this world. However, if living in the flesh a bit longer will result in fruitful accomplishments, then it will be even more necessary for me to stay in the flesh for as long as possible.
Before, when I was a soldier, when it was absolutely necessary to overcome the fear of death, I engaged in various spiritual trainings to cultivate a state of mind where there was no distinction between life and death. Looking back, when I was passing through a barrage of enemy fire, I felt as if I had been nearing such a state of mind. But once the war ended, I found myself not much different from where I started. However, now, feeling my Lord Jesus Christ close to me, I certainly have achieved the state of mind where there is no distinction between living and dying. I do not think that dying is a big issue, but if the Lord ordered me to live, it would then be more necessary for me to live for the time being.
Captain Mitsuo Fuchida—Date Unknown
Postscript
by
Seiichi Nakata
It can be said that Mitsuo Fuchida lived his life twice for that one day—as a military leader of the Pearl Harbor attack and as a Christian evangelist of peace.
Several days before his death, Fuchida had a dream about his men who fought together at Pearl Harbor: Bussan or Lieutenant Commander Shigeharu Murata of the torpedo bombing squadron; Lieutenant Mitsuo Matsuzaki, pilot of Fuchida’s plane; Akaichi or Lieutenant Commander Akaichi Takahashi who led the dive bomber squadron; Lieutenant Commander Shigeru Itaya of the air superiority squadron of Zero fighters—all his comrades of the first wave attack squadrons who flew together in the sky over Pearl Harbor.
Then faces of petty officers, pilots, scouts and telegraphers appeared and disappeared in his dozing consciousness. They pulled at Fuchida’s legs frequently. They all later died in action. His dream ran through the battlefields.
As he awoke the next morning, Fuchida tried to recollect the faces and names of his men who appeared in the previous night’s dream, all from a distant memory.
This is what I heard from Mr. Jiro Ooka, Fuchida’s junior at the Naval Academy (78th class) who often visited Fuchida at his sick bed before he passed away.
According to Ooka, tears rolled down Fuchida’s cheeks as he was telling him about the dream. Basho, the most famous poet during the Edo Period, wrote in his final poem, “Falling sick on a journey, only my dream goes wandering, over a field of dried grass.” Like Basho, who spent his life on the move, the latter half of Fuchida’s life was spent day after day traveling without staying long in any particular place.
Starting in 1952 and ending in 1967, Fuchida made eight trips to the United States for missionary work. He visited Pearl Harbor three times. During this period, he spent almost 15 years visiting various places in the United States, and he even extended his travels across Japan and to Taiwan, Canada and Europe. Meanwhile, his wife, Haruko, held down the fort in Kashiwara all by herself.
In 1957, his son, Yoshiya, went to the United States, and his daughter, Miyako, followed suit in 1961. Yoshiya dropped out of Waseda University, where he had been on leave of absence due to illness, and decided to study at a university in the States to be an architect. During summer vacations, Yoshiya volunteered to be the driver for his father’s missionary tours.
Road maps and schedule tables used during Fuchida’s third visit to the US, in 1959, still exist.
During that tour, Yoshiya took charge of driving the car for his father. The road maps are traced with red lines showing the routes they too
k. They actually extend through 47 states, exceeding 50,000 miles. The only state they did not visit was Montana. And they replaced the car once during the tour.
Fuchida conducted lectures several times a day at churches in towns and villages. I did not find any holidays in his diaries. What his full schedules suggest was Fuchida’s unusual penchant for action. I could feel the same tenacity of purpose of the man who led 360 Imperial Japanese Navy planes towards Pearl Harbor, as he advanced attacking far into the US mainland trying to cut the chain of hatred after the war.
It was in 1967, when Mitsuo Fuchida was 65 years old, that he resumed a quiet life to live close to Mother Earth, again in Kashiwara. After ending his tours in the US, he was requested to serve as the president of Osaka Suiko-kai, a society for friendly gatherings of ex-IJN officers and staff. He felt that, as he once belonged to the Navy, he should remain associated with the Navy for the rest of his life, and he willingly responded to requests from his former colleagues. For example, he even had to assist his comrade, Minoru Genda, during his election campaign, which he won, to become a congressman in Japan’s House of Representatives. While Fuchida did not say anything directly, there is an indication that he was critical of Genda’s choice to enter the world of politics after the war.
Jiro Ooka, who managed a mission school in Kansai, speculates what was foremost in Fuchida’s mind: Mr. Fuchida was very seriously contemplating what things were unaccomplished in the war in which he had been involved, what things he might contribute to and what he could do to further peace for mankind and to prevent future destruction. He firmly and absolutely believed that war should never be repeated.
The philosophy and life of Mitsuo Fuchida, a man who knew thoroughly the disasters of war, were condensed in his autobiography. And in 1977, Fuchida’s wife, Haruko, wrote this memorial entitled, “Lead Commander of the Pearl Harbor Attack: Memories of My Husband,” in the 52nd edition of the bulletin of Hirakata Church in Osaka.
For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor Page 31