From Pearl Harbor to Calvary[i]
The
Story of Mitsuo Fuchida
Luke 23:34
"Father,
forgive them for they know not what they do."
Most of you know who he is. You do not like him or recognize his name; but you know him. For those “graying temples” among us he is known a bit more intimately – you lived through his carnage.
You were first introduced to him on December 7, 1941, at 7:49 A.M. on a cloudless Sunday, the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor. In two hours:
* 2,403 Americans were killed
* 1,178 were wounded
* 169 U.S. aircraft were totally destroyed
* 5 battleships were mauled
* the Arizona was scrapped for good
* the Oklahoma, California and West Virginia were sunk
* the Nevada was beached in a sinking condition
* 18 other battleships were damaged
* nearby the airfields, barracks and dry docks were also crippled
But you know all that.
This incredible attack was led by a 39-year-old Japanese top gun pilot, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida. whose life hero was Adolf Hitler. Fuchida led 360 Japanese airplanes into the harbor at Honolulu and devastated a whole nation and triggered, as you know, the massive death that came about through American atomic retaliation as well as conventional weaponry. Mitsuo Fuchida, a name that you read over and over and over and over in anything you ever read about World War II. His plane was hit numerous times as he came and went from Pearl Harbor, but he survived.
Fuchida considered this his finest day. Listen to his words:
I must admit I was more excited than usual as I awoke that morning at 3:00 a.m., Hawaii time, four days past my thirty-ninth birthday. …
The sunrise in the east was magnificent above the white clouds as I led 360 planes towards Hawaii at an altitude of 3,000 meters. I knew my objective: to surprise and cripple the American naval force in the Pacific. … I gave no thought of the possibility of this attack breaking open a mortal confrontation with the United States. I was only concerned about making a military success.
As we neared the Hawaiian Islands that bright Sunday morning, I made a preliminary check of the harbor, nearby Hickam Field and the other installations surrounding Honolulu. Viewing the entire American Pacific Fleet peacefully at anchor in the inlet below, I smiled as I reached for the mike and ordered, "All squadrons, plunge in to attack!" …
Like a hurricane out of nowhere, my torpedo planes, dive bombers and fighters struck suddenly with indescribable fury. As smoke began to billow and the proud battleships, one by one, started tilting, my heart was almost ablaze with joy. …
It was the most thrilling exploit of my career
After the war was over Fuchida was besieged with memories of death. He decided to become somewhat of a recluse and so he took up farming near Osaka. It gave him time to think. He focused increasingly on the problem of peace and he decided in the midst of his guilt and worry over all that had been done in the war to write a book. He determined that the title of the book would be No More Pearl Harbors. He would urge the world to devote itself to pursuing peace. Mitsuo Fuchida struggled in vain, however, to find a principle by which peace could work. For years he tried to find the principle that would let him write the book...couldn't find it. He couldn't find anything in the religions of Japan, the philosophies of the world.
Then the story took a dramatic change. The story goes like this. The first report came from a friend, a lieutenant who was captured by the Americans and incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp in America. Fuchida saw his name in a newspaper on a list of POWs who were returning to Japan. Fuchida determined to visit him. When they met they spoke of many things. Then Fuchida asked the question upper most in his mind: how did the Americans treat you in the POW camp? His friend said, "We were treated well." Then he told Fuchida a story which he said made an immense impression upon him and on every prisoner in the American camp.
"Something happened at the camp where I was interred," he said, "which has made it possible for us who were in that camp to forego all our resentment and hatred and to return with a forgiving spirit and a feeling of light-heartedness instead." Fuchida said, "What is that?" The former prisoner said to him, "There was a young American girl named Margaret Peggy Covel whom they judged to be about 20 years old, who came to the camp on a regular basis doing all she could for the prisoners. She brought things to them they might enjoy, such as magazines and newspapers. She looked after their sick and she was constantly solicitous to help them in every way. They received an immense shock, however, when they asked her why she was so concerned to help these Japanese prisoners. She answered, `Because my parents were killed by the Japanese army.'
"Such a statement might shock a person from any culture but it was incomprehensible to the Japanese, in their society no offense could be greater than the murder of one's parents. Peggy tried to explain her motives. She said her parents had been missionaries. When the Japanese invaded the islands, Philippines, her parents escaped to the mountains in north Luzon for safety. In due time, however, they were discovered. The Japanese charged them with being spies and told them they were to be put to death. In short, it was her Christian faith, and the Christian faith of her parents that compelled Peggy to chose the path of love and forgiveness. She decided to minister to the Japanese prisoners in the nearby POW camp as a proof of her sincerity.
"Fuchida was touched by the story. But he was especially impressed with the possibility that it was exactly what he had been searching for, a principle sufficient to be a basis for peace, the principle was a forgiving love. Could that be the principle upon which the message of his projected book, No More Pearl Harbors, could be based?
Shortly after this Fuchida was summoned by General Douglas MacArthur to Tokyo t testify in the war crimes trials. As he got off at the train station he was handed a pamphlet -- a Gospel tract. I will tell you the story of that Gospel tract next week..
For now, suffice it to say that, Fuchida was profoundly impacted by what he read. He got a New Testament. He began to read the New Testament. In September of 1949, eight years after Pearl Harbor, he was reading Luke 23:34 and he heard Jesus (one himself being murdered) say, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Mitsuo Fuchida bowed his knee and received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Mitsuo Fuchida, devotee of Adolf Hitler, became a Christian. He wrote his book. You can find it in many libraries today. The title of it, From Pearl Harbor to Calvary:
You might also be interested to know that Fuchida is in heaven now, but before he died he became spent his life telling the people of Japan and America about what God had done for him.
If God would do all this for a one-time devotee of Adolf Hitler, how much more will he do for you?
That’s the power of forgiveness to effect the world. The Holy Spirit knew it, God knew it, Paul knew it, Mitsuo Fuchida needed to know it.
And that's why this lesson is taught to you.
[i] Special thanks to the sermon by Nathan Naversen, which helped me make the story of Mitsuo Fuchida kerygmatic!
