Chuichi Nagumo was a good sailor, who did not like to modify plans. Scholar and sportsman, he had specialized in torpedoes and commanded several destroyer flotillas. But he was not the man Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto would have preferred to lead the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Certainly, the operation against the American naval base was hailed as a great success, although, in some ways, it remained unfinished. But it was in the Battle of Midway when Nagumo’s indecisions led to the sinking of four of his large aircraft carriers, leaving the Imperial Navy in inferior conditions for the rest of the war.
Chuichi Nagumo was born on March 25, 1887 in the small town of Yonezawa, on the island of Honshu. As the second son of a former samurai without excessive resources, entering the Navy seemed like a good path to follow, so he enrolled in the Naval Academy, graduating in 1908 with a good record.
After his first assignments, in which he tried to advance through the ranks, he graduated from the Naval Academy. He was incorporated into a delegation in charge of touring various countries, including the United States, in order to study the latest developments in naval warfare. He joined the General Staff and was given command of important ships, such as the battleship Yamashiro.
In 1939 he reached the rank of vice admiral, and the following year he was already directing the Naval War College. Meanwhile, he married Hariki, daughter of another samurai, with whom he had two children whom he urged to follow his profession. A heavy smoker and drinker, he had been involved in some brawls and was a regular with the geishas.
When Yamamoto presented his Plan Z, the attack on Pearl Harbor, on September 5, 1941, Nagumo was head of the 1st Air Fleet, which included the 1st, 2nd, and 5th Carrier Divisions. That is, the bulk of the Japanese air-naval force. But like so many others, including Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Osami Nagano, he received the proposal with skepticism, if not annoyance.
By then, Nagumo had changed. His 54 years did not make him old for the mission, but he suffered from severe pain caused by arthritis and was losing the impetus that had characterized him in his youth, becoming an accommodating boss who tended to allow himself to be influenced by his subordinates and showed gaps in his knowledge of modern air-naval warfare. As Admiral Nishizo Tsukahara would later say, he “had no idea whatsoever about the possibilities and potential of naval aviation.”
Convinced of his plan, Yamamoto managed to have it accepted by his superiors, under penalty of resignation, but he was worried that Nagumo was responsible for carrying it out. He tried to replace him without success – Chuichi was the oldest vice admiral – and, to neutralize his bad decisions, he had him supported by those who knew the most about air-naval warfare, such as Rear Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka, head of his General Staff, and the captains of frigate Minoru Genda and Mitsuo Fuchida. The latter would execute the first wave of the attack.
On November 26, 1941, the Combined Fleet, and with it Nagumo’s group, left the Kure base bound for Hawaii. Curiously, the vice admiral still did not trust the operation, and was waiting like May rain for a cancellation order. But the one that arrived, at 05:30 on December 1, 1941, read: “Niitaka Yama Noboro” (climb Mount Niitaka), meaning that the plan had to be carried out. Only then, not before, did Nagumo communicate the objective to the crews.
Even though they knew that the American aircraft carriers were not at the base, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched two powerful waves of aircraft against the almost inert US Navy ships anchored there.
Around 10:00 the planes from the first attack began to return to their aircraft carriers. Certainly, the damage inflicted had been great, but not total. The fuel tanks were intact, as well as some dry docks and repair workshops, so the facilities were able to get up and running soon, refloating and fixing some of the sunken battleships.
According to Fuchida, a source not always worthy of credit, some pilots believed in the need to launch a third wave – himself, or Lieutenant Toshio Hashimoto – and urged the until then restrained Nagumo to undertake it, despite the logistical problems. and the danger posed by enemy aircraft carriers, whose whereabouts were unknown.
Nagumo was hesitant, but Rear Admiral Kusaka’s intervention cut off all possibility: “The attack is over. We must retreat!” To which the vice admiral responded: “In view of the results, we can conclude that we have achieved the planned objectives… Yes, we withdraw.” We don’t know if he really thought about this third wave, but a commander of his rank must have considered it, especially considering that, if he had ordered it, he might have found and sunk the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.
Apparently, Yamamoto was not very convinced by the outcome, and Rear Admiral Kameto Kuroshima asked for his dismissal, but it was not the time.
Upon his return to Japan, Nagumo was received by the smell of crowds, and the subsequent voyages of his ships through the Pacific and Indian Oceans, with the bombing of Port Darwin (Australia) and Colombo and Trincomalee (Sri Lanka), did nothing but increase his fame. But the raid of Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle’s planes over Tokyo on April 18, 1942, definitively changed that state of affairs.
A fundamental point of Japanese strategy was the invulnerability of its territory, something that would not be achieved until the enemy aircraft carriers were sunk, as confirmed by the recent raid. Hence, Yamamoto developed a complex plan, like all of his, to lure them into a trap and destroy them.
The meeting point would be Midway Island, and the person in charge of holding it would be, once again, Nagumo. But, that time, the Americans not only were not taken by surprise, but they anticipated the Japanese thanks to the knowledge of their secret codes.
At 04:30 on June 4, 1942, convinced that the American aircraft carriers were very far away, since his scout seaplanes had not located them, Nagumo launched his first wave of aircraft over Midway, while about half of his airplanes remained on their ships armed with torpedoes, in case those appeared.
But an attack by airplanes coming from the island, which was repulsed, made him think of the need for a second bombardment of Midway, so, while he received the airplanes of the first wave, the torpedoes that were available were They changed for bombs. Nagumo was convinced that there was no danger of an air-naval attack, and he took things calmly, basing his strategy on the fact that he would have time for everything.
However, at 07:28, the seaplane of the heavy cruiser Tone, which had taken off late, reported that it had sighted enemy ships, without specifying their class. Then, halfway through the task, Nagumo ordered the bombs to be changed again for torpedoes, which, in addition to generating confusion, prevented the projectiles from being stowed correctly, contrary to what had been established.
At 08:09, the same device specified that the enemy ships were five cruisers and five destroyers. Upon learning this, Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, from the aircraft carrier Hiryu, advised an immediate attack with what was available, regardless of whether the planes carried bombs or torpedoes.
Minoru Genda’s intervention in favor of recovering and resupplying the aircraft returning from Midway led Nagumo to make his decision without knowing that, by then, the USS Yorktown was launching the first wave of aircraft against the Japanese fleet.
The confirmation from the Tone hydro that at least one aircraft carrier was among the enemy ships only increased the chaos. A crucial time would pass before Nagumo ordered the attack on the American aircraft carrier(s).
But, by then, the Japanese fleet had received the first air attack from the enemy ships, which would be followed by others, preventing the takeoff of the already prepared Japanese aircraft.
Although the different waves had been repelled without damage, at 10:22 on that fateful June 4, the Douglas SBD Dauntless of the USS Enterprise encountered some enemy aircraft carriers without fighter cover and with the runways full of loaded aircraft. of gasoline and ammunition. An ideal situation for every attacker.
One by one, the Akagi, the Soryu and the Kaga were attacked without Nagumo, overwhelmed, knowing how to react. In fact, he had to be transferred by his subordinates to a destroyer while his flagship was sinking.
In the end, it was Yamaguchi who took the initiative, launching the Hiryu’s planes against the American aircraft carriers, which did not save him from the sinking of his ship and his own death. But at least she heavily damaged the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, which would be finished off by the Japanese submarine I-168.
The defeat was hidden from the Japanese people, while Yamamoto blamed Nagumo for the failure and provoked a series of dismissals, something he could not do with him, at the risk of raising hell. In exchange, he was temporarily given command of the 3rd Air Fleet, to remove him after any operational action with bombastic positions, such as that of head of the Kure military district, lacking in content.
However, the war consumed officers, and Nagumo returned to action. When the Americans landed in Saipan (Mariana Islands) on June 14, 1944, he was in command of the 6,100-man naval contingent, as commander in chief of the Central Pacific Fleet, also defended by 25,469 Army soldiers under command. of General Yoshitsugu Saito.
Perceiving that defense was impossible, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on July 8, and was posthumously awarded the rank of admiral. He was thus spared the news of the death a few months later of his eldest son, Susumu Nagumo, in the sinking of the destroyer Kishinami.
