28 Facts About Minoru Genda

General Minoru Genda was an Imperial Japanese Navy flight officer, JASDF general and politician.

Minoru Genda is best known for helping to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Minoru Genda was the second son of a farmer from Kake, Hiroshima Prefecture, north of the city of Hiroshima.

Minoru Genda was assigned to the aircraft carrier Akagi in 1931.

Minoru Genda was well known in the navy, and in 1932 Genda formed a demonstration team at Yokosuka, leading a division of biplanes around the country, conducting aerobatic demonstrations.

Minoru Genda gained combat experience with the Second Combined Air Group during the Second Sino-Japanese War and from the autumn of 1937, was senior flight instructor for the Yokosuka Air Group in 1938.

Minoru Genda understood the potential of massed air raids launched from multiple aircraft carriers steaming together.

An air power advocate from the time he attended the Japanese Naval Academy, Minoru Genda urged Japan's pre-war military leaders to stop building battleships and concentrate on aircraft carriers, submarines, and supporting fast cruisers and destroyers.

Above all, Minoru Genda thought that a modern and large naval air fleet would be necessary for survival if Japan was ever to fight a war with the United States and the United Kingdom as well as their allies.

In summer 1940 at the age of 36, Minoru Genda was chosen by the Japanese Naval Department to travel abroad as a military attache to obtain first-hand military accounts of German air offensives and British defensive measures during the Battle of Britain.

Minoru Genda had previously considered an attack on Pearl Harbor in 1934 and had discussed the possibility then with Takijiro Onishi.

Minoru Genda favored a three wave attack using six aircraft carriers for a successful air strike.

Minoru Genda was responsible for much of the training, especially in the new tactics of shallow-water torpedo use, effective use of level-bombing by tactical aircraft, and coordinating several aircraft carriers simultaneously.

Minoru Genda played a key role in persuading IJN leaders to name Mitsuo Fuchida, his classmate at the Japanese Naval Academy, as the leader of the air attack.

Minoru Genda served with distinction during World War II and personally participated in combat.

Minoru Genda was a noted naval aviator and fighter pilot with over 3,000 flight hours.

Minoru Genda served on carriers during combat operations in the Indian Ocean, at the Battle of Midway, and in the Solomon Islands.

Minoru Genda served on the staff of the 11th Air Fleet at Rabaul before being promoted to Captain in 1944 and reassigned to the Naval General Staff as senior aviation officer.

Minoru Genda organized an elite Japanese air unit near the war's end to counter the Allied air raids on Japan as an alternative to the suicidal kamikaze units.

Minoru Genda believed that even late in the war Japanese pilots were capable of fighting experienced American pilots on equal terms if properly trained and supplied with state-of-the-art aircraft.

Minoru Genda personally felt that the Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-Kai was equal to the American F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair.

Minoru Genda documented his World War II experiences in a revealing autobiography, published in Japan.

Minoru Genda served as its Chief of Staff from 1959 to 1962.

Minoru Genda visited Lockheed's headquarters in California and at his own request personally flew a Starfighter.

Minoru Genda was awarded the Legion of Merit by the United States Air Force a few months later.

Minoru Genda was the first of several former SDF officers who entered politics under the auspices of the Sato Faction, mostly at the far right end of the Japanese political spectrum.

Minoru Genda remained influential in politics for more than 20 years, as a leading member of the Defense Division of the LDP's Policy Affairs Research Council, often representing the hardline nationalist position advocating abrogation or curtailment of Article 9 of the postwar Japanese Constitution and open remilitarization of the armed forces.

Minoru Genda died in Matsuyama on 15 August 1989, exactly 44 years to the day after the Japanese surrender in World War II, and one day short of his 85th birthday.