For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, the Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor by Mitsuo Fuchida
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For That One Day is a very interesting memoir from Captain Mitsuo Fuchida who planned and executed the raid on Pearl Harbor and eventually wound up becoming a Christian missionary. He lived an interesting life to say the least!

Fuchida has written about the Pacific War elsewhere, so this is really more of a personal remembrance as opposed to a military history. It does contain a lot of interesting details about the Pearl Harbor attack and his experience at Midway. Because it is not a military history, Fuchida is not shy about offering his opinion on people and events. He is not too happy with most of the admirals that he served under – they were too timid.

I found the story of his conversion to Christianity to be fascinating. And his stories of his mission trips to the United States are very interesting as well – he was able to meet with many of his former adversaries, like Nimitz and MacArthur and also then President Eisenhower.

Fuchida never really completed this memoir – he had some serious medical issues and only wrote about a third of what he had planned to write. Even so, it’s a very compelling story. The editor and translators did a remarkable job. I strongly recommend this book.