Retired Gen. Minoru Genda, 84; Planned Raid on Pearl Harbor

Retired Gen. Minoru Genda, architect of the fateful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, which brought the United States into World War II, died Tuesday, ironically on the 44th anniversary of V-J Day. The pilot and politician was 84.

He died of heart failure in Minami Takai Hospital where he had been a patient since Aug. 4, hospital spokesmen said. The facility is in Matsuyama on Shikoku, Japan’s smallest main island.

A 1937 graduate of Japan’s Naval Academy, the Hiroshima native was a staff officer with the Japanese Imperial Air Fleet at the time of Pearl Harbor. Genda later said he flew a torpedo bomber in the raid but did not hit anything.

Genda had made a name for himself by introducing sharpshooting and aerobatic teams to the Imperial Navy Air Corps, earning his unit the nickname Genda’s Circus.

After the war, Genda was taught to fly jets by American pilots whom he described as “a wonderful, congenial bunch of men.”

In the 1950s, Genda became the first pilot named chief of staff of Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force. After his retirement in 1962, he ran successfully for the upper house of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, and was returned to the chamber four times.

Genda’s comments in Europe and the United States about the war sometimes caused him trouble with his Liberal Democratic Party. In 1969, he was forced to resign from the party’s Defense Police Board because of statements that Japan probably would have used the atomic bomb if it had had one during World War II.

Noting that he spoke only “as a soldier,” Genda said repeatedly that Japan should have crushed Pearl Harbor that fateful morning in 1941.

“We should not have attacked just once,” he said in several speeches. “We should have attacked again and again.”

He reiterated the appraisal during a 1968 visit to Los Angeles, while touring a 20th Century Fox Film Corp. studio where props were being constructed for the film “Tora! Tora! Tora!” The film depicted Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Genda aroused controversy on this side of the Pacific when he received the U.S. Legion of Merit degree of commander, the highest U.S. award given to foreigners. The medal was presented in 1962 upon Genda’s military retirement by Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, then chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff. Lemnitzer praised Genda for his leadership of the postwar air force and his cooperation with the U.S. forces in Japan.

The Disabled American Veterans officially protested the award.

Genda, the father of three, retired from politics in 1986.