Word: genda
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Finally, Time: "Genda, Fuchida and other officers joined [Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of the raid] in eating surume (dried cuttlefish) for happiness and kachiguri (walnuts) for victory...
Fuchida and Genda argued fiercely for renewing the attack. The oil-storage tanks had not been hit, and the raiders had not found any of Kimmel's three carriers (the Lexington and Enterprise were at sea, the Saratoga undergoing repairs). But Admiral Nagumo, who had mistrusted the plan from the start, felt he had accomplished his mission and saw no reason to risk his fleet any further. Back in Japan, Yamamoto strongly disapproved of Nagumo's decision to withdraw but accepted the tradition that such decisions are left to the combat commander on the scene...
...Yamamoto's key planners was Commander Minoru Genda, still only 36, still a hot pilot at heart, first in his class at the Etajima naval academy, combat ace over China, leader of a daredevil stunt team called Genda's Flying Circus. Genda contributed several key ideas: that every available Japanese carrier should be assigned to the attack, that it should combine dive-bombing, high-level bombing and torpedoes, that the attackers should strike at dawn...
...techniques of dive-bombing and torpedo bombing were still relatively new, and aerial torpedoes were almost impossible to use in water as shallow as Pearl Harbor. Filching an idea from a recent British torpedo raid against the Italian naval base of Taranto, Genda had technicians create auxiliary wooden tail fins that would keep torpedoes closer to the surface; others converted armor-piercing shells into bombs. But drilling was Fuchida's main task, and all summer his planes staged trial runs over Kagoshima Bay in Kyushu, chosen for its physical resemblance to Pearl. Only in September did Genda tell...
...Yamamoto visited his training base in Saeki Bay to bid his men farewell. "Japan has faced many worthy opponents in her glorious history -- Mongols, Chinese, Russians," Yamamoto said, "but in this operation we will meet the strongest opponent of all. I expect this operation to be a success." Genda, Fuchida and other officers joined him in eating surume (dried cuttlefish) for happiness and kachiguri (walnuts) for victory. Near portable Shinto shrines, they toasted the Emperor with sake and shouted, "Banzai...