Chūichi Nagumo

Chūichi Nagumo was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy who commanded the carrier striking force used in the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He subsequently led major carrier operations across the Pacific and Indian Ocean during the opening months of the war.

At the Battle of Midway in June 1942 Nagumo’s force lost four fleet carriers, a decisive blow to Japanese naval aviation. He later held commands in the central Pacific and died by suicide on Saipan in July 1944 as American forces completed the conquest of the island.

In Jeff Shaara’s The Eagle’s Claw, Admiral Chūichi Nagumo leads the Japanese carrier force, while Chester Nimitz commits his limited ships on the basis of intelligence produced by Joseph Rochefort and the codebreakers at Station HYPO.