Chuichi Nagumo is best known as the commanding Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy's First Air Fleet, the aircraft carrier force that attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Born in Japan in 1887, Nagumo joined the Japanese Navy and graduated from its Academy in 1908. He was promoted to Ensign in 1910, to Lieutenant in 1914, and given his first ship command (the destroyer Kisaragi) in late 1917.By 1924 after attending the Navy's War College, Nagumo had reached the rank of full commander. In 1935 he reached the rank of Rear Admiral and in the chaotic realm of interwar Japanese politics he was a member of the aggressive Fleet Faction.In April 1941 Nagumo was promoted to commander in chief of the First Air Fleet, the primary carrier attack force of the IJN. Despite misgivings over Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plan to attack the US fleet at Pearl Harbor many thousands of miles from Japanese supporting bases in the central and southern Pacific, Nagumo commanded the First Air Fleet in the attack; backed by shipboard aide Commander Minoru Genda and flight Commander Mitsuo Fuchida Nagumo achieved complete surprise, but refused demands for a follow-up attack on Oahu's oil storage tanks and harbor drydocks, fearing as he did that American aircraft carriers (nowhere to be found at Pearl) might reach Hawaii and counterattack his fleet. Show less «