Tora! Tora! Tora!
TORA! TORA! TORA!
A motorcycle messenger is invited to the re-creation of his own nightmare
FRANK TAYLOR
EVEN FOR HAWAII, Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, was spectacular. Gulls wheeled and turned gracefully in the almost cloudless sky, while far below the shimmering blue waters of Pearl Harbor lapped quietly against the thick grey hulls of America’s Pacific Fleet, anchored along “Battleship Row” at Ford Island.
Motorcycle messenger Tadao Fuchikami, as usual, arrived at the Honolulu RCA telegraph office shortly before 8 a.m. Removing a batch of messages from the Kalihi District sorting box, Fuchikami noted one was addressed to Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short at Fort Shatter, five miles away. To save time and backtracking, he arranged a number of civilian stops on the way.
Taking his telegrams, Fuchikami went out to his 1938 Indian Scout Twin. He enjoyed his job, which allowed him to cruise through the streets of Honolulu on a high-powered bike. Cranking it up, he whipped into traffic on his first run. Suddenly the morning stillness was shattered by the scream of low flying attack planes. Fuchikami was certain they were Japanese.
Traffic dissolved into hopeless snarls as stray shells from American batteries fell on the city and a few misplaced bombs dropped in civilian areas. Alerted Territorial Guardsmen and Regular Army soldiers were manning road blocks, and Fuchikami was stopped twice by armed sentries. The troops detained him briefly, but soon waved him on.
Gradually his pile of telegrams dwindled to one. At the gates of Fort Shatter, Fuchikami and his motorcycle were a familiar sight. The sentry let him into the base, and he was met by two men in uniform who escorted him to the Signal Office where a desk sergeant accepted the message. Relieved to have finished his morning deliveries, Fuchikami quickly left.
Still unsure of what had been bombed, Fuchikami rode north to a ridge overlooking Pearl Harbor. As he raced upwards, the big Scout ate up the grades easily. Cresting the last rise, Fuchikami had his first look at the result of a modern air raid. He stared with shocked disbelief at the thick, oily clouds of black smoke boiling up from Ford Island. Fire boats struggled through the debris-clogged harbor to reach stricken ships.
It seemed as if the whole base were a flaming interno. The wail of emergency vehicles drifted across the space which separated the messenger from the scene ot carnage. The enemy planes were gone, but the ear-splitting roar of 300-plus engines still rung in Fuchikami’s memory. Climbing on his bike, he returned to his office, but what he saw that morning, he would never forget — nor would a curious world press let him.
Fuchikami had no way of knowing that the message he delivered was a warning sent by Gen. George C. Marshall from Washington, D.C. It had arrived in Honolulu at 7:33 a.m., with no designation to rush it to its destination. The telegram urged Short to alert his forces for an imminent attack by Japan. This single piece of paper might have saved thousands of liveshad the proper authorities seen it in time. Now it was but a footnote to history.
Twenty-seven years later, Tadao Fuchikami saw a similar formation of planes sweep low over Hickman Field. The drone of their motors assaulted his ears like a nightmare. But this time it was a movie, not a war. Now an airframe mechanic employed by the government, Fuchikami had been invited to visit the movie set. He wondered if he should accept.
Each anniversary of the attack, journalists and authors have descended on the quiet Fuchikami household to ask endless questions. He had come to hate the month of December. Worse than the prying questions which were repeated year after year, were the inaccuracies that crept into accounts of his ride. “They even had me riding a bicycle in one story,” he remembered. But director Richard Fleischer assured Fuchikami that accuracy was the keynote of the film. Producer Elmo Williams had worked two years prior to the start of production to insure his version of the climactic events that led to the U.S. entry into World War II would be faithfully reproduced. Fuchikami decided to see for himself.
Named “Tora! Tora! Tora!”-the message Japanese pilots radioed to the Mother ships to signify achievement of a surprise attack-the film is one of the most expensive ever produced by 20th Century. Some of this expense was incurred by the rebuilding of planes to resemble the “Zeros,” “Vals” and “Kates,” the famous Japanese war planes so feared by American pilots. (The expense, however, was not as much as it might have been had not the U.S. Navy bent over backwards to allow use of an aircraft carrier and its manpower several days of filming, deeming the film a good chance to sell the idea of naval preparedness at a time when the Navy is asking for more funds. Thus the film has become quite controversial, and U.S. Navy and Defense Department officials are under fire for approving the “loan” in a time of war.—Ed.)
Studio agents had scoured the Hawaiian Islands in search of authentic vehicles. One of their prize finds was a 1938 Indian Scout. Badly rusted, cannibalized for parts, and neglected, the bike had been in a junk yard for many years. Much effort and money gave the old Indian Scout a new lease on life. Bud Ekins, an antique motorcycle buff in Sherman Oaks, Calif., also offered a 1941 Indian, an almost perfect match for the original cycle ridden by Fuchikami. This was purchased and shipped to Hawaii as a standby machine.
Hired as a technical director for the portion of the film which focused on him, Fuchikami arrived on the set the day his ride to Fort Shafter was to be re-created. A young Hawaiian, Ralph Togashi, had been selected to play the part of Fuchikami. He had been chosen partially because he could ride a motorcycle, and partially because he resembled Fuchikami.
While Togashi was an experienced bike rider, he had never seen a vintage Indian. The idea of a foot clutch, and gear shift lever to be manipulated along with handling the massive size of the Scout gave young Togashi plenty of apprehension.
Coached by Fuchikami, the actor soon mastered the art of hand shifting and balance. After a few hours of practice runs, Togashi decided he was ready to face the cameras. In the meantime, a new difficulty had developed.
Fuchikami had immediately recognized his old mount when he arrived on the “Tora! Tora! Fora!” set, and both producer Williams and director Fleisher wanted to use the 1938 bike for the key scene. But the Twin developed a miss that seemed to be impossible to cure. Reluctantly it was decided to substitute the almost identical 1941 motorcycle.
Another bike, one with sidecar plumbing, also was used for this sequence. A flat wooden platform with a camera mounted on it was attached to the sidecar fixtures. For certain action scenes, the camera motorcycle could stay a few feet ahead of Togashi and gain a new dimension of realism.
As he watched the scene unfold before him, Fuchikami found himself reliving the events of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. Movie specialists had timed bomb explosions, strafing enemy planes, and ruptured water lines with such accuracy that Fuchikami commented, “It was a nightmare to watch it happen all over again. It was like a ghost coming back to life.”
Ralph Togashi experienced similar feelings. During the first few retakes, he was nervous and had trouble shifting the Indian Scout. Finally the director called, “Print it!”
Fuchikami was delighted with the results. According to him, it was the first time the facts pertaining to him have been presented correctly.
If is interesting‘to note that 10 years had passed before Fuchikami learned the full import of the message he delivered to Fort Shafter. The news came as a complete surprise, though the former messenger had wondered for a long time about the telegram. “1 was shocked to find out it was a warning,” Fuchikami said.
When major production work on “Tora! Tora! Tora!” was completed in Hawaii, the two Indian Scouts used in the film were declared surplus. Along with the vintage cars, the motorcycles were auctioned to the public. For the second time in a long career, the 1938 Indian was retired from active service. It was purchased by a Honolulu resident and stayed in the Islands. The Scout’s screen double was sold to a California buyer.
Tadao Fuchikami’s strange and futile ride took less than two hours; on the screen, it is even shorter. But it continues to fascinate scholars and historians who study the air attack on Pearl Harbor. No one today can say what difference prompt delivery of Marshall’s telegram might have made in the Pacific war. But one thing is clear-the obscure messenger who carried the fateful communication never forgot the moment he held a nation’s destiny in his hands.
History has not recorded a stranger motorcycle ride. 151
