was a Japanese military aviator and politician. He is best known for helping to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was also the third Chief of Staff of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. Early life Minoru Genda was the second son of a farmer from Kake, Hiroshima Prefecture, north of the city of Hiroshima. Two brothers were graduates of Tokyo University, another brother graduated from Chiba Medical College, and his youngest brother entered the Army Academy. Genda graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1924 and took flight training for 11 months in 1928–1929, graduating with honors to become a fighter pilot. Early military service Genda was assigned to the aircraft carrier in 1931. He was well known in the navy, and in 1932 Genda formed a demonstration team at Yokosuka, leading a division of biplanes around the country, conducting aerobatic demonstrations. Known as "Genda's Flying Circus", the team, consisting of Genda, Yoshita Kobayashi and Motoharu Okamura, using Nakajima A2N Type 90 fighters, was part of a public relations campaign to promote naval aviation. He gained combat experience with the Second Combined Air Group during the Second Sino-Japanese War from the autumn of 1937, was senior flight instructor for the Yokosuka Air Group in 1938. Most naval strategists and tacticians of the time conceived of single carriers launching raids on enemy targets, or sailing with a fleet to provide air cover against enemy bombers. Genda understood the potential of massed air raids launched from multiple aircraft carriers steaming together. An air power advocate from the time he attended the Japanese Naval Academy, Genda urged Japan's pre-war military leaders to stop building battleships (which he believed would be better used as "piers" or scrap iron) and concentrate on aircraft carriers, submarines, and supporting fast cruisers and destroyers. Above all, Genda thought that a modern and large naval air fleet would be necessary for survival if Japan was ever to fight a war with the United States and the United Kingdom as well as their allies. However, Genda's rank—captain—was too low to be of much strategic influence. Pearl Harbor and World War II The Pearl Harbor attack plan was the brainchild of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Yamamoto ordered a number of officers to study Pearl Harbor and to draw up an operational plan. Admiral Takijiro Onishi gathered together all the relevant facts that could be found about the area. Once