On March 25, 1887 Chūichi Nagumo was born at Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Vice-Admiral Nagumo was involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Darwin, Australia as well as the Battles of Santa Cruz Islands and Midway just to name a few.

He was soundly defeated at the Battle of Midway and in Japanese eyes his star was fading. He was soon removed from sea duty and assigned on mainland Japan. With the war going badly for the Japanese and many commanders were being killed, Nagumo was sent back to an active combat command in early 1944. By June of that year he was at Saipan. When the U.S. invaded, Nagumo, unable to effectively defend the island, committed suicide.