Takijiro Onishi was involved with naval aviation before becoming the head of the Naval Aviation Development Division in the Munitions Ministry early in WW2. Many people thought he was an impulsive and simple-minded leader but most Officers admired his aggresivenes. "However right or wrong his decisions might be, he never shirked responsibility for their consequences", recalled Captain Rikihei Inoguchi. Onishi was among the architects of the attack on Pearl Harbor, though he personally sided with Admiral Osami Nagano against declaring war on the United States. In Oct 1944 he took command of the First Air Fleet in the Philippines. Among the first actions he had taken was to meet Inoguchi, Staff Officer Chuichi Yoshioka, Lieutenant Yokoyama, and Lieutenant Ibusuki. "As you know, the war situation is grave," he began. "The fate of the Empire depends on the outcome of the Sho operation, which Imperial General Headquarters has activated to hurl back the enemy assault on the Philippines." For Sho-Go to succeed, American carriers must be disabled or destroyed so the playing field would be more even. At this stage of the war, however, Japan's air power was so weak that conventional attacks would not achieve it. Inoguchi remembered when Onishi gave the difficult order: