On 31 March 1944, while traveling by air from Palau to deliver plans for the Japanese counterattack in defense of the Marianas Islands (code named "Z plan") to Japanese headquarters at Davao near British North Borneo, Fukudome became the first flag officer in Japanese history to be captured by the enemy (Filipino guerrillas commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James M. Cushing) after his plane crash landed in a typhoon near Cebu. (Admiral Mineichi Koga, who had been traveling in a separate plane, was killed the same night). He was released to stop civilian reprisals that were killing Filipinos and burning dozens of villages as the Japanese searched for the Admiral and the documents, but the battle plans fell into the American hands. Bradsher, The Z-PLan Story
