I’ve written here before about Saburo Sakai.
An American-styled education and a paucity of historical records from the ‘other side’ meant that I grew up with a one-sided view of history. Yet Samurai! captivated me as a boy. A Japanese pilot who could out-fly any Allied pilot. Who could see stars in daylight. Who shot down over 60 enemy airplanes, nearly twice the tally of his highest-scoring American counterpart.
I read Samurai! when I was 8 years old, and I WANTED to be a pilot. Few autobiographies can captivate 8-year olds. I built scale models of the Wildcat and the Zero, flew hundreds of dogfights in my imagination.
But there were gaps in the story – I wanted visuals. Sakai and the Japanese Navy’s Tainan Kokutai were the elite Japanese pilots in the Pacific. What did they look like? What were their airfields at Lae and Rabaul like? There were no photos.
Forty-five years later, I found Winged Samurai, by historian Henry Sakaida.
Persistently researched, packed with rare illustrations, Sakaida’s book is the perfect companion piece to Samurai!
Some of the photos have been published elsewhere.
The left photograph, above, shows the top pilots in the Tainan Kokutai. In Samurai!, Sakai deliciously describes head-on attacks flown by Nishizawa, Ota, Sasai and Takatsuka against five B-17s over Buna, August 2, 1942. Each pilot dived to gain tremendous speed, then climbed in a rolling firing pass, cross-controlled aileron and rudder to stabilize the Zero on a precise point roll, gun sight nailed on the bomb bay of his target, then flashed through the formation’s defensive fire in a twisting power climb.
Nishizawa, Ota, Sasai, Takatsuka and Sakai. In an actual photo.
The right photograph, which I have never seen before, is their airfield at Lae, New Guinea. It was from Lae that Amelia Earhart took off when she disappeared into history, before the war.
Sakai credited Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, his friend and Japan’s top-scoring ace, with over 100 enemy airplanes shot down.
Ironically, Nishizawa died as a passenger on a transport flight. Henry Sakaida’s book shows where.
Nishizawa was shot down by US Navy pilot Harold Newell on October 26, 1944, between Puerto Galera and Calapan in the Philippines, a spot I have flown over with Carlo!
On August 7, 1942, Sakai shot down ‘Pug’ Southerland over Guadalcanal in a dogfight well-documented on PBS, Discovery Channel and History Channel.
Minutes later, Sakai attacked what he thought was a group of American Wildcat fighter planes.
Sakai was wrong. They were SBD dive bombers – with rear gunners! Sakai was hit by .30 caliber machine gun bullets over the right eye and in his skull. In an epic struggle best described in Samurai! and Winged Samurai, Sakai leveled his plummeting Zero, treated his own wounds, and, half-blind and in agonizing pain, flew his damaged Zero fighter for nearly five hours back to Rabaul.
A year later, on June 24, 1944, Sakai, his right eye permanently blinded, was cornered over Iwo Jima. He outflew 15 American Hellcats in an exhausting dogfight. He snap rolled into left vertical spirals so many times that his right arm went numb. When he landed, incredulous mechanics did not find a single bullet hole in his Zero.
US Navy pilot William McCormick described watching four Hellcats on the Zero’s tail. The Zero was in a pure vertical left bank, in complete control, pulling a turn so tight that the American fighters stalled and fell out of the fight one by one, defeated by sheer aerodynamic mastery.
After the war, Sakai became a peace advocate, and kept a promise not to kill another living thing. He sought out many of his former adversaries. He was a guest at American military bases, leadership forums and veterans reunions.
Perhaps the most interesting reunion was the one with the man who so nearly killed Sakai – SBD rear gunner Harold Jones.
Sakai brought his damaged leather helmet and gave the man who shot him the gift of friendship.
Sakaida collected many photos, including Sakai’s mother, who had a great influence on Sakai’s disciplined upbringing.
But one last photo I’d like to share, taken by Sakai himself with his precious Leica camera, is that of Hatsuyo. They had been close since childhood, but it was only after Sakai was wounded did she reveal her frustration over his ignorance of her feelings for him. She and Sakai married, and she did her best to take care of him.
The post-war years were brutal for Japanese veterans, and Sakai had to sell his beloved Leica and do manual coolie labor. And Hatsuyo fell ill, and died.
Sakai suffered a heart attack while reaching across a dinner table to shake an American’s hand. He died in September, 2000. I wish I could have met him. He never refused anyone. He was just an e-mail away.
But now I have something almost as good. On the title page of my copy of Winged Samurai, bought from an Amazon.com reseller at random, I found this:
Saburo Sakai, the pilot I admire the most, signed my book.
Posted from Berlin, December 10, 2010
Links to the books and authors:
Samurai! — Stories about Saburo Sakai
Samurai! – Current edition of Sakai’s autobiography, the acclaimed book by Saburo Sakai and Martin Caidin.
Samurai! – Hardcover edition, out of print, available from re-sellers
Winged Samurai – The featured book by historian Henry Sakaida
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Fantastic post. Now, I am on the hunt for a copy of the book.
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i use to read this book way back my elementary days and highschool… i do have a copy of this. bantam war books.
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How I wish I had a copy of that book sir!Praises for Mr.Sakai in being a peace advocate after the war,it must be very humbling to shake the hands of the people who once tried very hard to kill you.
I must say that his dogfight with the Hellcats was the one which amazed me most.Imagine dodging one of the USN’s most agile fighter.Pure piloting genius!
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Rick, when is your birthday? 🙂
Dionex, keep that copy, it is now a collector’s item. Nearly all the editions are out of print!
Kit, he didn’t dodge one of the US Navy’s most agile fighters. He dodged fifteen of them! At the same time. Over a long, drawn-out dogfight.
I loved your comment, Kit: “It must be very humbling to shake the hands of the people who once tried very hard to kill you.”
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Excellent post. I have admired this remarkable man for over fifty years and enjoyed your fine article. Interestingly Saburo Sakai said in “Samuari!” that he was shot down by TBF Avengers, not SBD’s. When he approached what he thought was a formation of eight F4F Wildcats, he came from behind and below and was within 60 yards of the Avengers before realizing his mistake. Sakai was unfamiliar with this aircraft and was taken completely by surprise to discover they had ventral (“belly”) gunners. (The radioman/bombardier was also the ventral gunner, who bent over in the belly of the plane and fired the .30 caliber machine gun.) The mistake nearly cost him his life. His safe flight from Guadalcanal to Rabaul despite his incredible wounds remains one of the greatest feats of airmanship in aviation history.
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Hi Andrew, thanks for visiting Flying in Crosswinds!
Yes, I to am a bit puzzled by the Avengers vs. SBD element. I have enjoyed reading Samurai! for over 40 years now, and it was only recently that I realized many historians had begun clarifying that Sakai was hit by SBDs over Guadalcanal on 7 August, 1942. This has now been documented quite well, and Sakai actually met and befriended the SBD gunner, Harold Jones. I liked the Avenger version because the Grumman TBF Avenger and the Grumman Wildcat do look the same from certain angles, and so Sakai could have really thought he was attacking fighters from behind, not bombers with rear gunners.
Whatever the explanation (Martin Caidin was not the most careful of researchers), Sakai is certainly one of the best pilots the world has ever seen!
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Sorry. Just noted my “Samurai” typo in the above.
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Wonderful, wonderful story –i have a book, pub lished in 1956, named Zero! You can find it on the web –it’s by two Japanese staff officer/pilots with Martin Caiden –it has the story of the five hour miracle flight. I had always assumed the USA planes were TBF Avengers, because of the belly gun and SS’s approach angle.
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Thank you, Tonet, for helping to set the record straight. It appears the Dauntless was, indeed, the aircraft responsible for nearly ending the career of the astonishing and honorable aviator, Saburo Sakai. After so many years of believing the account in “Samurai”, it is nice to learn the accurate history.
I am one of four brothers who served in the U.S. Navy as either pilots or flight surgeons between 1944 through 1971 and we’ve admired the courage and integrity of Sakai for more than half a century. We’re in agreement tht Sakai was one of history’s finest military aviators.
Not to take anything away from him or Nishizawa or the many fine U.S. Army Air Corps pilots and Naval aviators whose victories were eclipsed by the top aviator in this department, it is only fitting that we recognize Erich Hartmann, who had the all time highest score. He was the fourth Luftwaffe pilot to reach 250 aerial victories, the first to reach 300 and the only one to reach 350. (His final tally was 352.) Naturally, all those who fought for their countries in aerial combat honor all others who served valiantly in military aviation.
It was nice to see a flight of four Navy Hornets from the USS Ronald Reagan fly over the celebration today at Simi Valley honoring President Reagan’s 100th birthday.
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[…] also recommend any and all of Sakaida’s books absolutely without reservation. Here’s another appreciation of the great Sakai, with scans from one of Sakaida’s books, including photos of the 1982 reunion mentioned […]
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Thanks for this fine post. Once these two nations America and Japan went to war but now they are good friends. It’s essential that students learn this so future generations don’t make such mistakes of war. Nowadays it’s more important than ever to pray for world peace!
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