BY Saburo Sakai with Martin Caidin and Fred Saito
Saburo Sakai was the highest-scoring Japanese ace to survive World War II. In 1957 Sakai collaborated with American aviation writer Martin Caidin and Japanese journalist Fred Saito to write his autobiography, Samurai! — one of the few truly great aviation books to come out of World War II.
Sakai had been credited with fifty-seven victories against Allied planes (he would end the war credited with sixty-four kills) when he flew a Zero south from Rabaul on August 7, 1942, to contest the American landing on Guadalcanal. Twenty-seven Betty bombers and seventeen Zeros made the 550-nautical-mile trip south.
After shooting down a Wildcat and a Dauntless, Sakai closed relentlessly on the rear of a formation of eight American
Planes that he thought were F4F-4 Wildcat fighters. He was wrong. The planes were SBD Dauntless dive bombers, and they all contained rear gunners, each armed with twin.30-caliber machine guns.
A horrified Sakai realized his mistake when he was about fifty yards behind his intended victim and closing rapidly. Too late! At a range of less than a hundred feet Sakai squeezed the trigger of his guns, just as the Dauntless gunners opened fire.
Bullets ripped into the Zero’s cockpit, and two smashed obliquely into Sakai’s skull. Permanently blinded in his right eye, temporarily paralyzed on one side, Sakai somehow managed to fly his fighter the 550 nautical miles back to Rabaul.
Two years later, with the tide of war irreversibly running against Japan, the now one-eyed fighter pilot was once again allowed to fly a Zero. This time he flew from Iwo Jima. We join him now as, for the first time, he meets Hellcats aloft.
On June 24 the quiet lull which had settled over Iwo Jima disappeared. It was about 5:20
A. M. when the air-raid alarms set up a terrific din across the island. Early-warning radar had caught several large groups of enemy aircraft less than sixty miles to the south — and coming in fast.
Every fighter plane on the island — more than eighty Zeros — thundered down the two runways and sped into the air. Mechanics dragged the remaining Bettys and Jills to shelter.
This was it! The long wait was about to be rewarded. I had a Zero under my hands again, and in another few moments I would know — by the acid test of actual combat — if I had lost my skill.
An overcast at 13,000 feet hung in the sky. The fighters divided into two groups, forty Zeros climbing above the cloud layer, and the other forty — my group — remaining below.
No sooner had I eased out of my climb than an enemy fighter spun wildly through the clouds, trailing a long plume of flame and black smoke. I had only a brief look at the fighter — it was a new type, unmistakable with its broad wings and blunt nose, the new Grumman I had heard so much about — the Hellcat. I swung into a wide turn and looked up. . . another Grumman came out of the clouds, diving vertically,
Smoke pluming behind.
Hard on the heels of the smoking fighter came scores of Hellcats, diving steeply. All forty Zeros turned and climbed to meet the enemy planes head-on. There was no hesitation on the part of the American pilots; the Grummans screamed in to attack. Then the planes were all over the sky, swirling from sea level to the cloud layer in wild dogfights. The formations were shredded.
I snapped into a tight loop and rolled out on the tail of a Hellcat, squeezing out a burst as soon as the plane came into the range finder. He rolled away and my bullets met only empty air. I went into a left vertical spiral and kept closing the distance, trying for a clear shot at the plane’s belly. The Grumman tried to match the turn with me; for just that moment I needed, his underside filled the range finder and I squeezed out a second burst. The cannon shells exploded along the fuselage. The next second thick clouds of black smoke poured back from the airplane and it went into a wild, uncontrolled dive for the sea.
Everywhere I looked there were fighters, long trails of smoke, bursts of flame, and exploding planes. I looked too long. Flashing tracers poured directly beneath my wing, and instinctively I jerked the stick over to the
Left, rolling back to get on his tail and snapping out a burst. Missed. He dove out of range, faster than I could follow.
I cursed at myself for having been caught without warning, and with equal vehemence I cursed my blind eye, which left almost half of my area of vision blank. As quickly as I could, I slipped out of the parachute straps and freed my body, so I could turn around in my seat, making up for the loss of side vision.
And I looked without a second to spare. At least a half dozen Grummans were on my tail, jockeying into firing position. Their wings burst into sparkling flame as they opened fire. Another left roll — fast! — and the tracers slipped harmlessly by. The six fighters ripped past my wings and zoomed in climbing turns to the right.
Not this time! Oh, no! I slammed the throttle on overboost and rolled back to the right, turning after the six fighters with all the speed the Zero would give me. I glanced behind me — no other fighters in the back. One of these was going to be mine, I swore! The Zero closed the distance to the nearest plane rapidly. Fifty yards away I opened up with the cannon, watching the shells move up the fuselage and disappear into the cockpit. Bright flashes and smoke appeared be-
Neath the glass; the next moment the Hellcat swerved crazily and fell off on one wing, its smoke trail growing with each second.
But there were more fighters on my tail! Suddenly I didn’t want to close with them. Weariness spread over me like a smothering cloak. In the old days, at Lae, I would have wasted no time in hauling the Zero around and going for them. But now I felt as though my stamina had been wrung dry. I didn’t want to fight.
I dove and ran for it. In this condition it would have been sheer suicide to oppose the Hellcats. There would have been a slip, a second’s delay in moving the stick or the rudder bar. . . and that would be all. I wanted time in which to regain my breath, to shake off the sudden dizziness. Perhaps it was the result of trying to see as much with only one eye as I had before; I knew only that I couldn’t fight.
I fled to the north, using overboost to pull away. The Hellcats turned back and went after fresher game. And then I saw what was to me the most hideous of all the hundreds of air battles in which I had fought. I glanced down to my right and gaped.
A Hellcat rolled frantically, trying to escape a Zero which clung grimly to its tail, snapping out bursts from its cannon, no
More than fifty yards behind. Just beyond the Zero, another Hellcat pursued the Japanese fighter. Even as I watched, a Zero plunged from above and hauled around in a tight diving turn after the Grumman. One after the other they came in, in a long snaking file! The second Zero, intent upon the pursuing Hellcat fighter, seemed entirely unaware of a third Hellcat following in its dive. And a third Zero, watching the whole proceedings, snapped around in a tight turn and caught the trailing Hellcat without warning.
It was an astonishing — and to me, a horrifying — death column which snaked along, each plane following the other before it with determination, firing at the target before its guns. Hellcat, Zero, Hellcat, Zero, Hellcat, Zero. Were they all so stupid that not one pilot, either Japanese or American, guarded his weak spot from the rear?
The lead fighter, the Grumman, skidded wildly as it hurled back smoke, then plunged toward the sea. Almost at the same moment the pursuing Zero exploded in a fireball. The Hellcat which had delivered the death blow remained in one piece less than two seconds; cannon shells from the second Zero tore its wing off, and it fell, spinning wildly. The wing had just ripped clear of the fighter
When a blinding flash of light marked the explosion of the Zero. And as the third Hellcat pulled up from the explosion, the cannon shells of the third Zero tore its cockpit into a shambles.
The five planes plunged toward the sea. I watched the five splashes. The last Zero rolled, turned, and flew away, the only survivor of the melee.
I circled slowly, north of Iwo, sucking in air and trying to relax. The dizziness left me, and I turned back to the battle area. The fight was over. There were still Zeros and Hellcats in the sky, but they were well separated, and the fighters of both sides were forming into their own groups.
Ahead and to the right I saw fifteen Zeros swinging into formation, and I closed in to join the group. I came up below the formation and. . .
Hellcats! Now I understood why the surgeon, long ago, had protested my return to combat so vigorously. With only one eye my perspective was badly off, the small details were lost to me in identifying planes at a distance. Not until the white stars against the blue wings became clear did I realize my error. I wasted no time in throwing off the fear which gripped me. I rolled to the left and came around in a tight turn, diving for
Speed, hoping the Grummans hadn’t seen me.
No such luck. The Hellcat formation broke up and the planes turned in pursuit. What could I do? My chances seemed hopeless.
No — there was still one way out, and a slim chance at that. I was almost over Iwo Jima. If I could outmaneuver the other planes — an almost impossible task, I realized — until their fuel ran low and forced them to break for home. . .
Now I appreciated the speed of these new fighters. In seconds they were closing in. They were so fast! There was no use in running any farther. . . .
I snapped back in a tight turn. The maneuver startled the enemy pilots as I climbed at them from below, swinging into a spiral. I was surprised; they didn’t scatter. The lead fighter responded with an equal spiral, matching my maneuver perfectly. Again I spiraled, drawing it closer this time. The opposing fighters refused to yield a foot.
This was something new. An Airacobra or a P-40 would have been lost trying to match me in this fashion, and not even the Wildcat could hold a spiral too long against the Zero. But these new Hellcats — they were the most maneuverable enemy planes I had
Ever encountered. I came out of the spiral into a trap. The fifteen fighters filed out of their spirals into a long column. And the next moment I found myself circling in the center of a giant ring of fifteen Grummans. On every side of me I saw the broad wings with their white stars. If ever a pilot was surrounded in the air, I was.
I had little time in which to ponder my misfortune. Four Grummans broke out of their circle and dove at me. They were too eager. I rolled easily out of the way and the Hellcats skidded by, out of control. But what I thought was only a slight roll set me up for several other fighters. A second quartet flashed out of the ring, right on my tail.
I ran. I gunned the engine to give every last ounce of power and pulled away sufficiently to get out of their gun range for the moment. The four pursuing planes didn’t worry me; it was the first quartet. How right I was! They had climbed back from their skidding plunge and were above me, diving for another firing pass.
I slammed my right foot against the rudder bar, skidding the Zero to the left. Then the stick, hard over to the left, rolling sharply. Sparkling lights flashed beneath my right wing, followed by a plummeting Hellcat.
I came out of the roll in a tight turn. The
Second Grumman was about seven hundred yards behind me, its wings already enveloped in yellow flame from its guns. If I hadn’t known it before, I knew it now. The enemy pilots were as green as my own inexperienced fliers.. . and that could be a factor which would save my life.
The second flghter kept closing in, spraying tracers all over the sky, tracers which fell short of my own plane. Keep it up! I yelled, keep it up! Go ahead, waste all your ammunition; you’ll be one less to worry about. I turned again and fled, the Hellcat closing in rapidly. When he was about three hundred yards behind, I rolled away to the left. The Grumman passed below me, still flring at empty air.
I lost my temper. Why run from such a clumsy pilot? Without thinking, I rolled back and got on his tail. From flfty yards away I snapped out a cannon burst.
Wasted. I failed to correct for the skid caused by my abrupt turn. And suddenly I didn’t care what happened to the fighter in front of me. . . another Grumman was on my tail, firing steadily. Again — the left roll, a maneuver which never failed me. The Hellcat roared past, followed by the third and fourth fighters in the quartet.
Another four planes were almost directly
Above me, ready to dive. Sometimes, you have to attack in order to defend yourself. I went into a vertical climb, directly beneath the four fighters. The pilots banked their wings back and forth, trying to find me. I had no time to scatter them. Three Hellcats came at me from the right. I narrowly missed their tracers as I evaded with the same left roll.
The fighters were back in their wide ring. Any move I made to escape would bring several Grummans cutting at me from different directions. I circled in the middle, looking for a way out.
They had no intention of allowing that to happen. One after the other, the fighters peeled off from the circle and came at me, firing as they closed in.
I cannot remember how many times the fighters attacked nor how many times I rolled away. The perspiration rolled down my body, soaking my underclothes. My forehead was all beads of sweat, and it began to drip down onto my face. I cursed when the salty liquid trickled into my left eye... I couldn’t take the time to rub it with my hand! All I could do was to blink, try to keep the salt away, try to see.
I was tiring much too quickly. I didn’t know how I could get away from the ring.
But it was very clear that these pilots weren’t as good as their planes. An inner voice seemed to whisper to me. It repeated over and over the same words. . . speed. . . keep up your speed. . . forget the engine, hum it out, keep up your speed! . . . Keep rolling. . . never stop rolling.
M. y arm was beginning to go numb from the constant rolling to the left to evade the Hellcats’ tracers. If I once slackened my speed in flicking away to the left, it would be my end. But how long could I keep that necessary speed in rolling away?
I must keep rolling! As long as the Grum-mans wanted to keep their ring intact, only one fighter at a time could jump me. And I had no fear of evading any single plane as it made its firing pass. The tracers were close, but they must hit me exactly if they were going to shoot me down. It mattered not whether the bullets passed a hundred yards or a hundred inches away, just so I could evade them.
I needed time to keep away from the fighters which raced in, one after the other, peeling off from the wide ring they maintained about me.
I rolled. Full throttle.
Stick over to the left.
Here comes another!
Hard over. The sea and horizon spinning crazily.
Skid!
Another!
That was close!
Tracers. Bright. Shining. Flashing.
Always underneath the wing.
Stick over.
Keep your speed up!
Roll to the left.
Roll.
My arm! I can hardly feel it anymore!
Had any of the Hellcat pilots chosen a different approach for his firing pass or concentrated carefully on his aim, I would surely have been shot out of the air. Not once did the enemy pilots aim at the point toward which my plane was moving. If only one fighter had spilled its tracers into the empty space leading me, toward the area where I rolled every time, I would have flown into his bullets.
But there is a peculiarity about fliers. Their psychology is strange, except for the rare few who stand out and go on to become leading aces. Ninety-nine percent of all pilots adhere to the formula they were taught in school. Train them to follow a certain pattern, and come what may, they will never consider breaking away from that pattern when they
Are in a battle where Jife and death mingle with one another.
So this contest boiled down to endurance between the time my arm gave out and I faltered in my evading roll and the fuel capacity of the Hellcats. They still had to fly back to their carriers.
I glanced at the speedometer. Nearly 350 miles an hour. The best that the Zero could do.
I needed endurance for more than my arm. The fighter also had its limits. I feared for the wings. They were bending under the repeated violence of the evading roll maneuvers. There was a chance that the metal might collapse under continued pressure and that the wing would tear off from the Zero, but that was out of my hands. I could only continue to fly. I must force the plane through the evasive rolls or die.
Roll.
Snap the stick over!
Skid.
Here comes another one.
To hell with the wings! Roll!
I could hear nothing. The sound of the Zero’s engine, the roaring thunder of the Hellcats, the heavy staccato of their.50-caliber guns, all had disappeared.
My left eye stung.
The sweat streamed down.
I couldn’t wipe it.
Watch out!
Stick over. Kick the bar.
There go the tracers. Missed again.
The altimeter was down to the bottom; the ocean was directly beneath my plane. Keep the wings up, Sakai, you’ll slap a wave with your wingtip. Where had the dogfight started? Thirteen thousand feet. More than two and a half miles of skidding and rolling away from the tracers, lower and lower. Now I had no altitude left.
But the Hellcats couldn’t make their firing runs as they had before. They couldn’t dive; there was no room to pull out. Now they would try something else. I had a few moments. I held the stick with my left hand, shook the right vigorously. It hurt. Everything hurt. Dull pain, creeping numbness.
Here they come, skidding out of their ring. They’re careful now, afraid of what I might do suddenly. He’s rolling. A rolling pass.
It’s not so hard to get out of the way. Skid to the left. Look.
The tracers.
Fountains geysering up from the water. Spray. Foam.
Here comes another one.
How many times have they come at me
This way now? I’ve Inst count. When will they give up? They must be running low on fuel!
But I could no longer roll so effectively. My arms were going numb. I was losing my touch. Instead of coming about with a rapid, sharp rolling motion, the Zero arced around in a sloppy oval, stretching out each maneuver. The Hellcats saw it. They pressed home their attacks, more daring now. Their passes came so fast that I had barely time for a breather.
I could no longer keep this up. I must make a break! I came out of another left roll, kicked the rudder bar and swung the stick over to the right. The Zero clawed around in response and I gunned the fighter for a break in the ring. I was out, nosing down again and running for it, right over the water. The Hellcats milled around for a moment in confusion. Then they were after me again.
Half the planes formed a barricade overhead, while the others, in a cluster of spitting guns, hurtled after me. The Hellcats were too fast. In a few seconds they were in firing range. Steadily I kept working to the right, kicking the Zero over so that she jerked hard with each maneuver. To the left fountains of white foam spouted into the air from
The tracers which continued narrowly to miss my plane.
They refused to give up. Now the fighters overhead were coming down after me. The Grummans immediately behind snapped out their bursts, and the Hellcats which dove tried to anticipate my moves. I could hardly move my arms or legs. There was no way out. If I continued flying low, it would only be a matter of a minute or two before I moved the stick too slowly. Why wait to die, running like a coward?
I hauled the stick back, my hands almost in my stomach. The Zero screamed back and up, and there, only a hundred yards in front of me, was a Hellcat, its startled pilot trying to find my plane.
The fighters behind him were already turning at me. I didn’t care how many there were. I wanted this fighter. The Hellcat jerked wildly to escape. Now! I squeezed, the tracers snapped out. My arms were too far gone. The Zero staggered; I couldn’t keep my arms steady. The Hellcat rolled steeply, went into a climb, and fled.
The loop had helped. The other fighters milled around in confusion. I climbed and ran for it again. The Grummans were right behind me. The fools in those planes were firing from a distance of five hundred yards.
Waste your ammunition, waste it, waste it, I cried. But they were so fast! The tracers flashed by my wing and I rolled desperately.
Down below, Iwo suddenly appeared. I rocked my wings, hoping the gunners on the ground would see the red markings. It was a mistake. The maneuver slowed me down, and the Hellcats were all over me again.
Where was the flak? What’s wrong with them down on the island? Open up, you fools, open up!
Iwo erupted in flame. Brilliant flashes swept across the island. They were firing all the guns, it seemed, spitting tracers into the air. Explosions rocked the Zero. Angry bursts of smoke appeared in the air among the Hellcats. They turned steeply and dove out of range.
I kept going at full speed. I was terrified. I kept looking behind me, fearing that they had come back, afraid that at any second the tracers wouldn’t miss, that they’d stream into the cockpit, tearing away the metal, ripping into me.
I passed Iwo, banging my fist on the throttle, urging the plane to fly faster. Faster, faster! South Iwo appeared on the horizon . . . there, a cloud! A giant cumulus, rearing high above the water. I didn’t care about the
Air currents. I wanted only to escape those fighters. At full speed I plunged into the billowy mass.
A tremendous fist seemed to seize the Zero and fling it wildly through the air. I saw nothing but livid bursts of lightning, then blackness. I had no control. The Zero plunged and reared. It was upside down, then standing on its wings, then hurtling upward tail first.
Then I was through. The storm within the cloud spit the fighter out with a violent lurch. I was upside down. I regained control at less than 1,600 feet. Far to the south I caught a glimpse of the fifteen Hellcats, going home to their carrier. It was hard to believe that it was all over and that I was still alive. I wanted desperately to get out of the air. I wanted solid ground beneath my feet.
I set down at Iwo’s main strip. For a few minutes I relaxed in the cockpit, exhausted, then climbed wearily down from the Zero. All the other fighters had long since landed. A throng of pilots and mechanics ran toward the plane when it stopped, shouting and cheering. Nakajima was among them, and he threw his arms around my neck, roaring with joy. “You did it, Sakai! You did it! Fifteen against one. . . you were marvelous!” I could only lean against the plane
And mumble, cursing, my blind eye. It had nearly cost me my life.
An officer pounded me on the back. “We were going crazy down here,” he shouted. “Every man on the island was watching you! The gunners, they couldn’t wait for you to come over the island, to bring those planes into their range. Everybody had his hands on the triggers, just waiting, hoping you’d come our way. How did you do it?” he asked in amazement.
A mechanic ran up to me, saluting, “Sir! Your plane. It — it doesn’t... I can’t believe it. . . there’s not a single bullet hole in your fighter!”
I couldn’t believe it, either. I checked the Zero over from one end to the other. He was right. Not a single bullet had hit the fighter.
Later, back at the billet, I learned that the first group of Zeros which had flown above the clouds had fought a far easier battle than our own formation. The large Hellcat formation had climbed from the overcast directly beneath their own planes, and they had the advantage of diving, surprising the American pilots before they even knew what happened. NAP 1/C Kinsuke Muto, the Yokosuka Wing’s star pilot, had a field day, shooting down four of the Grummans. The
Other pilots confirmed his victories. Muto flamed two Hellcats before they could even make an evasive move.
But the day’s toll was staggering. Nearly forty — almost half of all our fighters — had been shot down.
World History
