Saburō Sakai, Famous Japanese Ace

Aviation history is replete with famous pilots, and this week I want to introduce you to a Japanese naval pilot by the name of Saburō Sakai. Sakai was born on August 25, 1916 in Saga Prefecture, Japan, to a family with historical ties to the Samurai, or ancient Japanese warriors. His family by this time had become farmers, and Sakai was the third of four sons and had three sisters.

The Saga Prefecure in Japan.

Sadly, his father passed away when Sakai was 11 years old, leaving his mother to raise all seven children on her own. An uncle to Sakai decided to help Sakai by paying for his education at a high school in Tokyo. Sakai did not take high school well, and after two years he returned home to his family.

Sakai Joins The Navy

On May 31, 1933, Sakai, age 16, decided to follow his family's traditional occupation and joined the Imperial Japanese Navy. Sakai began his training at the Sasebo Naval Base, and upon completion of basic training was assigned to the battleship Kirishima. In 1935 Sakai took and passed difficult exams to join the Naval Gunnders' School. He was successful as a naval gunner, being promoted a number of times.

In very early 1937, Sakai was accepted into the Japanese Naval pilot training program, and graduated first in his class that same year. Upon graduation he was awarded a special silver watch from Emperor Hirohito. He then trained to be an aircraft carrier pilot; however, he never did serve on one.

The Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, and on July 7, 1937, the conflict escalated into a full-scale war. This war continued until the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. The Japanese decided to invade Manchuria after the Mukden Incident, claiming that Japan was only responding to an attack on their railway. In response to the Japanese invasion of Mukden, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson told the Japanese that the U.S. would not recognize any agreements between China and Japan that limited free commercial intercourse in the region.

Sakai turned out to be a gifted pilot with a knack for aerial combat. In 1939 Sakai was flying a prototype of the famous Japanese Zero when he came upon a Russian Ilyushin DB-3 which had been lent to China by the Russians. 

A print showing a Russion Ilyushin DB-3/II-4 on a snowy airfield, location unknown.

His first confirmed kill came not in combat against an American, Australian, or even Chinese plane, but against a Russian Ilyushin DB-3. He shot down the Chinese-piloted DB-3 in 1939 while flying a prototype of the famous Zero. He was later injured when the Chinese bombed the airfield where he was stationed. Even then, he found an undamaged plane and took to the skies in an attempt to get revenge. 

PO2/c (Petty Officer Second Class) Sakai in the cockpit of a Mitsubishi A5M Type 96 fighter at the Hankow airfield in China, 1939.

World War 2

By the time Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, Sakai had been promoted to a Petty Officer First Class, and now had been given a proper Japanese Zero. He was promoted six times before he even began the most famous part of his career. 

Sakai's aircraft was a Mitsubishi A6M2, better known as a Japanese "Zero," a lightweight, nimble aircraft with a long operating range of some 550-550 nautical miles. U.S. Navy analysts were unaware of the Zero's range, and overestimated the size of the Imperial Navy's carrier fleet, because they did know their range was so great from land bases.

A cut-away image of the legendary Japanese Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero.

Mitsubishi A6M2b Model 21:

• Length: 29 feet 8 inches;
• Wingspan: 39 feet 4 inches;
• Height: 10 feet;
• Weight: 3,704 pounds empty, 5.313 pounds loaded;
• Armament: Two 7.7 mm Type 97 machine guns and two 20 mm Type 99 Mark 1 cannons;
• Engine: 940 hp Nakajima KN1C Sakae 12;
• Max Speed: 331 mph;
• Climb Rate: 3,100 feet per minute;
• Max Range: 1,930 miles with auxiliary tank.

The Zero was made of high-tech duralumin alloy (aluminum alloyed with copper, manganese, and magnesium), this in turn gave the Zero its remarkable fuel efficiency, operating range, and manuevering agility. However, the engineers skipped on some vital improvements at the expense of the pilots lives. The Zero was lightly armored, did not have bulletproof glass nor self-sealing fuel tanks lake those on European and American aircraft.

Further, the only navigation equipment in the aircraft was a compass, and the Zeros only had the very basic of radios which the pilots simply ditched them. They could weigh as much as 40 pounds - a real burden for a very lightweight aircraft.

The Phillippines

Sakai then took part in the attack on the Phillippines and immediately began to accumulate aerial victories. During his first action he shot down a Curtis Warhawk and destroyed two bombers on the ground. A few days later he shot down a Boeing B-17.

He was then transfered to Borneo where he would fight against the Dutch. His orders from the Japanese high command were to shoot down any Dutch aircraft  they encountered, whether or not they were armed. In his first encounter he shot down a Dutch fighter, but the next time he came across a civilian Dutch aircraft. and this brought up a moral issue for Sakai.

You see, when he was in school one of his teachers was an American, and because of this he felt it would be wrong for him to shoot the aircraft down. Instead, he flew close enough to the Dutch airplane to seea blonde woman with her child among the passengers. He then waved them on their way and pretended he never saw them.

Nonetheless, during the rest of the Borneo campaign Saburo Sakai showed no mercy as he notched an additional 13 kills. By this time he was fighting Australian and American aircraft and pilots.  This led to an interesting turn of events. As it turns out, the Japanese aces had  heard the song Danse Macabre while listening to Australian radio. 

One of Sakai's fellow aces convinced Sakai and anothere Ace to perform something like an airshow over an Australian base to show off. The trio executed the plan the next day, performing a manuever in which they flew three loops in close formation. They even repeated the maneuver closer to the ground, and in range of anti-aircraft guns, but the Aussies, perhaps amused, did not fire on them.

The next day an Allied bomber flew over the Japanese base and dropped them a note. It read "Thank you for the wondeful display of aerobatics by three of your pilots. Please pass on our regards and inform them that we will have a warm reception ready for them the next time they fly over our airfield." The Japanese commander was furious, but Sakai never regretted this decision.

Enlisted pilots of the Tainan Kokutai pose at Lae in June, 1942. Saburo Sakai is next to another Japanese ace, Toshio Ota (middle row, far left).

By the mid-point of the war Sakai's Zero became outdated, and despite the fact that the Allies eventually adjusted to meet this threat, the Zero pilots continued to wrack up victories, including Sakai.

Lyndon B. Johnson's Near Miss

On June 9th, 1942, Lydon B. Johnson, a Navy Commander, was on board a B-26 bomber called the Heckling Hare. Johnson had been scheduled as an observer on the Wabash Cannonball, a B-26 that was shot down by Japanese forces in New Guinea, but he needed a bathroom break and missed that flight.

U.S. Congressman Lydon B. Johnson had been ordered on a fact-finding mission by FDR, his task was to observe the prowess of the Japanese Zero, which he certainly succeeded in doing! As the Heckling Hare conducted its flight little did they know that a Japanese Zero Ace by the name of Sakai would soon interrupt their flight.

Sakai spotted the Heckling Hare and attacked, crippling the aircraft by taking out its right engine, and then losing it as it escaped into the clouds, never to be seen again by Sakai. But for this stoke of luck we might never have had "The Great Society."

To Be Continued...

I hope you enjoyed this trip through some of the history of aviation. If you enjoyed this trip, and if you are new to this newsletter, sign up to receive your own weekly newsletter here: Subscribe here!

Until next time, keep your eyes safe and focused on what's ahead of you, Hersch!