The Last Hurray for the One Eyed Ace

[Tanaka]

the rise and fall of Japans air forces were epitomized in the remarkable career of its most durable ace, Saburo Sakai. Rigorously trained, supremely skilled, and flying the feared Mitsubishi Zero, Sakai early in the war personified the invinciblity of the Rising Sun. By the end he was half blind, desperatly flinging himself and his zero, now obsolete, against a mighty american armada.
Sakai saw it all. He enlisted in the Japanese navy in 1933 at the age of 16 and four years later was accepted for training in the navy's elite air service. Sent to China in 1938, as a non-commissioned pilot, he shot down a Russian built fighter on his first combat mission. Such were the rigerous standards of the day that on landing Sakai received a reprimand for breaking formation instead of congratulations for his kill.
On Pearl harbour day Sakais squadron attacked Clark field in the Philippines. He shot down a P-40, and 2 days later, protecting an invasion convoy, he bagged a bigger game; a B-17 flown by Captain Colin P Kelly Jr, who posthumously became a hero in the US for his solo attack on the enemy convoy.
Sakais unit moved steadily forward as a cutting edge of the Japanese juggernaut: to Borneo, Bali, New Britain and as far as New Guinea. Sakai enjoyed spectacular success, running his victory toll to 60 by early August of 1942. But on the day he got his 60th kill contesting the US landings on Guadalcanal, Sakai made a grievous error, mistaking rear firing Grumman Avengers for Wildcats, whose guns could only shoot forward. "Flames spurted from 2 bombers," Sakai recalled. "the world burst into flaming red and i went blind."
Sakai somehow made it back to base at Rabaul, five hours away, but he had been permanently blinded in one eye. The navy found a use for him as an instructor. By 1944, however, Japan was desperate for pilots and Sakai once more went to war.
He found it much changed. Most of his comrades from the glory days were dead, replaced by shockingly under-trianed young pilots, flying and quickly dying in outclassed machines. The zero Sakai now flew, except for a slightly stronger engine and better cannon, was a virtual duplicate of the plane in which he once had ruled the sky. Nevertheless, he added four more kills to his scoreand gained promotion at last to ensign.
In the Wars last hours, the one eyed pilot took a last bead on the hated symbol of American air power, the B-29. On August 13th, with surrender imminent, Sakai and a fellow pilot, Ensign Jiro Kawachi, made a compact to fly one more time. When the alert sounded near midnight they were waiting beside there zeros and took off into the moonless sky. Sakai distrusting his one good eye, asked Kawachi to lead him off the ground.
Guided by starlight, it was Kawachi who found the superfortress, alone over Tokyo. Sakai could not see the B-29 until tracers flashed from Kawachi's guns. Then Sakai joined the attack. "The counterfire was terrible", he wrote later. "Tracers spilled into the air from the multiple turrets on the B-29, and i felt the Zero shudder as the enemy gunners found there mark".
The bomber apparently damaged ran for home. The Japanese pilots had no intention of losing it now. "Kawachi cut inside the B-29's wide turn and led me down in a shallow diving attack," Sakai wrote. "We had a clear shot and both Kawachi and i kepted the triggers down, watching the tracers and shells ripping into the glass along the bombers nose. We had him!"
The stricken aircraft lost speed and went into a long dive. Saburo Sakai could make out the splash of white foam as it hit the water and disappeared. His shared 65th kill was the last B-29 shot down in WW2.


Saburo Sakai suffered a heart attack at Atsugi Naval Air Station on Thursday, September 21, 2002, while reaching across the table to shake hands with an American navy officer. He died at the hospital a few hours later. He was 84.