Thread: Saburo Sakai
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Old 19th October 2016, 15:31
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Re: Saburo Sakai

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flavio View Post
Dear Michael,

I don't speak Japanese too!

Anyway when I bought this book years ago I also bought a Japanese dictionary; thanks to it, leafing page after page (at that time Google translator was a dream...) I was able to understand the meaning of some ideograms (kanji). In detail the first shared victory is the B-17 on Feb 8th, the second the B-25 on May 14th...look at the ideogram at the end and you'll find the other shared. The ideogram on May 17th means "probable" (on that day Sakai claimed 2 P-39s sures + 1 probable) while the second B-26 on May 28th was "damaged".

focusfocus thanks for adding details; you are right I checked my copy of "Winged Samurai" where is quoted that the list has been taken from Sakai's logbook (unfortunately I gained my second-hand copy of this book some times after the Japanese dictionary....). However I think also Sakai's logbook is an "official" document even if there are discordances if compared to Tainan KODOCHOSHO.

Flavio
Hello Flavio,

I counted the claims on the list with the ideogram knowledge:
- 4 Destroyed in the China War
- 54+19 shared Destroyed in WW2
- 1 Probable in WW2
- 1 Damaged in WW2
- 7+1 shared On the ground in WW2

I suppose, the 17Aug1945 claim is a shared ground kill, isn't it ?
Do the ideograms tell us how many pilots took part in the shared kills ?

Cheers,

Michael
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