Saburo Sakai

[knusel]

Originally Posted by R Leonard

Sorry . . . revised to include the USMC in above totals . . . Pacific Theaters of operations:
Lost to enemy A/C = 1,222
Lost to enemy AAA = 2,180
Lost Operationally = 1,535
Lost Other Flights (not combat related) = 3,619
Lost on ground or aboard ship = 1,419

Hello Leonard,

that makes 2.666 US planes lost in aerial combat against the Japanese.

Another naive fallacy:

• The Americans scored ~14.000 kills against the Japanese.
• That makes a kill-loss-ratio of the Americans against the Japanese of ~5:1.
• Thus, if we ignore the shot-down Commonwealth planes we might expect that the scores of the American top aces were five times higher than the scores of the Japanese top aces.
• Thus, the Sakai score of 6 suggested by Luftwaffle8 indeed seems more realistic than a score of 64.

Michael