Allied Opinion of IJN vs. IJA Fighter Pilots

[mars]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

But if we are to believe the story of Sakai surviving alone from the attack by 15 US Navy Hellcats which did not manage to get a single bullet hole in his Zero, it does not give a picture of good skills when it comes to deflection shooting. This is not the only story of its kind - another Japanese pilot told in afterwar interview that he managed to survive from the attacks of several Corsairs while flying a Val divebomber in a hopeless mission. Corsairs shot two of his wingmen down rapidly but found the remaining third Val difficult as the experienced pilot did the best tricks that he knew to safe his and gunners´s skin. Somehow Corsair pilots managed to overshoot and miss every time when they attacked his alone Val. Was it that he was simply so good or were Corsair pilots rookies like those Hellcat guys who did not manage to bring Sakai´s Zero down?

GuerraCivil, the "Samurai!" is more close to a finction novel than a biography, though there are some real personal experience in that book, but be very careful if you want to use it as your source because Mr Caiden was a little bit too creative while writing this book, for example, it was Mr Caiden invent that Sakai shot down 64 allied aircrafts in the WWII, to be sure Mr Sakai never claimed he had 64 kills in the war, he was actually puzzled by this claim, according to Japanese records, Mr Sakai shot down around a dozen enemy planes.