Saburo Sakai

[focusfocus]

hi

your feeling Leo is probably right because it's impossible to know certainty the score of Sakai
even the authors do not agree between them:Hata and Izawa WITHOUT Shores in their book of 1989 gives 64 kills( only 2 in china!) and now with Shores creditent Sakai with 28!!

one example:

in the Tainan Kokutai Kodochosho : 6/4/42 to 7/8/42 = 40 kills for Sakai alone or in collaboration and still it is necessary to forget to compare with the RAF and US real losses( I made the comparaison,and we are far from 28 even by including the kills before 6/4/42

regards

[Stig Jarlevik]

Sakai was an interesting and a bit controversial character.

There is an interview with him here
http://www.warbirdforum.com/sakai.htm

Beside his feelings for Genda (which are interesting), can anyone say why he was so upset about the Kawanishi N1K1-J? Perhaps not an absolute world beater in 1945 but most pilots at least seems to have considered it to be better than the 'Zero'

Cheers
Stig