What do you think?
Rate this book
Samurai! (Military History (Ibooks)) by Sakai. Saburo ( 2001 ) Paperback
Unknown Binding
1 person is currently reading
10 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 6, 2026
Saburo Sakai remains one of the most renowned Japanese fighter pilots of the Second World War—the only pilot who never lost a wingman in the chaos of aerial combat. Yet his country never celebrated him. Sakai received no medals, no decorations, no official recognition from his government. In Japan, such honors were never a consistent practice; commemoration was often reserved for the dead, not the living. Thus, the astonishing fact that Sakai shot down sixty‑four enemy aircraft was kept largely under wraps. To speak openly of his achievements was treated almost as a disservice to his memory. Whether this silence reflected a cultural mindset or simply reinforced the rigid caste order remains uncertain. Japan was a land where one could more easily commit hara‑kiri than raise a voice against authority. Death itself became a tacitly accepted justification for both failure and triumph.
Admiral Takijiro Onishi embodied this paradox. He instituted the kamikaze attacks—merciless as the winters of Hokkaido—and later chose death by seppuku. His suicide note expressed penance for the thousands of pilots lost to his invention. For reasons still unclear, Onishi is remembered with greater reverence than Sakai. Was it the pathos of his suicide, or the cultural distance that placed honor in death rather than in survival?
Sakai’s memoirs describe not only humiliating training practices and the harsh hierarchy between officers and privates, but also the reckless missions imposed by superiors. “Obey those above you” (上に従う) hung over the pilots like a Damoclean sword. Orders demanded nonstop flights of 800 miles from Kaohsiung to Hainan Island—an impossible distance for a fighter plane, much of it over open ocean. The high command seemed intent on scattering its own air force, sending pilots against impossible odds. One such mission pitted Sakai and his comrades against the formidable B‑17 bomber, a machine as impervious as a modern armored truck. When Japanese forces captured an intact B‑17 in Java, pilots longed to study it. Instead, Tokyo ordered it shipped away, denying them the chance to learn. Such decisions revealed the futility of Japan’s war path: the pilots were doomed, their lives hanging by a thread.
Dogfights over Guam, Iwo Jima, the Gilberts, and the Solomons became senseless melees. American fighters and their advanced air defense swatted Japanese planes aside like targets at a shooting range. By 1942, Japanese aircraft lacked basic protections: no pilot armor, no self‑sealing fuel tanks, no parachutes. A burst of .50‑caliber fire could ignite a Zero in flames. Parachutes were absent because neither the military code nor Bushido allowed for the dishonor of capture. “Prisoner of War” was a phrase unspoken.
Mission after mission ended in futility. The Americans methodically stripped Japan of its air power, while Tokyo broadcast false victories—claims of cruisers and destroyers sunk, triumphs that never occurred. In reality, the Guadalcanal campaign alone cost Japan 20,000 soldiers, most of them victims of starvation and disease rather than combat. Sakai reflected bitterly: “The Navy had lost the equivalent of an entire peacetime fleet. Rusting in the mud off Guadalcanal were the blasted hulks of two battleships, one carrier, five cruisers, twelve destroyers, eight submarines, hundreds of fighters and bombers, not to mention the crack fighter pilots and bomber crews.” Four carriers and nearly 300 aircraft were gone, along with their pilots. Other defeats followed, concealed from the public.
Bushido secrecy may have justified this silence, but Sakai himself noted that the Samurai code never demanded constant readiness for suicide. Yet by October 1944, the remnants of Japan’s air force were hurled into the jaws of death through the kamikaze campaign. When the skies finally cleared, American bombers struck Tokyo. On the night of March 10, more than nineteen square miles of the city were reduced to ash. Reports estimated 130,000 dead. Other cities suffered the same fate. Soon after, the radio announced Japan’s surrender: “We will abide by the Potsdam Declaration.”
Thus Bushido was realized once more—not in noble sacrifice, but in the spectacle of useless death and destruction. Saburo Sakai’s survival and testimony remain a haunting counterpoint to a nation that chose silence over recognition, and death over honor in life.
Admiral Takijiro Onishi embodied this paradox. He instituted the kamikaze attacks—merciless as the winters of Hokkaido—and later chose death by seppuku. His suicide note expressed penance for the thousands of pilots lost to his invention. For reasons still unclear, Onishi is remembered with greater reverence than Sakai. Was it the pathos of his suicide, or the cultural distance that placed honor in death rather than in survival?
Sakai’s memoirs describe not only humiliating training practices and the harsh hierarchy between officers and privates, but also the reckless missions imposed by superiors. “Obey those above you” (上に従う) hung over the pilots like a Damoclean sword. Orders demanded nonstop flights of 800 miles from Kaohsiung to Hainan Island—an impossible distance for a fighter plane, much of it over open ocean. The high command seemed intent on scattering its own air force, sending pilots against impossible odds. One such mission pitted Sakai and his comrades against the formidable B‑17 bomber, a machine as impervious as a modern armored truck. When Japanese forces captured an intact B‑17 in Java, pilots longed to study it. Instead, Tokyo ordered it shipped away, denying them the chance to learn. Such decisions revealed the futility of Japan’s war path: the pilots were doomed, their lives hanging by a thread.
Dogfights over Guam, Iwo Jima, the Gilberts, and the Solomons became senseless melees. American fighters and their advanced air defense swatted Japanese planes aside like targets at a shooting range. By 1942, Japanese aircraft lacked basic protections: no pilot armor, no self‑sealing fuel tanks, no parachutes. A burst of .50‑caliber fire could ignite a Zero in flames. Parachutes were absent because neither the military code nor Bushido allowed for the dishonor of capture. “Prisoner of War” was a phrase unspoken.
Mission after mission ended in futility. The Americans methodically stripped Japan of its air power, while Tokyo broadcast false victories—claims of cruisers and destroyers sunk, triumphs that never occurred. In reality, the Guadalcanal campaign alone cost Japan 20,000 soldiers, most of them victims of starvation and disease rather than combat. Sakai reflected bitterly: “The Navy had lost the equivalent of an entire peacetime fleet. Rusting in the mud off Guadalcanal were the blasted hulks of two battleships, one carrier, five cruisers, twelve destroyers, eight submarines, hundreds of fighters and bombers, not to mention the crack fighter pilots and bomber crews.” Four carriers and nearly 300 aircraft were gone, along with their pilots. Other defeats followed, concealed from the public.
Bushido secrecy may have justified this silence, but Sakai himself noted that the Samurai code never demanded constant readiness for suicide. Yet by October 1944, the remnants of Japan’s air force were hurled into the jaws of death through the kamikaze campaign. When the skies finally cleared, American bombers struck Tokyo. On the night of March 10, more than nineteen square miles of the city were reduced to ash. Reports estimated 130,000 dead. Other cities suffered the same fate. Soon after, the radio announced Japan’s surrender: “We will abide by the Potsdam Declaration.”
Thus Bushido was realized once more—not in noble sacrifice, but in the spectacle of useless death and destruction. Saburo Sakai’s survival and testimony remain a haunting counterpoint to a nation that chose silence over recognition, and death over honor in life.
November 7, 2025
I give the audio version 2 stars because it had very poor production quality. As this is a review of the paperback version, I give the book 3 stars. It was interesting, but not amazing.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews