Samurai!

by Saburō Sakai, Kevin Waites (Narrator)

Samurai! is the gripping autobiography of Saburō Sakai, one of Japan’s most renowned fighter pilots during World War II. Co-written with Fred Saito and Martin Caidin, the book chronicles Sakai’s rise from a poor rural upbringing to becoming an elite Zero pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

With vivid detail and unflinching honesty, he recounts harrowing dogfights, the horrors of war, and his legendary 1,000-mile flight back to base after being grievously wounded.

More than just a war memoir, Samurai! offers rare insight into the mindset, discipline, and honor of a warrior shaped by both tradition and global conflict.

Audible Audio

Published July 14, 2025

About the author

Saburō Sakai (Japanese: 坂井 三郎) was a Japanese naval aviator and flying ace ("Gekitsui-O", 撃墜王) of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Sakai had 28 aerial victories, including shared ones, according to official Japanese records, though he and his ghostwriter Martin Caidin claimed much higher numbers.

Reviews

[C. G. Telcontar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn't meant to reread this again, but I saw a thread about it in an FB group intimating that there was an expanded edition with new material not in the original and that intrigued me, so I got it on audio, nothing the release date of 2011. Having been at least a decade if not more since I read it last much of the early portion of the book did indeed seem new. Having finished now and comparing it to the classic Bantam edition I've had since roughly 1985 I can find no differences at all. Oh, well. Not sorry I read it again. I will say I have many, many questions about particular dogfights he claims to have been involved in during the New Guinea portion of his wartime service. Allied records being much more meticulously maintained than Japanese records, I wonder how his dates and facts of encounters would bear out against USAAF records from the war. And really, do I want to know the answer? I still rate this as the single best memoir from the PTO/CBI from the war. If Sakai happened to fall prey to the desire for some embellishments, that's fine. Pilots and their war stories can sometimes, to borrow a phrase, grow in the telling. So be it.

I do cast scorn on the audio production, however. The narrator displays a sad lack of reading comprehension that is inexcusable in this format. You really do have one job if you're a narrator and being able to read the text in front of you is job number 1. I don't understand how such subpar narrators are still generating careers out of C grade abilities in the 2020's. It's incomprehensible to think these people passed auditions and a producer and or author said, yeah clearly that's our guy.

But anyway.... 5 stars, regardless of format. If you've never run across it and you're a student of the war, ya gotta. You just gotta.