ENEMY PILOTS SPEAK Voices from the other side

All too often American students of air warfare forget that enemy aircraftwhether Messerschmitts or MiGs-were flown by human beings with the same motivations and traits as Allied airmen. More often than not, the only difference between friend and foe was the paint on the airplane and where they landed. Therefore, we've assembled a variety of accounts from WW II Axis fighter pilots, men who were more than simply targets.

- BARRETT TILLMAN

JAPAN'S MASTER OF THE ZERO

In 1971, the American Fighter Aces Association hosted a delegation from the Zero Fighter Pilots Association in San Diego. Undisputed star of the Japanese entourage was Saburo Sakai, then 55 years old, bearing visible wounds inflicted by American machine gun fire at Guadalcanal in 1942. During a session at the hotel bar (where else would fighter pilots gather?), one of the American aces approached a translator traveling with the Zero pilots. Dr. Clayton K. Gross had been a Ninth Air Force ace, a member of the 354th Fighter Group that introduced the Merlin-powered P-51 to combat. Then a practicing dentist, Kelly Gross retained a serious interest in air combat. He nodded to Sakai and addressed the translator. "Please tell Saburo that I read his book, and the emotions that he described in aerial combat were just the same as I experienced in Europe."

Sakai’s classic 1956 memoir, “Samurai,” contains passages that appeal to airmen of every nation and culture. In part, Sakai wrote, “In the Imperial Japanese Navy I learned only one trade—how to man a fighter plane and how to kill enemies of my country. This I did for nearly five years, in China and across the Pacific. I knew no other life; I was a warrior of the air.

"With the surrender, I was thrown out of the Navy. Despite my wounds and my long service, there was no possibility of a pension. We were the losers, and pensions or disability payments are received only by the veterans of the victor nation.