Junichi Sasai
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Junichi Sasai (* February 13, 1918 – † August 26, 1942) was a Japanese naval aviator and fighter ace of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Lieutenant JG (中尉) Sasai’s final action took place on August 26, 1942, during the Battle of Guadalcanal. He was leading his squadron of Zero fighters from Rabaul to Guadalcanal, providing fighter escort for Japanese G4M bombers, attacking the US airstrip Henderson Field, a main focus of months of fighting in the Guadalcanal campaign as it enabled U.S. airpower to hinder the Japanese attempts at resupplying. Attacking a U.S. Marine Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter, Sasai was shot down by his opponent and killed, when his Zero fighter exploded, showering parts onto the beach of Guadalcanal.
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[edit] Early life
Junichi Sasai was born on February 13, 1918, in Tokyo. He was the son of a captain of the Japanese Imperial Navy, and even in his youth, Sasai already was destined to enter the Navy. Sasai’s infancy was marked by weak health, and he was always mobbed by his classmates. Physical exercises like Judo, together with a balanced diet, improved his health. Sasai attended the Tokyo Municipal High School No. 1, before he went on to the Japanese Naval Academy at Eta-Jima,[1] an island off the coast of Kuri, near Hiroshima. Junichi Sasai held a black belt in Judo and was competing in wrestling. In his early days at the Eta Jima Academy, he earned the nickname Gamecock because of his stamina and vehemence for life. Graduated and appointed an Ensign (少尉) in 1939 from the 67th Naval Academy Class, Sasai then became a member of the 35th Aviation Student Course. He finished his naval aviation training in November 1941 and became a fighter pilot. Sasai’s brother in law, Lieutenant Commander Yoshio Tashiro, was a naval aviator, too, serving as a flying boat commander.
[edit] Service in World War Two
On December 10, 1941, Ensign Sasai as a member of the Tainan Kokutai, which would become one of the Japanese Navy's premier fighter units, participated in the Pacific war's opening actions in the Philippines during the attack on Luzon, but he was forced to abort the mission due to engine trouble. On February 2, 1942, Sasai got his first aerial kill during actions in the Dutch East Indies at Maospati airfield, Java, when he downed a Dutch Brewster Buffalo. Sixteen days later, Sasai knocked down a Curtiss P-40E of 17th Squadron, with 280 projectiles of the Zero’s [2] machine guns.
The Tainan Kokutai (Air Group) was transferred to Lae on Papua New Guinea in March 1942, reorganizing with new officers. Among his Tainan equals Sasai was known as Flying Tiger in a direct reference to the tiger head belt buckle he wore always, a gift from his father. In his lodgings he kept an image of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, the legendary Japanese war hero.
Already a Lieutenant (jg), Sasai became Buntaicho (Squadron Leader), leading the 3rd Chutai (Squadron), consisting of six planes, divided in two Shotais (section). Each Chutai leader 's Zero was recognisable by two light blue diagonal stripes across it‘s fuselage, whilst each Shotai leader 's bore one. On each tail there was a black letter V [3], the Tainan Kokutai identifier, followed by a three digit number in the 100s series identifying each aircraft. Sasai now was flying with the experienced pilots Saburo Sakai, Enji Kakimoto and Toshio Ohta in his chutai. Saburo Sakai, leading the second Shotai in Sasai’s Chutai, had already taken part in real aerial combat flying in the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1938 - 1939. While Sasai became an excellent Zero pilot, in the beginning he was green. Sasai now was trained in the art of aerial combat by the experienced Sakai, the two of them became a great team. Sasai became an ace pilot and he owed his life and much of his development as a great ace to Sakai.
Sasai was considered an exceptional officer by his subordinates, mainly for his compassionate qualities. In private he ridiculed the inflexibility and austerity of the Navy caste system, a significant point on which to dwell considering the rigid Japanese officer code of the time. Such disdain was demonstrated amply by the level of personal interest he took in his NCO subordinates. Japanese caste system was strict but Sasai cared more for his flyers.
Saburo Sakai, flying as a Warrant Officer and Shotai-Leader in Sasai’s Chutai, told in an interview: [4]
"The navy had a very rigid hierarchy and caste system; officers never made friends with enlisted men, it was not allowed. But Sasai was a different kind of officer." (...)
"Ohta, Nishizawa and I joined our fighters wingtip to wingtip and did three perfect consecutive loops over the field following a dogfight. After we landed we were very proud of ourselves. Then we had a message that the commander at Moresby had sent a letter to out commander, Sasai, describing our stunt, and inviting us back. Sasai chewed us out and threatened us with grounding if we ever did that again. He was just following procedure, but we knew he was secretly proud of us."
On 11th April Lieutenant Sasai led nine Zeros scouting over Moresby in three Vee formations. The Japanese fighting tactics were to fly sections of three planes in a staggered formation, number two about one-hundred yards behind the leader and number three another one-hundred yards further away, both wingmen weaving as they kept watch for enemy aircraft.
On May 4, 1942, Sasai achieved ace status, when he was faced on a mission with three P-39 Airacobras, and shot them down in only 20 seconds. May 24, Sasai shot down a B-25 Mitchell of the 13th US squadron, 3rd bomb group.
On July 11th, 1942, Lt (j.g.) Sasai lead a mission to provide fighter escort for bombers heading for Port Moresby. Sasai led 12 Zeros escorting 21 bombers from Rabaul on that date. En route they met 6 B-17s of the 19th Bomb Group. Sasai gave the order to attack the B-17s, so Sakai, Nishizawa, Ohta and two others joined Sasai in the interception of the B-17's, but no B-17s were shot down, one Zero lost and the under-escorted bombers later were disrupted by interceptors at Port Moresby and the Japanese attack a failure.
Sasai received a severe reprimand for leaving the bombers. According to Saburo Sakai, Sasai's decision was poor, but he and the rest of the pilots sympathized with him because bombers had been hitting their base regularly and that they all wanted to get a piece of the B-17's that had been giving them so much trouble. ("Samurai!", p.133) [5]
August 2, Sasai attacked a B-17 with the new head-on tactic, and shot the four-engined bomber down.
[edit] Rabaul
The Tainan Kokutai moved from Lae to Lakunai airfield on Rabaul the next day. Rabaul soon would be named "the fighter pilot graveyard" by the Japanese, because of fierce combat, but also because malaria, mosquitos and various tropical diseases were decimating the Japanese pilots. Unlike the Americans, who treated their airbases with DDT, the Japanese had no similar solution to clean their bases chemically, putting them at crucial disadvantage.
On August 7, word arrived that U.S. Marines had landed at 5:20 that morning on Guadalcanal. Due to bad weather, the Allied expeditionary force arrived in the vicinity of Guadalcanal undetected by the Japanese on the morning. Without delay 17 Zeros of the Tainan Kokutai escorted 27 Mitsubishi G4M bombers of the 4th Ku. in an attack on the U.S. Navy task force supporting the invasion. The Japanese were met by 18 Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat fighters and 16 Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers from the aircraft carriers Saratoga, Enterprise and Wasp. From mid-1942 F4F Wildcat fighter pilots were using a new aerial combat tactic, the "Thach Weave", developed by the US naval aviators John Thach and Edward O'Hare. The Japanese Zero pilots flying out of Rabaul were initially confounded by US Navy fighter pilots using this double-team maneuver. Nevertheless Sasai was credited with five F4Fs in this first air battle between land-based Zeros and American carrier fighters.
On August 8, 1942, Saburo Sakai, leading the second Shotai in Sasai's Chutai, sustained grievous injuries from the return fire of a Douglas SBD bomber. Sakai pounced on what looked like eight Wildcats--only to discover too late that they were really SBDs of VB-6 and VS-5. One of the dive bombers' .30-caliber rear guns struck Sakai across his head, temporarily blinding him.
Although in agony from his injuries, Sakai managed to fly his damaged Zero in a four-hour, 47-minute flight over 560 nautical miles back to his base on Rabaul.
When he put his Zero down on the runway, it was recognised in the landing pattern by Sasai, alert with a pair of binoculars. Sakai was surrounded before the engine stopped, and the bloodstained ace was physically pulled from the cockpit by Sasai, Commander (中佐) Kozono (Chief of Staff) and Lieutenant Commander (少佐) Tadashi Nakajima (Group's Chief) of the Tainan Kokutai. Sasai and the pilots Hiroyoshi Nishizawa and Toshio Ohta transported the obstinate but unconscious Sakai to the hospital. In frustrated concern Nishizawa physically removed the waiting driver and sped directly there, whilst Ohta and Sasai upheld their wounded comrade in the Ford 's back seat.
After a few days in hospital Sakai was informed that he would be returning to Japan for eye surgery. The evening before departure Sasai bade him farewell at his bedside, along with a huddled elite coterie of the Tainan corps, most of whom were tired from another long mission over Guadalcanal. In Japan it is said that a tiger will travel 1,000 leagues (4,000 kilometers) and will come back. Junichi Sasai gave his tiger head belt buckle to Sakai and said to him "Please go back to Japan (which is 4,000 kilometers away) and please come back to Rabaul!" [6] A despondent Sakai left Rabaul in a Kawanishi H8K2 flying boat on 12th August.
On August 26, 1942, on his 76. sortie with the Tainan Kokutai, Sasai led 8 Zeros to Henderson field, escorting Betty bombers. At that time Sasai's total score stood at 27.
Over Guadalcanal Sasai attacked in an overhead approach a Grumman F4F, that was already in the traffic pattern. The F4F pulled it’s nose into the vertical, firing it’s six .50-caliber machine guns.
The lack of self-sealing fuel tanks made Japanese Zeros easy to ignite with a few rounds of incendiary tracers, so Sasai’s Zero exploded in a ball of fire, showering parts onto the beach of Guadalcanal in front of hundreds of U.S. Marines.
Lieutenant Junichi Sasai had been killed at the age of 24, probably the victim of Major Marion E. Carl, an 18-victory ace of Marine squadron VMF-223, who was a veteran of the Battle of Midway where he had shot down two Zeros, and was one of the few Midway-based pilots to survive the battle. He had been amongst the first Marine pilots to land at Henderson Field less than a week before, and since then he had downed three more aircraft to become the Marine Corps’ first-ever Ace.
Junichi Sasai, a lieutenant junior grade, was posthumously promoted two grades to Lieutenant Commander. This practice was common for those Japanese aviators with proven records, or high scores, who were killed during the war. Sasai was also honored with a mention in an all-units bulletin of the Japanese Navy.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Main Building at Eta Jima, Imperial Naval Academy
- ^ Mitsubishi Zero A6M2 Type 21
- ^ A restored Zero A6M2 of the Tainan Kokutai at Canberra War Memorial, Australia
- ^ Interview with Saburo Sakai by Colin D. Heaton and Jeffrey L. Ethell
- ^ "Samurai!" by Saburo Sakai, Fred Saito and Martin Caidin.
- ^ "An Interview with Saburo Sakai"
[edit] References
- "Samurai!" by Saburo Sakai, Fred Saito and Martin Caidin
- "Osprey Aircraft of the Aces No. 22 - Imperial Japanese Navy Aces 1937-45" by Henry Sakaida
- "Winged Samurai - Saburo Sakai and the Zero Fighter Pilots" by H. Sakaida, Champlin Fighter Museum, 1985, ISBN 0-912173-05-X
- "Ozora no Samurai" ("Samurai of the Sky"), a Toho movie from 1976, Lieutenant Junichi Sasai is played by Taro Shigaki
[edit] External links
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