FineMolds AD02 Saburo Sakai, WWII Imperial Japanese Navy Pilot (NL)

Saburō Sakai was born in August 1916 and died in September 2000 at the age of 84. He was one of the best Japanese fighter pilots of the Second World War, who was called a fighter ace. He is credited with at least 64 air victories. Saburō Sakai came from an impoverished samurai family. Despite his plans to study, due to the difficult financial situation, he enlisted in the Navy in 1933, and was later transferred to the Air Force. Already in the course of learning to pilot, he showed above-average skills, and he passed all the exams with very high marks. He underwent his baptism of fire in 1937 during the Japanese-Chinese war. He also achieved his first aviation victories over the territory of China, flying Mitsubishi A5M and A6M Zero planes. In the war in the Pacific, against the United States, he served from December 8, 1941, fighting over the Philippines and over Borneo. In 1942, he fights over New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, including Guadalcanal. In the course of the fighting over the last island, he is seriously injured, as a result of which he loses one eye and his face is partially paralyzed. After convalescence, he returned to line service and fought until the end of the war. After the war, Saburō Sakai converted to Buddhism and declared himself an opponent of military actions and killing.

Japanese Naval Air Force Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service - IJANS for short, jap. Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun Koku-tai) were formed as early as 1910, but their very intensive development took place mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, and the main advocate of their development was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. At the outbreak of the Pacific War IJANS were able to deploy approx. 1,830 airplanes in the first line, including approx. 660 fighters, approx. 330 on-board bombers and torpedo planes, approx. 240 bomber planes operating from land bases and approx. 520 seaplanes. The basic types of machines include the famous Mitsubishi A6M Zeke fighters, but also the Aichi D3A dive bomber, the Nakajima B5N on-board torpedo plane and the Mitsubishi G4M sea bomber. The basic organizational unit of in-flight aviation was the air group (Japanese kouktai, later Koku-sentai), which numbered up to 80-90 aircraft. The lower-level unit was a hikotai (the equivalent of a squadron) with 9 to 16 machines. When the war in the Pacific began, the Japanese naval aviators were highly trained and often clearly superior to the Allied pilots in this matter. However, the wrong training system meant that, along with the increasing losses during the war, there was no one to replace these great airmen. As a result, in the years 1944-1945 Japanese naval pilots were clearly inferior to their American opponents in terms of skills.