Sugita was rare among Japanese pilots. Unusual in skill and also combative and disrespectful to someone who was older.
It's good to hear from you as well. Great post, by the way.
There was a movie made which was loosely based on his life called "Zero Fighter" which is a fairly good film. It was not a jingoistic piece of trash like Eternal Zero (AKA "The Fighter Pilot") (which IMO is a shocking and inexcusable film, given Japan's anti-war constitution).
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nk564qtzL0
EDIT: That Youtube clip clearly says that the name of the film is "The Sky's Samurai" so I don't know where they got the name "Zero Fighter" from.
Thanks for the link to the documentary on Sakai, I'm looking forward to watching it soon. Also thank you for the reference to 祖父たちの零戦 "our grandpa's zero sen". I have access to an AI translator (which doesn't do well with vertical, right-to-left languages) which can retain formatting and overlay text onto the PDF if that's available. Or do you read Japanese?
T
tyrodtom
the people who flew with Sugita had high praise for him. One student explained that Sugita's instruction method was very easy to understand and that without him, he would have died. The other instructors were less able to communicate complex flight ideas
One more thing, regarding Sakai's probable PTSD and TBI (which are both related conditions as TBI causes PTSD): Many Japanese instructors punched students in the face and head. So there were likely a higher number of TBIs among Japanese pilots in general. The fact that Sugita did not use violence as punctuation on lessons is also the reason why his students tended to learn his lessons more effectively.