When first ordered by a unit commander to fly a suicide mission, the great fighter ace Saburo Sakai was stunned. “A great roaring sounded in my ears,” he recalled. “What was he saying? I was in a turmoil. I had a cold, sinking feeling of revulsion in my brain.”40 A pilot must always be ready to die in battle, said Sakai, but that did not include “wantonly wasting one’s life.
