「大空のサムライ」の闘い
坂井三郎が、「大空のサムライ」を世に問うたのは昭和２８年とある。自分は、まだ母親の庇護なしに歩くこともできなかった時代だ。自分の幼少期、育った家が放火された前後は東宝の怪獣映画もみることができず、したがって記憶も空白の昭和３２年なのだが、その時代に坂井三郎は自身の著作「坂井三郎空戦記録」を英語訳にして サムライ ＳＡＭＵＲＡＩを世界語にまで押し上げた。同書は、世界で流通し１００万部を越すベストセラーとなった。そのことと同時に、米国のＡＰ通信が「最も多くの連合国機を撃墜した日本パイロット」「ゼロファイターのサカイ」と紹介したのがきっかけで坂井は､「日本の撃墜王」と呼ばれ誰知らぬ者がいない存在となった。おそらく今日でも、世界中でももっとも知名度の高い日本人のひとりだろう。自分らが少年時代、お小遣いで買える雑誌の表紙には零戦が頻出していて連載漫画もさることながら太平洋戦争は兵器戦だったと錯誤させられるほど繰り返し航空機情報や、艦船について「刷り込まれた」という事がある。しかし、その多くが事実と違っていたことは坂井三郎の著作を読んで初めて知る。とくに幼い小学生に誇らしい思いを抱かせた零戦の２０ミリ機関砲が使い物にならなかったという言及には衝撃を覚えた。坂井三郎の記す闘いは、搭乗機についての深い知悉と起床から就寝にいたるまでのあらゆる日常生活に張り巡らされた高い緊張感あふれる生活態度と不断の訓練によるものだったと知る。これは、怠惰な自分にとり瞠目させられた「最大の訓導」である。Dogfight with James Southerland flying F4F Wildcat 5192An excert from Saburo Sakai's book Samurai! Saburo Sakai pages 160-162"...The Wildcat was clinging grimly to the tail of a Zero, its tracers chewing up the wings and tail. In desperation, I snapped out a burst. At once the Grumman snapped away in a roll to the right, clawed around in a tight turn, and ended up in a climb straight at my own plane. Never before had I seen an enemy plane move so quickly or gracefully before, and every second his guns were moving closer to the belly of my fighter. I snap-rolled in an effort to throw him off. He would not be shaken. He was using my favorite tactics, coming up from under.I chopped the throttle back and the Zero shuddered as its speed fell. It worked; his timing off the enemy pilot pulled back in a turn. I slammed the throttle forward again, rolling to the left. Three times I rolled the Zero, then dropped in a spin, and came out in a left vertical spiral. The Wildcat matched me turn for turn. Our left wings pointed at a right angle to the sea below us, the right wing at the sky.Neither of us could gain the advantage. We held to the spiral, tremendous G pressures pushing us down in our seats with every passing second. My heart pounded wildly, and my head felt as if it weighed a ton. A gray film seemed to be clouding my eyes. I gritted my teeth; if the enemy pilot could take it, so could I. The man who failed first and turned in any other direction to ease the pressure would be finished.On the fifth spiral, the Wildcat skidded slightly, I had him, I though. But the Grumman dropped his nose, gained speed, and the pilot again had his plane in full control. There was a terrific man behind that stick.He made his error, however, in the next moment. Instead of swing back to go into a sixth spiral, he fed power to his engine, broke away at an angle, and looped. That was the decisive split second. I went right after him, cutting inside the Grumman's arc, and came out on his tail. I had him. He kept flying loops, trying to narrow the distance of each arc. Every time he went up and around I cut inside his arc and lessened the distance between our two planes. The Zero could out fly any fighter in the world in this kind of maneuver.When I was only fifty yards away, the Wildcat broke out of his loop and astonished me by flying straight and level. At this distance I would not need the cannon; I pumped 200 rounds into the Grumman's cockpit, watching the bullets chewing up the thin metal skin and shattering the glass.I could not believe what I saw; the Wildcat continued flying almost as if nothing had happened. A Zero which had taken that many bullets into its vital cockpit would have been a ball of fire by now. I could not understand it. I slammed the throttle forward and closed in to the American plane, just as the enemy fighter lost speed. In a moment I was ten yards ahead of the Wildcat, trying to slow down. I hunched my shoulders, prepared for the onslaught of his guns, I was trapped.No bullets came. The Wildcat's guns remained silent. The entire situation was unbelievable. I dropped my speed until our planes were flying wing-to-wing formation. I opened my cockpit window and stared out. The Wildcat's cockpit canopy was already back, and I could see the pilot clearly. He was a big man, with a round face. He wore a light khaki uniform. He appeared to be middle-aged, not as young as I had expected.For several seconds, we flew along in our bizarre formation, our eyes meting across the narrow space between the two planes. The Wildcat was a shambles. Bullet holes had cut the fuselage and wings up from one end to the other. The skin of the rudder was gone, and the metal ribs stuck out like a skeleton. Now I understood his horizontal flight, and also why the pilot had not fired. Blood stained his right shoulder, and I saw the dark patch moving downwards over his chest. It was incredible that his plane was still in the air.But this was no way to kill a man! Not with him flying helplessly, wounded, his plane a wreck. I raised my left hand and shook my fist at him shouting uselessly, I knew, for him to fight instead of flying along like a clay pigeon. The American looked startled; he raised his right hand weakly and waved.I had never felt so strange before. I had killed many Americans in the air, but this was the first time a man had weakened in such a fashion directly before my eyes, and from the wounds I had inflicted upon him. I honestly, didn't know whether or not I should try and finish him off. Such thoughts were stupid, of course. Wounded or not, he was the enemy, and he had almost taken three of my own men a few minutes before. However, there was no reason to aim for the pilot again. I wanted the plane, not the man.I dropped back and came again in on his tail. Somehow the American called upon a reserve of strength and the Wildcat jerked into a loop. That was it. His nose started up. I aimed carefully at the engine, and barely touched the cannon trigger. A burst of flame and smoke explode outward from the engine. The Wildcat rolled and the pilot bailed out. Far below me, almost directly over the Guadalcanal coast, his parachute opened. The pilot did not grasp the shroud lines, but hung limply in his chute. The last I saw of him he was drifting in towards the beach..."↓リンクかけています。松岡正剛「千夜千冊」第五百六十八夜【0568】2002年06月27日坂井三郎『大空のサムライ』上･下1967 光人社・2001 講談社α文庫↓リンクかけています。撃墜王・坂井三郎 その１↓リンクかけています。撃墜王・坂井三郎 その 2↓リンクかけています。撃墜王・坂井三郎 その 3↓リンクかけています。「太平洋戦争の名言」飛行機を上手に操縦することが誇りであった彼の自慢は「ただの一度も飛行機を壊したことがないこと」、「僚機を殺したことがないこと」であり、撃墜スコアではないことは彼の著作に何度も書き記されている。また低燃費航行にも長けており、最小燃費の最高記録保持者を自負していた。（そのため、一番燃料を喰うと悪評の戦闘機を割り当てられ、フェリーさせられる羽目になった。しかしその悪評は、それまでの搭乗者の技量に原因があったもので、坂井はその機体で他の機体と変わらない立派な低燃費航行をして見せた）ゼロ戦の最大の武器は二〇ミリ機関砲であると信じられているが、空戦に関しては「前縁いっぱいに一三ミリ砲の火を噴くアメリカ軍の戦闘機を羨ましく思った」と語り、自身のスコアのほとんどは機首の7.7ミリ機銃でのものだったと語っていた。
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