that led to partial paralysis and the loss of sight in his right eye saburo sakai managed an almost five-hour trip across NUMBER_TOKEN naval miles and made it back to his base in one piece months of surgery gave him back the functionality to the left side of his body however his right eye would never see again he became an expert in structure but by june NUMBER_TOKEN the war was going on against japan and they desperately needed expert pilots and sakai answered the call by august NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN japan concluded a cease-fire agreement with the allied forces and on august the NUMBER_TOKENth two reconnaissance consolidated b-NUMBER_TOKEN dominators were flying over the country's territory to see if it complied with the ceasefire suddenly NUMBER_TOKEN japanese fighters mistake the planes for b-NUMBER_TOKEN bombers and attack seriously damaging them and killing one of the personnel one pilot involved was saburo sakai he and his fellow pilots were all labeled undesirable in september the war ended and sakai was promoted to sub-lieutenant and decommissioned from the navy the after war years weren't kind on sakai his skills as a fighter pilot became useless he was left out of work finding odd jobs and constantly in need of money in NUMBER_TOKEN his wife died of illness in NUMBER_TOKEN he married again and opened a small printing shop there he invited family members of his fallen comrades and other undesirables like himself to work there in NUMBER_TOKEN a dutch pilot came to the u.s occupation administration telling a story that no one had heard before he said that he had been transporting civilians in a dc-NUMBER_TOKEN from the island of java in NUMBER_TOKEN when a japanese fighter intercepted him and ordered him to follow when the pilot refused the fighter shifted his position as if to attack but then the pilot saw women and children on board in the fighter with sakai he had been given some simple orders bring down all aircraft over java be it civilian or military but when sakai saw women and children inside the dutch plane he felt he had to disobey his orders with this news sakai rose from being an undesirable to becoming a war hero he couldn't believe what happened but the real worldwide fame came to him two years later when his autobiographical book samurai was published in the us
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