TOKYO (Associated Press) -- Japan's top surviving World War II fighter
pilot has made peace with his former enemies. But as the country prepares
to mark the 55th anniversary of its surrender, Saburo Sakai has yet
to come to terms with some of his countrymen.
That's because the former navy flier, 84, is tired
of hearing that the military alone was responsible for leading Japan
into a devastating war that ended after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki 55 years ago this week.
"We were ordered to go die for victory,''
he said at a news conference Thursday. ``Instead, some of us came back
alive and defeated, and that's when people began saying that we had
started the war ourselves.''
Sakai, who shot down 64 enemy aircraft
from his Zero fighter plane, embodies the bitterness that some Japanese
veterans feel toward what has become accepted history in this country.
Though a coterie of military leaders were
convicted as war criminals, the man in whose name Sakai and his comrades
fought -- the late Emperor Hirohito -- was officially exonerated. Other
key political figures were later rehabilitated.
Sakai thinks that's a whitewash. He said
that Japan will never be respected by the rest of world until it confronts
its past head on.
"Who gave the orders for that stupid war?''
he said. ``The closer you get to the emperor, the fuzzier everything
gets.''
Still, he doesn't feel any bitterness toward
his old enemies, even though he was wounded four times -- blinding one
eye -- and saw his unit decimated during Japan's defense of Iwo Jima
against American forces in 1945.
"I pray every day for the souls of my
enemies as well as my comrades,'' he said. ``We all did our best for
our respective countries.''
The war ended with Japan's surrender on
Aug. 15, 1945.
Sakai sent his daughter to a university
in the United States "to learn English and democracy.'' She married
an American, and he has two U.S.-born grandchildren.
Sakai, who has written extensively about
his wartime experiences, insists he never believed in the kamikaze spirit
of self-sacrifice that was drilled into Japanese pilots.
"Glorifying death was a mistake,'' he said. "Because
I survived I was able to move on and make friends in the U.S. and other
countries."
