MovieChat Forums > Battle 360 (2008) Discussion > Sakai was shot by SBD gunner, not TBM

Sakai was shot by SBD gunner, not TBM


Saburo Sakai was shot in the face by Harold Jones, a rear-seat gunner in an SBD Dauntless:

http://www.jcs-group.com/military/protect/known.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saburo_Sakai
http://worldwar2database.com/gallery2/key/Philippines?g2_itemId=956
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation-videos/james-pug-southerland -vs-saburo-sakai-5794-2.html
http://www.historicaviation.com/historicaviation/product_info.po;jsess ionid=fkHSAR9f63H1LDqmcYWeOIuP(CgqOmhPi)?ID=5790

When writing his memoirs in the 1950s, Sakai may have mistakenly thought it was a TBM Avenger. However, he did later meet Harold Jones in person, and by that time he probably would have known it was an SBD that he attacked that day.

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[deleted]

Dogfights don't show any combat where the Americans lose. A show about Sakai? Hell they won't even run a show on the greatest ace of all, Erich Hartmann. I quit watching the series when it became clear they would not be showing any combat about the Axis Aces.

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Oh get off your high horse. I'm weary of hearing this tired complaint from the lips of God only knows how many malcontents who bemoan anything that happens on the show. Dogfights ran 11 episodes for Season 1 and 17 for Season 2. Combined that's a grand total of 28 episodes. With those 28 episodes the producers had to cover almost 90 years of aerial combat history to get the best subject matter that they could.

And where did the show initially air? Yup, the USA. The average American that tunes into the show is the target demographic for the show, and therefore that is where the producers are going to aim storywise. This is why you see so many episodes centered around US military exploits versus other nations. Now you do have a point in that the show would gain much by doing episodes devoted to foreign aces...I myself would absolutely *love* to see a 2 hour special on Hans Ulrich Rudel, whom I consider the greatest pilot ever to live considering that the vast majority of his victories were in an antiquated Stuka in which he accumulated a mind blowing number of victories again ground targets, naval vessels, and even air to air kills, and with an exhorbitant Soviet bounty on his head to top it all off. I would even daresay that they could do a whole Battle 360 episode based entirely upon him if they wanted to. But given than Dogfights has not been picked up for a Season 3 there's really no surprise that we'll probably never see this.

If Britain aired a similar show in the exact same format highlighting British and Commonwealth pilots partaking in historic dogfights over the past century I'm willing to bet...wait for it...wait for it....it'd star British pilots and highlight British victories! Wow! Dittos for any other country you can think of that might air such a program. This is the entire idea behind marketing.

So please, give the "the Americans always win, I hate this show" argument a much needed rest and go back to reading Noam Chomsky books and save us all the trouble of having to endure this kind of hot air.

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