he pulled his plane out of the dive. He considered ramming an American warship: "If I must die, at least I could go out as a samurai. My death would take several of the enemy with me. A ship. I needed a ship." Finally, the cold air blasting into the cockpit revived him enough to check his instruments, and he decided that by leaning the fuel mixture, he might be able to return to the airfield at Rabaul. Although in agony from his injuries Sakai managed to fly his damaged Zero in a 4 h 47 min flight over back to his base on Rabaul by using familiar volcanic peaks as guides. When he attempted to land at the airfield, he nearly crashed into a line of parked Zeros, but after circling four times and with the fuel gauge reading empty, he put his Zero down on the runway on his second attempt. After landing, he insisted on making his mission report to his superior officer and then collapsed. Nishizawa drove him to a surgeon. Sakai was evacuated to Japan on 12 August and there endured a long surgery without anesthesia. The surgery repaired some of the damage to his head but was unable to restore full vision to his right eye. Nishizawa visited Sakai, who was recuperating in the hospital in Yokosuka hospital. Recovery and return After his discharge from the hospital in January 1943, Sakai spent a year in training new fighter pilots. He found the new generation of student pilots, who typically outranked veteran instructors, to be arrogant and unskilled. With Japan clearly losing the air war, he prevailed upon his superiors to let him fly in combat again. In November 1943, Sakai was promoted to the rank of flying warrant officer (飛行兵曹長). In April 1944, he was transferred to Yokosuka Air Wing, which was posted to Iwo Jima. On 24 June 1944, Sakai approached a formation of 15 US Navy Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters, which he had mistakenly assumed to be friendly Japanese aircraft. William A. McCormick saw four Hellcats on the Zero's tail but decided not to get involved. Despite facing superior enemy aircraft, Sakai demonstrated his skill and experience by eluding the attacks and returning to his airfield unscathed. Sakai claimed to have never lost a wingman in combat, but he lost at least two of them over Iwo Jima. Sakai said that he