had been ordered to lead a kamikaze mission on 5 July but that he failed to find the US task force. He was engaged by Hellcat fighters near the task force's reported position, and all but one of the Nakajima B6N2 "Jill" torpedo bombers in his flight were shot down. Sakai managed to shoot down one Hellcat and escaped the umbrella of enemy aircraft by flying into a cloud. Rather than follow meaningless orders in worsening weather and gathering darkness, Sakai led his small formation back to Iwo Jima. However, according to the aerial combat report, his mission was to escort bombers to and from their targets, and in the afternoon of 24 June, Sakai joined the attack on the US task force. In August 1944, Sakai was commissioned an ensign (少尉). He wad transferred to 343rd Air Group and returned to the Yokosuka Air Wing again. About the same time, Sakai married his cousin Hatsuyo, who asked him for a dagger so that she could kill herself if he fell in battle. His autobiography, Samurai!, ends with Hatsuyo throwing away the dagger after Japan's surrender and saying that she no longer needed it. Saburō Sakai participated in the IJNAS's last wartime mission by attacking two reconnaissance Consolidated B-32 Dominators on 18 August, which were conducting photo-reconnaissance and testing Japanese compliance with the ceasfire. He initially misidentified the planes as Boeing B-29 Superfortresses. Both aircraft returned to their base at Yontan Airfield, Okinawa. His encounter with the B-32 Dominators in the IJNAS's final mission was not included in Samurai!. Sakai was promoted to sub-lieutenant (中尉) after the war had ended. Back to civilian life After the war, Sakai retired from the Navy. He became a Buddhist acolyte and vowed never again to kill anything that lived, even a mosquito. Likewise, although Japan had been defeated in the Second World War with great loss of life, Sakai serenely accepted that outcome: "Had I been ordered to bomb Seattle or Los Angeles in order to end the war, I wouldn't have hesitated. So I perfectly understand why the Americans bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima." Times were difficult for Sakai. He had trouble finding a job, and Hatsuyo died in 1947. He remarried in 1952 and started a printing shop. Sakai sent his daughter to college in the United States "to learn English and democracy." Sakai visited the US and met many of his