Samurai!

By Saburo Sakai

Saburo Sakai became a living legend in Japan during World War II. Pilots everywhere spoke in awe of his incredible exploits in the air.
Sakai enjoyed a singular and most cherished reputation among fighter pilots. Of all Japan’s aces, Saburo Sakai is the only pilot who never lost a wingman in combat. This is an astounding performance for a man who engaged in more than two hundred aerial melees, and it explains the fierce competition, sometimes approaching physical violence, among the other pilots who aspired to fly his wing positions.
The reader will doubtless be surprised to learn that Saburo Sakai never received recognition by his government in the form of medals or decorations. The awarding of medals or other citations was unknown to the Japanese. Recognition was given only posthumously. Where the aces of other nations, including our own, were bedecked with rows of colorful medals and ribbons, awarded with great ceremony, Saburo Sakai and his fellow pilots flew repeatedly in combat without ever knowing the satisfaction of such recognition...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Press
• Release date: Mar 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835396970

Book preview

1956

CHAPTER 1

On the southernmost main Japanese island of Kyushu, the small city of Saga lies midway between two major centers which in recent years have become well known to thousands of Americans. At Sasebo, the United States Navy based most of its fleet which participated in the Korean War; from the airfield runways at Ashiya, American fighters and bombers took off for flights over narrow Tsushima Strait to attack the Chinese and Red Koreans on the disputed peninsula.

Saga City is no newcomer to military expeditions across Tsushima Strait. My own ancestors were members of the Japanese forces which in 1592 invaded Korea from Saga. Nor is the unpleasant outcome of the modern Korean conflict without its precedent; the medieval Korea-Japan War choked to a stalemate in 1597 after the Ming Dynasty of China threw its strength onto the side of the North Koreans, just as modern Red China has brought about the current Korean impasse.

Thus my family has a warrior’s origin, and for many years my forbears served faithfully the feudal lord of Saga until, under a government centralization plan in the nineteenth century, he committed his estate to the Emperor’s keeping.

In the feudal times when four castes divided the Japanese people, my family enjoyed the privilege of the ruling class known as the Samurai, or Warriors. Aloof from the mundane problems of everyday life, the Samurai lived proudly, without personal concern for such matters as income, and devoted their time to local government administration and to constant preparedness for emergencies which would make demands upon their fighting prowess. The Samurai’s living necessities were underwritten by his lord, regardless of farm depressions or other outside influences.

The nineteenth century abolition of the caste system proved a crushing blow to the proud Samurai people. In a single stroke they were stripped of all their former privileges and forced to become merchants and farmers, and to adopt patterns of life under which they were ill suited to prosper.

It was to be expected that most of the Samurai became destitute, struggling to eke out a living through the most menial labor or through dawn-to-dusk work on their small farms. My own grandfather fared no better than his friends; he finally accepted a small farm on which he struggled bitterly to scratch out the necessities of life. My family was then, and is today, one of the very poorest in the village. It was on this farm that I was born on August 26, 1916, the third of four sons; my family also included three sisters.

Ironically, my own career closely paralleled that of my grandfather. When Japan surrendered to the Allies in August of 1945, I was at the time the leading live ace of my country, with an official total of sixty-four enemy planes shot down in aerial combat. With the war’s end, however, I was dismissed from the defunct Imperial Navy and barred from accepting any government position. I was penniless and with no skill I could employ to adapt myself to a world which had crashed all about me. Like my grandfather, I lived by dint of the crudest manual labor; only after several years of bitter struggle did I manage to save enough to set up a small printing shop to serve as a means of livelihood.

The task of tilling the one-acre household farm near Saga City fell heavily on the shoulders of my mother, who also had the problem of tending her seven children. To add to her unceasing labors, she was widowed when I was eleven years old. My memories of her at that time are of a woman steadfastly at work, my youngest sister strapped to her back as she bent over for hour upon hour in the fields, toiling under brutal conditions. But at no time do I recall hearing any complaint pass her lips. She was one of the bravest women I have ever known, a typical Samurai, proud and stem, but not without a warm heart when the occasion demanded.

I sometimes returned home from school, whimpering after having been thoroughly beaten by older and larger schoolboys. She had no sympathy for my tears, only scowls and admonishing words. Shame on you, was her favorite retort. Do not forget that you are the son of a Samurai, that tears are not for you.

In the village primary school I worked hard at my studies and, throughout the six years, remained at the head of all my classes. But the future presented apparently insuperable problems to my further education. While the primary schools were government-financed, the majority of the more advanced institutions required the student to be supported by his family. This arrangement was, of course, impossible for the Sakai family, which barely met its needs for food and clothing. However, we had not reckoned with the generosity of my uncle in Tokyo, who offered, incredibly, to underwrite all my school expenses. He was a successful official in the Ministry of Communications and his offer included adoption and a complete education. We gratefully accepted our good fortune.

In all Japan, the feudal clan of Saga occupied one of the poorest of the self-sustaining provinces. Its Samurai class had for ages lived an austere life, and was famous for its Spartan discipline. We were the only province in all the land which lived religiously by the Bushido code, Hagakure, the main theme of which was: A Samurai lives in such a way that he will always be prepared to die. Hagakure during the war became a textbook for every school in the country, but it was the code under which I had always lived, and its severity served me well, both in my new school life and in the years to follow in combat.

Everything in Tokyo bewildered me. I had never known a city larger than Saga, with its 50,000 people. The milling throngs in Japan’s capital were incredible, as were the constant turmoil, the noise, the large buildings, and all the activities of one of the world’s greatest centers. I was also to find that Tokyo in 1929 was a stage of fierce competition in every field; not only were new graduates competing bitterly for jobs, but even the young children had to fight for the comparatively few openings in the select schools.

I had thought my life on the farm difficult; I had thought myself exceptional as the leading student of my school for six entire years. But I had never encountered school children who studied literally day and night, who crammed every available moment in order to beat out their fellow students! The select Tokyo high schools, such as the Tokyo First or the Tokyo Fourth, all chose their entrants from the outstanding students of the primary schools. Furthermore, of every thirty-five applicants, only one received admission.

It was clearly out of the question for a country boy such as myself, bewildered as I was with this strange and tempestuous atmosphere, even to aspire for enrollment in these famed schools. I accepted gladly a student’s place in the Aoyama Gakuin, established years before by American missionaries. Not equal in reputation to the better known institutions, it was not, however, without repute.

My new home life could not have been better. My uncle, however, was overly serious and of the opinion that the less seen or heard of children, the better. This was not the case with my aunt or her son and daughter, who could not have been kinder or more friendly. Under these pleasant circumstances I began high school, burning with ambition and enthusiasm, fully determined to retain always my comfortable place as the head of the class.

It took less than a month for these dreams to vanish. My expectations of again leading all the students were rudely shattered. It was obvious, not only to my teachers but to myself as well, that many of the other boys — never leading students in their primary schools — bested me in studies. I found this difficult to believe. Yet, they knew many things of which I was totally ignorant; despite desperate studying into all hours of the night, I was unable to learn as quickly as the others.

The first semester ended in July. My school reports, which placed me in the middle of the class, were a heavy disappointment to my uncle, and the cause of despair for me. I knew that my uncle had accepted all my expenses because he felt I was a promising child, and could maintain student leadership. There was no denying his unhappiness at my failure. Summer vacation therefore became a period of intense home study. While my classmates went on their holidays, I crammed through the summer months, determined to make up my scholastic deficiencies. But the opening of the school year in September proved the futility of my efforts; there was no improvement.

These repeated failures to gain scholastic prominence caused a feeling of sheer desperation. Not only had I become merely average in my studies; in sports, as well, I found myself outclassed. There could be no doubt that many of the boys in the school were more agile, more capable than myself.

The disillusioned state which followed was unforgivable. Instead of continuing the attempt to surpass those students who had clearly indicated their scholastic superiority, I chose friends of mediocre abilities. I lost no time in asserting leadership over these other youngsters, and then went on to pick fights with the biggest of the school seniors. Hardly a day passed when I did not, through one means or the other, goad a senior into a fight, during which I thoroughly pummeled my adversary. Almost every night I returned to my uncle’s home covered with bruises, taking care, however, to keep these adventures secret.

The first blow fell after the end of my first year at the Methodist school, when a letter from my teacher informed my uncle that I had been branded as a problem pupil. As best I could, I passed off as unimportant the fights, but made no attempt to discontinue what had become a most satisfying means of proving, to myself at least, that I was better than the older students. The teacher’s letters became more frequent and, finally, my uncle was summoned to the school for a direct verbal report of my disgraceful conduct.

I finished my second year in school almost at the bottom of the list. It was too much for my uncle. He had become increasingly angry in his lectures to me and, now, decided finally that there was no further use in continuing my stay in Tokyo.

Saburo, were his final words, I weary of scolding you, and shall not do so further. Perhaps I am to blame for not supervising you more closely, but, whatever the cause, I seem to have made the child of the proud Sakai family into a delinquent. You are to go back to Saga. Obviously, he added wryly, Tokyo’s life has spoiled you. I could not say one word in defense, for everything he said was true. The blame was all mine, but it did not make my return to Saga — in shame — any less bitter. I was determined to keep my embarrassment a secret, particularly from my uncle’s daughter Hatsuyo, of whom I was very fond. I passed off my departure as a visit to my family in Kyushu.

That night, however, as the train glided out of the Tokyo Central Station for the 800-mile trip to Saga, I could not prevent the tears from coming to my eyes. I had failed my family, and I dreaded the return home.

CHAPTER 2

I RETURNED as a disgrace to my family, and to the entire village as well. To complicate matters, my home suffered from increased poverty and misery. My mother and my oldest brother tilled the tiny farm from sunup to sundown. They and my three sisters were clad in tattered rags, and the small house in which I had been raised was shockingly neglected.

Every person in the village had spurred me on with good wishes when I left for Tokyo; they would have a feeling of sharing my success. Now, although I had failed them, no one would reproach me face to face or utter words of anger. Their shame was in their eyes, however, and they turned aside to avoid embarrassment for me. I did not dare to walk through the village because of this reaction of my own people; I could not endure their silent admonitions. To flee this place of disgrace became my most fervent wish.

It was then that I recalled a large poster in the Saga Railway Station calling for volunteers to enlist in the Navy. Enlistment seemed the only way out of an unhappy situation. My mother, having already suffered from my absence for several years, deplored my determination to leave once again, but she could offer no alternative.

On May 31, 1933, I enlisted as a sixteen-year-old Seaman Recruit at the Sasebo Naval Base, some fifty miles east of my home. It was the beginning of a new life of monstrously harsh discipline, of severity beyond my wildest nightmares. It was then that the strict Hagakure code under which I had been raised came to my aid.

It is still difficult, if not altogether impossible, for Americans and other westerners to appreciate the harshness of the discipline under which we then lived in the Navy. The petty officers would not for a moment hesitate to administer the severest beatings to recruits they felt deserving of punishment. Whenever I committed a breach of discipline or an error in training, I was dragged physically from my cot by a petty officer.

Stand to the wall! Bend down. Recruit Sakai! he would roar. I am doing this to you, not because I hate you, but because I like you and want to make you a good seaman. Bend down!

And with that he would swing a large stick of wood and with every ounce of strength he possessed would slam it against my upturned bottom. The pain was terrible, the force of the blows unremitting. There was no choice but to grit my teeth and struggle desperately not to cry out. At times I counted up to forty crashing impacts into my buttocks. Often I fainted from the pain. A lapse into unconsciousness constituted no escape however. The petty officer simply hurled a bucket of cold water over my prostrate form and bellowed for me to resume position, whereupon he continued his discipline until satisfied I would mend the error of my ways.

To assure that every individual recruit in the station would do his utmost to prevent his fellows from committing too many errors, whenever one of us received a beating, each of the fifty other recruits in the outfit was made to bend down and receive one vicious blow. After such treatment it was impossible to lie on our backs on our cots. Furthermore, we were never allowed the indulgence of even a single satisfying groan in our misery. Let one single man moan in pain or anguish because of his paternalistic discipline, and to a man every recruit in the outfit would be kicked or dragged from his cot to receive the full course.

Obviously, such treatment engendered no fondness for our petty officers, who were absolute tyrants in their own right. The majority were in their thirties and seemed destined to remain in the rank of petty officers throughout their careers. Their major obsession was to terrorize the new recruits — in this case, ourselves. We regarded these men as sadistic brutes of the worst sort. Within six months the incredibly severe training had made human cattle of every one of us. We never dared to question orders, to doubt authority, to do anything but immediately carry out all the commands of our superiors. We were automatons who obeyed without thinking.

Recruit training melted into a blur of drilling, studying, training, the vicious swings of the sticks and the always painful buttocks, the bruised and blackened skin, the wincing upon sitting down.

When I completed the recruit training course, I was no longer the ambitious and zealous youth who had several years previously left his small farm village to conquer the Tokyo school system. My scholastic failures, the family disgrace, and the recruit discipline all combined effectively to humble me. I recognized the futility of questioning official authority; my egotism had been knocked out of me. But never, while I was in training or later, has my deep-rooted anger at the brutality of the petty officers abated.

Upon completion of land training, I was assigned as an apprentice seaman to the battleship Kirishima. Life at sea proved a shock to me; I had thought that, with my initial training behind me, the harsh treatment of my immediate superiors would abate. But it did not; if anything, it was worse than before. All this time I had doggedly maintained my desire to get ahead, to better myself, to rise above the lowly position of a volunteer seaman. I had no more than an hour of free time each day, but into this period of grace I crammed textbook study. My goal was enrollment at a Navy special training school. Only thus could a volunteer attain the special skills and techniques so indispensable to promotion.

In 1935 I passed successfully the competitive entrance examinations for the Navy Gunners School. Six months later I had received a promotion to Seaman, and was assigned to sea duty again, this time to the battleship Haruna, where I worked in one of the main 16-inch gun turrets. Things were improving; after several months aboard the Haruna I was a noncommissioned officer with the rank of Petty Officer, Third Class.

CHAPTER 3

The Imperial Japanese Services were divided into two armed forces, the Army and Navy. Both commands operated their individual air fleets; an independent air force was never even considered before or during World War II. Neither were there Marines, in the sense that the United States enjoys an autonomous Marine Corps. Picked elements of the Army and Navy were trained for amphibious operations and performed the functions of the Marine units of foreign powers.

In the mid-thirties all naval fliers received their training at the Navy Fliers School at Tsuchiura, fifty miles northeast of Tokyo. Three classes of students attended the school — ensigns graduated from the Naval Academy at Eta Jima in Western Japan, noncommissioned officers already in service, and boys in their teens who were willing to begin their naval careers as student pilots.

After Japan engaged in all-out war with the United States, the Navy expanded its pilot-training facilities in a desperate attempt to produce combat pilots almost on a production-line basis. In 1937, however, this mass-training concept was wholly unknown. Pilot training was a highly select affair, and only the most qualified candidates in the entire nation could hope even to be considered. Tsuchiura accepted only a fraction of its applicants; in 1937, the year I applied, only seventy men were selected for the pilot class out of more than 1,500 hopefuls. My jubilation knew no bounds when I discovered my name on the list of the seventy noncommissioned officers accepted for training. There was grim satisfaction in my acceptance, for entry to Tsuchiura would wipe out the disgrace of my failure at the Tokyo school. It would return honor to my family and my village, and would vindicate the faith which had been placed in me.

My pleasure in returning to my uncle’s home in Tokyo on my first holiday leave can well be imagined. No longer was I the frustrated and disobedient teen-ager afraid to face squarely my scholastic and social problems. I was a young man of twenty, fairly bursting with pride, immaculate in new naval flier’s uniform, bedecked with seven shining buttons, and willing — most willing! — to accept happily the congratulations of my uncle’s family. The sight of my cousin Hatsuyo startled me. The young schoolgirl had disappeared, and in her place was an exceptionally attractive high-school student, fifteen years old. Hatsuyo greeted me with more than family warmth.

I had a long discussion with my uncle, who had always displayed such a strong interest in my life, and I was gratified to notice his pleasure at the outcome of my seaman apprenticeship, of studying on my own time, of rising through the ranks. All his pride had returned, no small thing for me after I had failed him so badly in the past. My visit to his home, with the family and Hatsuyo, was one of the most pleasant interludes in many years. After dinner we spent the evening in the sitting room where, after considerable prompting from her family, Hatsuyo honored me with a piano recital.

Hatsuyo was by no means a piano virtuoso, for she had begun her lessons only three years previously. However, I was not a music critic, and her playing seemed beautiful to me. The slow movements of Mozart, my first visit to a home in so many long months, the cordiality of Hatsuyo’s greeting were incredibly pleasant. Here for the first time in a seeming eternity was beauty and affection and comfort in place of the harsh brutality of naval training. The mood was almost overwhelming. The visit, however, was a brief one, and I soon returned to the school.

The Tsuchiura training facilities were located by a large lake, and bordered an airfield with two runways of 3,000 and 2,200 yards. Hundreds of airplanes could be stored at one time within the huge hangars, and there was always the bustle of activity at the base.

Apparently I was never to cease being surprised at what awaited me in each new naval training program. Hardly had I arrived at the new school than I discovered that my prior experiences with naval discipline were minor ones. I was amazed to realize that the disciplinary customs of the Sasebo Naval Base were pleasant interludes in comparison with those of Tsuchiura. Even the Navy Gunners School was hardly more than a kindergarten alongside the Fliers School.

A fighter pilot must be aggressive and tenacious. Always. This was our initial greeting from the athletic instructor who called together our first wrestling class. Here at Tsuchiura we are going to instill those characteristics into you, or else you will never become a Navy pilot. He lost no time in showing us his ideas of how we were to become indoctrinated with constant aggressiveness! The instructor at random selected two students from the group and ordered them to wrestle. The victor of this clash was then allowed to leave the wrestling mat.

His opponent who had lost the important match had no such luck. He remained on the mat, prepared to take on another pilot trainee. So long as he continued to lose, he remained on that mat, tiring with every bout, slammed about heavily and often sustaining injuries. If necessary, he was forced to wrestle every one of the other sixty-nine students in his class. If, at the end of sixty-nine consecutive wrestling bouts, he was still able to resume standing, he was considered fit — but for only one more day. The following day he again took on the first wrestling opponent and continued until he either emerged a victor or was expelled from the school.

With every pilot trainee determined not to be expelled from the fliers course, the wrestling matches were scenes of fierce competition. Often students were knocked unconscious. This, however, did not excuse them from what was considered an absolute training necessity. They were revived with buckets of water or other means and sent back to the mat.

Following a month’s basic ground training, we began our primary flying lessons. Flight lessons were held in the morning, classroom and other courses in the afternoon. Following dinner, we had two hours in which to study our subjects until the lights were turned out. As the months wore on, our numbers diminished steadily. The training course demanded perfection from the students, and a trainee could be dismissed for even the slightest infraction of rules. Since the naval pilots were considered the elite of the entire Navy, of all the armed forces, there was no room for error. Before our ten-month course was completed, forty-five out of the original seventy students had been expelled from the school. The instructors did not follow the violent physical-discipline system of my former training installations, but their authority to dismiss from the school any student, for any reason, was feared far more than any mere savage beating.

The rigidity of this weeding-out process was forcibly brought home to us on the very eve of our graduation; on that same day, one of the remaining students was expelled. A shore patrol chiura to celebrate his graduation. He was premature in discovered him entering an off-limits bar in the town of Tsumore respects than one. Upon his return to the billet he was ordered to report at once to his faculty board. By way of apology the student knelt on the floor before his officers, but to no avail.

The faculty board found him guilty of two unpardonable sins. The first, every pilot knew. That was that a combat pilot shall never, for any reason, drink alcoholic beverages the evening before he flies. As part of the graduation exercises, we were to pass over the field in formation flight the next day. The second of the two crimes was more commonplace, but equally serious. No member of the Navy was ever to disgrace his service by entering any establishment marked off limits.

The physical training courses at Tsuchiura were among the severest in Japan. One of the more unpleasant of the obstacle courses was a high iron pole which we were required to climb. At the top of the pole, we were to suspend ourselves by one hand only. Any cadet who failed to support his weight for less than ten minutes received a swift kick in the rear and was sent scurrying up the pole again. At the end of the course, those students who had avoided expulsion were able to hang by one arm for as long as fifteen to twenty minutes.

Every enlisted man in the Imperial Navy was required to be able to swim. There were a good number of students who came from the mountain regions and had never done any swimming at all. The training solution was simple. The cadets were trussed up with rope around their waists and tossed into the ocean, where they swam — or sank. Today, thirty-nine years old and with pieces of shrapnel still in my body, I can swim fifty meters (162 feet) in thirty-four seconds. At the Fliers School, swimming that distance in less than thirty seconds was commonplace.

Every student was required to swim underwater for at least fifty meters, and to remain below the surface for at least ninety seconds. The average man can, with effort, hold his breath for forty or fifty seconds, but this is considered inadequate for a Japanese pilot. My own record is two minutes and thirty seconds below the surface.

We went through hundreds of diving lessons to improve our sense of balance, and to aid us later when we would be putting fighter planes through all sorts of aerobatic gyrations. There was special reason to pay strict attention to the diving lessons, for once the instructors felt we had received enough assistance from the boards, we were ordered to dive from a high tower to the hard ground! During the drop we somersaulted two or three times in the air, and landed on our feet. Naturally, there were errors — with disastrous results.

Acrobatics formed an important part of our athletic instruction, and every requirement laid down by the instructors was fulfilled — or the student was expelled. Walking on our hands was considered merely a primer. We also had to balance ourselves on our heads, at first for five minutes, then ten, until finally many of the students could maintain position for fifteen minutes or more. Eventually I was able to balance on my head for more than twenty minutes, during which time my fellow trainees would light cigarettes for me and place them between my lips.

Naturally, such circus antics were not the only physical requirements of our training. But they did permit us to develop an amazing sense of balance and muscular coordination, traits which were to have lifesaving value in later years.

Every student at Tsuchiura was gifted with extraordinary eyesight; this was, of course, a minimum entry requirement. Every passing moment we spent in developing our peripheral vision, in learning how to recognize distant objects with snap glances — in short, in developing the techniques which would give us advantages over opposing fighter pilots.

One of our favorite tricks was to try and discover the brighter stars during daylight hours. This is no mean feat, and without above-average eyes it is virtually impossible to accomplish. However, our instructors constantly impressed us with the fact that a fighter plane seen from a distance of several thousand yards often is no easier to identify than a star in daylight. And the pilot who first discovers his enemy and maneuvers into the most advantageous attack position can gain an invincible superiority. Gradually, and with much more practice, we became quite adept at our star-hunting. Then we went further. When we had sighted and fixed the position of a particular star, we jerked our eyes away ninety degrees, and snapped back again to see if we could locate the star immediately. Of such things are fighter pilots made.

I personally cannot too highly commend this particular activity, inane as it may seem to those unfamiliar with the split-second, life-or-death movements of aerial warfare. I know that during my 200 air engagements with enemy planes, except for two minor errors I was never caught in a surprise attack by enemy fighters, nor did I ever lose any of my wingmen to hostile pilots.

In all our spare moments during our training at Tsuchiura we sought constantly to find methods by which we could shorten our reaction time and improve our certainty of movement. A favorite trick of ours was to snatch a fly on the wing within our fists. We must have looked silly, pawing at the air with our hands, but after several months a fly which flew before our faces was almost certain to end up in our hands. The ability to make sudden and exact movements is indispensable within the cramped confines of a fighter-plane cockpit.

These improvements in reaction time came to our aid in a totally unexpected way. Four of us were racing in a car at sixty miles an hour along a narrow road when the driver lost control of the car and hurtled over the edge of an embankment. The four of us, to a man, snapped open the car doors and literally flew from the vehicle. There were some scrapes and bruises, but not a single major injury among us, although the car was thoroughly demolished.

CHAPTER 4

The twenty-five students of the Thirty-eighth Noncommissioned Officers Class, including myself, graduated near the end of 1937. I was selected as the outstanding student pilot of the year, to receive as an award the Emperor’s silver watch.

Our group of twenty-five men was all which remained of seventy students, hand-picked out of 1,500 applicants. We had undergone intensive and often grueling training. However, before we were to be committed to action in China, where the war was launched in July of 1937, we were to receive additional in-service training.

Despite our excellent and arduous instruction, several men from my group were later killed by enemy pilots before gaining even a single victory. Even I, with unusual flying aptitude, would have met death during my first air combat if my opponent had been even slightly more aggressive in his maneuvers. There can be no doubt that I faltered clumsily through my first dogfight, and nothing less than the support of my fellow pilots and a lack of skill on the part of my enemy saved my life.

To me a dogfight has always been a difficult, grueling task, with almost unbearable tension. Even after my first combats were behind me and I had several enemy planes to my credit, I never emerged from the wild aerial melees without being soaked in perspiration. There was always the chance of committing that one slight error which meant flaming death. Through all the aerial maneuvers, the vertical turns, stalling turns, spins, half rolls, rolls, slow rolls, spirals, loops,