Very nice quote. Saburo Sakai was amazing. His book makes a great read. If Japan could have replaced the naval pilots like him lost through attrition during the war, our cost to win would have been higher by an order of magnitude.
Interesting, I read that 124406 was about 90% severed yet made it back. The tail gunner was ecouraged to come forward but the tail started to flutter so he went back into position for the Long flight home.