Miscellaneous Items
by Randy Stiefer

Here are four pictures of the helmet Saburu Sakai wore on his fateful mission over Guadalcanal when he was wounded. The helmet, in the George Bush Gallery of the Pacific War at the Nimitz Museum , clearly shows the damage done by the offending projectile. The goggles are dented and the leather of the helmet is torn.

Saburu Sakai Helmet 1 .jpg (51648 bytes)

Saburu Sakai Helmet 2.jpg (65843 bytes) Saburu Sakai Helmet 3.jpg (67672 bytes)

Saburu Sakai Helmet 4.jpg (62859 bytes)

This helmet is from a pilot shot down by a US Navy fighter. The J-Pilot tried to shoot his US Navy captors when they went to pick him up out of the sea, his pistol failed to fire and he was taken alive. This is a G.Bush Gallery item too.

ww2 Japanese aviator helmet.jpg (52487 bytes)

This is from the case at the G. Bush Gallery/Nimitz that holds other relics of the shoot down of Yamamoto. The metal fragment itself is unlabeled, but I assume it to be an actual piece from the wreck.

Yamamoto Betty metal 1.jpg (50316 bytes) Yamamoto Betty metal 2.jpg (56899 bytes)

Click Image to enlarge

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