I just finished re-reading ‘Samurai’ a couple weeks ago. An interesting read.
From Sakai’s account during early August of 1942…

He states he did give chase and shot it down (his 60th kill) the gunner being killed in the aircraft and the pilot taking to the silk.

That SBD was piloted by Lt. Dudley H. Adams of VS-71; he did indeed bailout and survive, but his gunner, AR3C Harry E. Elliot was killed. It was August 7, 1942, first air battles over Guadalcanal: US carrier air groups escorting the invasion force, v Sakai’s Tainan Air Group flying out of Rabaul.

Note that in “Samurai” immediately after that, it says Sakai attacked planes he thought were fighters from behind, but they were Avengers and he was wounded in the head by one of the tunnel gunners. In fact those were also SBD’s, probably the mixed formation of VB-6 and VS-5 which claimed a Zero of two (Sakai and his wingman per his later account) that attacked them from behind, no Avengers made any claim.

Source here is Sakaida, “Winged Samurai” which analyzed and revisited incidents in “Samurai”, with Sakai’s cooperation, to fill in information from the Allied side, as well as address certain details in “Samurai” that seem to have been embellishments by the real author, Martin Caidin. Caidin didn’t speak Japanese, and apparently never dealt with Sakai in person, but via notes of translated answers to written questions.

Joe