Seeing the Plane

This is one of my favourite scenes of the whole movie. I tear up every time. One thing to know about Jim is that planes and aviation are his life. He has model planes dangling from his ceiling in his room and always carries his "Zero" toy plane with him wherever he goes. For the first time, he is coming face to face with a real working "Zero" and dares to touch the fuselage though the Japanese are all around him. He turns around and sees three Kamikaze pilots whom he only sees as brave men of aviation regardless of where they stand in the war. He salutes them, and they in reutrn, the enemy of the British, actually salute him back with as much zeal as if saluting their own comrades.