Battleship Yamato
Battleships of World War 2 ( WW2 )

Battleship Yamato was the flagship of Isoroku Yamamoto from February 1942. Replaced as flagship by the Musashi she spent much of 1943 in harbor at Truk. The anti-aircraft defences were greatly increased in 1943 at Kure but as she returned to Truk on December 25, 1943 she was badly damaged by a torpedo from USS Skate and was not fully repaired until April 1944. She returned to the conflict and joined the Japanese fleet in the Battle of the Philippine Sea (June) and the Battles of Leyte Gulf and Samar Gulf (October), during which she first fired her main guns. She returned home in November and her AA was again upgraded over the winter. Attacked in the Inland Sea on March 19, 1945 by carrier aircraft from Task Force 58 attacking Kure she suffered little damage.

Battleship Yamato's final mission was as part of operation "Ten-Go" following the invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945. She and her escorts were sent to attack the US fleet supporting the US troops landing on the west of the island. The Yamato was to beach herself between Hagushi and Yontan and fight as a shore battery until she was destroyed. Since this was from the start intended to be a suicide mission, the battleship was given only enough fuel for a one-way trip to Okinawa. On April 6 the battleship Yamato, a cruiser and eight destroyers left port at Tokuyama, they were sighted on April 7 as they exited the Inland Sea southwards. The US Navy launched around 400 aircraft to intercept the taskforce and they engaged the ships from mid-afternoon. The navy assembled a force of six battleships and almost thirty escorts to intercept if the air-strikes did not succeed. The Yamato took up to twenty bomb or torpedo hits before, at about 1420 hrs, her magazines detonated. She capsized to port and sank, still some 200 km from Okinawa. Around 2,475 of her crew were lost and 269 survived. Of her escorts four were sunk and five were disabled and forced to return to Japan. US losses were ten aircraft and twelve aircrew.

The wreckage lies in around 300 m of water and has been surveyed in 1985 and in 1999.

For further reading, Yoshida Mitsuru (the only surviving bridge officer) wrote a detailed description of the ship's final voyage entitled Requiem for Battleship Yamato


Battleship Yamato Specifications

Displacement: 65,027 tonnes
Length: 256 m
Beam: 36 m
Draft: 11 m (maximum)
Crew: 2,750
Armament (1941): 9 of 460 mm guns in 3 triple turrets; 12 of 155 mm guns in 4 triple turrets; 12 of 12.7 mm guns in 6 twin turrets; 24 of 25 mm AA guns; 8 of 13 mm AA guns. By 1945 six of the 155 mm and all 13 mm guns had been removed and the AA defences had been boosted to 146 of 25 mm guns.
Power: 12 Kanpon boilers, driving 4 steam turbines, 150,000 shp (estimated)
Speed: 27 knots
Endurance: 11,500 km at 16 knots (a knot being about 1.1 mph or 1.8kph)
Armour: 600mm on front of turrets, 409 mm side armour, 198 mm armoured deck.

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