Yamato (Battleship, 1941-1945)
Yamato, lead ship of a class of two 65,000-ton (over 72,800-tons at
full load) battleships, was built at Kure, Japan. She and her
sister, Musashi were by far the largest battleships ever built,
even exceeding in size and gun caliber (though not in weight of
broadside) the U.S. Navy's abortive Montana class. Their nine 460mm
(18.1-inch) main battery guns, which fired 1460kg (3200 pound)
armor piercing shells, were the largest battleship guns ever to go
to sea, and the two ships' scale of armor protection was also
unsurpassed.
Commissioned in December 1941, just over a week after the start of
the Pacific war, Yamato served as flagship of Combined Fleet
commander Isoroku Yamamoto during the critical battles of 1942.
During the following year, she spent most of her time at Truk, as
part of a mobile naval force defending Japan's Centeral Pacific
bases. Torpedoed by USS Skate (SS-305) in December 1943, Yamato was
under repair until April 1944, during which time her anti-aircraft
battery was considerably increased. She then took part in the
Battle of the Philippine Sea in June and the Battle of Leyte Gulf
in October. During the latter action, she was attacked several
times by U.S. Navy aircraft, and fired her big guns in an
engagement with U.S. escort carriers and destroyers off the island
of Samar.
Yamato received comparatively light damage during the Leyte Gulf
battle, and was sent home in November 1944. Fitted with additional
anti-aircraft machine guns, she was based in Japan during the
winter of 1944-45. Attacked by U.S. Navy carrier planes in March
1945, during raids on the Japanese home islands, she was again only
lightly damaged. The following month, she was assigned to take part
in the suicidal "Ten-Go" Operation, a combined air and sea effort
to destroy American naval forces supporting the invasion of
Okinawa. On 7 April 1945, while still some 200 miles north of
Okinawa, Yamato was attacked by a massive force of U.S. carrier
planes and sunk.
After the war, the great battleship became an object of intense
fascination in Japan, as well as in foreign countries. Yamato's
remains were located and examined in 1985 and again examined, more
precisely, in 1999. She lies in two main parts in some 1000 feet of
water. Her bow portion, severed from the rest of the ship in the
vicinity of the second main battery turret, is upright. The
midships and stern section is upside down nearby, with a large hole
in the lower starboard side close to the after magazines.
