Remembering The Japanese Battleship Yamato

Yamato running machinery trials off Bungo Strait (outside Sukumo Bay) on 20 October 1941

Kyle Mizokami, The National: Dead Battleship: How Japan's Monster Yamato Warship Committed Naval Suicide

How it all ended.

The story of the Yamato is a warning to all armed forces that the march of war technology is merciless and unsentimental.

In early 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy made a difficult decision: it would sacrifice the largest, most powerful battleships ever built to protect Okinawa, the gateway to Japan’s Home Islands. The decision sealed the fate of the battleship Yamato and its crew, but ironically did nothing to actually protect the island from Allied invasion.

The battleship Yamato was among the largest and most powerful battleships of all time. Yamato has reached nearly mythical status, a perfect example of Japan’s fascination with doomed, futile heroics. Built in 1937 at the Kure Naval Arsenal near Hiroshima, it was constructed in secrecy to avoid alarming the United States. Japan had recently withdrawn from the Washington Naval Treaty, which limited battleship tonnages, and was free to build them as large as it wanted.

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WNU Editor: Wikipedia's file on Yamato is an interesting read (see here).

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