Deathride of the Yamato
_Jason

Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/ufpearth/hwts066

During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had scored many victories and had been one of the most powerful fleets operating in the Pacific Ocean; however, by April 1945, this once dominant force had been reduced in both size and strength.  One of the final Japanese counterattacks against the Allies was centered around the last super battleship in the IJN: the IMS Yamato.

The Japanese had secretly built the IMS Yamato, and her sister ship IMS Musashi, during the late 1930s and early 1940s.  The Yamato-class battleships were designed to be the largest, most heavily armed warships in the world.  Five ships of this class were planned, however, only three were completed: two as battleships and the third converted as an aircraft carrier.  Despite their limited numbers, the Yamato and the Musashi were the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The Yamato and Musashi were designed around the concept that battleship versus battleship warfare was still the dominant form of naval combat.  At 72,000 tons fully loaded, these behemoths were armed with nine 18-inch main guns and could travel at 27 knots making them capable of engaging, and defeating, any contemporary battleship.  They would form the core of the Imperial Navy’s battleline as it engaged, and defeated, its American or British opponents in World War I-style naval battle. 

While this type of battle was the centerpiece of all contemporary naval planning, new technology and weapons developed between the wars ensured that all battleships became secondary weapons.  Many aircraft carriers had been built by Great Britain, Japan, and the United States in the 1930s.  The ability to carry multiple fighter and bomber aircraft gave the opposing fleets the ability to spot, and to attack, enemy ships located far over the horizon.  Many admirals clung to the idea of battleships being the queens of the oceans and carriers as simply reconnaissance tools: those assumptions were shattered during the war.

The destruction of the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was a key lesson provided by the Japanese that battleships were vulnerable to long-range aircraft carrier attack.  The sinking of the British Task Force Z, consisting of the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse, had come at the attacks of land-based aircraft.  During the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Imperial Japanese Navy also suffered the loss of battleships to American planes.  Aircraft striking from either carriers or land bases had shown the vulnerabilities of unescorted surface warships, especially battleships, to aerial attack. 

The Imperial Japanese Navy dwindled during the war; the lack of industrial shipbuilding crippled their ability to control their newly won Pacific Empire.  The Allies suffered multiple defeats and lost many warships throughout World War II, but they were able to replace their losses with new construction and crews: the Japanese could not. 

The Yamato and Musashi, along with other heavy surface combatants, sortied against the American invasion fleet during the Liberation of the Philippines in 1944.  Before these two mighty warships could bring their guns to bear on American ships, the Japanese were attacked by waves of aircraft.  The Musashi suffered multiple bomb and torpedo hits throughout the air raid and was sunk.  Yamato and the rest of the surface ships managed to engage part of the covering force for the American landings but retreated after only a few hours ineffective combat.  The Yamato escaped American attacks and sailed to Japan for a major repair.

The Allies were coming closer to Japan by 1945, and major defeats and the destruction of much of the Imperial Japanese Navy had created a situation in which the Japanese were becoming increasingly more desperate.  Islands seized by the Allies were converted into airfields for B-29 Superfortress bombers.  The B-29 raids were wiping out Japanese cities and industry at a terrifying rate.  The islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were targeted for occupation, and later conversion, by the Americans as launching points for the invasion of Japanese Home Islands. 

The Allied attack on Okinawa, and subsequent Japanese counterattack, was the final chapter of the Yamato.  The American and British fleets covered the amphibious attacks which started on 1 April 1945.  The Japanese defenders were intent on fighting to the death defending the island.  There was no hope of reinforcement or victory, but the Japanese High-Command was intent on making the Allies pay in blood for every foot of Okinawan soil they conquered. 

This spirit of resistance and self-sacrifice, associated with ideals of bushido, was a tactic the Japanese military leaders used to keep their exhausted military and civilian populations fighting.  The concept of sacrificing oneself to ensure the destruction of the enemy was the key component of the Kamikaze ideal.  Planes, ships, and people were expected to be sacrificed to damage the Allies enough to make them sue for an armistice. 

The Yamato was offered up as a largest kamikaze weapon at the Battle of Okinawa.  There was just enough fuel left for the battleship, and her ten escorting destroyers, to reach the island.  Once there, the crew was to beach the ship to serve as an artillery platform attacking the Allied soldiers and sailors around Okinawa.  American military intelligence intercepted the Japanese plans and passed them on to US naval commanders. 

The Yamato and her escorts were sailing towards Okinawa on the morning of 7 April with no aircover.  American Admiral Marc Mitscher, commander of the carrier task force covering the invasion, scrambled hundreds of fighters, and bombers to strike the Japanese.  At 12:30 pm, 280 American aircraft launched their first attacks on the Japanese.  Multiple bombs and torpedoes struck the Yamato, causing the ship to take on water and loss speed. 

Another wave of American warplanes arrived a half hour later and continued the attack.  Three torpedoes slammed into the Yamato and further slowed the battleship.  The damage was severe: the outboard engine and fire rooms were underwater and counterflooding would require the starboard engine room to balance the ship.  The maximum speed of the Yamato was reduced to only 18 knots. 

The loss of speed and maneuverability proved fatal when the final waves of American warplanes arrived between 13:40 and 14:05 hours.  Multiple near misses further compromised the Yamato’s hull as the detonations tore open the sites of the previous strikes.  The port side of the Yamato was ravaged by another group of torpedo hits during this attack.  The mighty ship slowed to ten knots as more and more of its compartments flooded. 

At 14:02 the order to abandon ship was given, but for most of the crew it was too late: a severe list had developed as the ship began to sink.  The Yamato lost power at 14:20 and rolled over to port; three minutes later, she capsized, and the suction created by this pulled many of her crew back into the hull.  The situation deteriorated further when one of Yamato’s forward magazines denotated.  Of the 3,332 crewmen serving aboard the ship, 3,055 were killed; those few survivors were rescued by the destroyers that escorted the doomed battleship.