Home > Japanese battleship Yamato

Yamato (大和) was a battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and was the lead ship of her class. She and her sister ship Musashi were the largest battleships ever constructed, weighing 65,027 tons and armed with nine 18.1in (460mm) main guns.

1 Construction

Design work began in 1934 and after modifications the design was accepted in March 1937 for a 68,000 ton vessel. She was built at a specially prepared dock at Kure naval dockyards beginning on 4 November 1937. She was launched on 8 August 1940 and commissioned on 16 December 1941. It was intended to build four ships of this class, but the ShinanoShinano was an aircraft carrier operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II. She was actually laid down as the third Yamato class battleship, but following the losses in the Battle of Midway, was completed with a flight deck, making her the lar was converted to an aircraft carrier during construction and the un-named Warship Number 111 was scrapped in 1943 when roughly 30% complete. Plans for a super Yamato class, with 20-inch (508mm) guns, were abandoned.

The class was designed to be superior to Iowa-class battleships in all respects. 18.1in main guns were selected over 16in because the width of the Panama Canal would make it impossible for the U.S. Navy to construct a battleship with same caliber guns without severe design restrictions or an inadequate defensive arrangement. To further confuse enemies, her main guns were officially named as 16-inch and civilians were never notified of their completion. Their budgets were also scattered among various projects so that huge total costs would not be immediately noticeable.

2 Combat

She was the flagship of Isoroku Yamamoto from 12 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 25 December 1943 she was badly damaged by a torpedo from USS Skate and was not fully repaired until April 1944. Two of the 6.1-inch (155 mm) turrets were removed and AA gun platforms replaced them. 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 anti-aircraft capability was again upgraded over the winter. She was attacked in the Inland Sea on March 19 1945 by carrier aircraft from Task Force 58 as they attacked Kure. She suffered little damage during the engagement.

Her final mission was as part of Operation Ten-Go following the invasion of Okinawa on 1 April 1945. She was sent on a suicide misssion to attack the US fleet supporting the US troops landing on the west of the island. On 6 April Yamato and her escorts left port at Tokuyama. They were sighted on 7 April as they exited the Inland Sea southwards. The U.S. Navy launched around 400 aircraft to intercept the taskforce and the planes engaged the ships starting in the mid-afternoon. Yamato took up to twenty bomb and torpedo hits before, at about 14:20, 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.

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