Battleship Yamato

A group is trying to locate the sunken ship.

They find the remains of the ship.

The Yamanto was 'conceived and designed in total secrecy.'

The Yamato had the biggest guns any warship ever carried. It was, like the Titanic, considered unsinkable.

Then the film talks about the kamikaze.

The Yamanto (and a few other ships) were ordered to sail directly against 1500 American ships around Okinawa. There would be no air cover for the voyage. There was only enough fuel for one way, so this was a step even higher in the kamikaze approach.

There were some survivors of the sinking but the vast majority of the crew of the Yamato died in the attack.

April 7, 1945. There were around a half-dozen American aircraft carries that launched their planes on a mission to fattack the Yamato and the other ships with it. Over 400 airplanes were sent out. The Japanese, on the other hand, had a grand sum total of 0 planes to defend the big ship. They photographed the Yamato from above.

The situation inside the ship was bad as the lights went out. Water rose due to torpedo hits. There were numerous men that had been injured in the battle.

The ship began to capsize. This was due to all the torpedo hits being on only one side of the ship.

As the ship sank its magazine exploded.

This photo was taken around ten miles away.

The Imperial Crest on the bow of a ship.

1200 feet down they find the Imperial Crest, indicating that the ship is the Yamato. Then the program goes into the history of battleships.

Then it explains why the name Yamato is important.

The Americans at that time did not know just how big the Yamato was.

This is where one of the gun turrets was.

The bow of the Yamato.

In an excellent example of not learning from mistakes, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and sank or badly damaged all the large ships. Then they did the same thing to other Allied battleships and ended up putting them all out of action, either permanently or temporarily. They proved that aircraft can destroy a battleship. Yet they still believed that the Yamato could not be sunk. Midway showed that the Allies could take out four of the Japanese carriers using airpower, yet the Yamato was sent on its mission without any air cover, making it totally vulnerable to American planes. They gambled on the possibility that the Americans would not locate the ship before it got to Okinawa, and they lost that gamble and the ship.

Then the subject of kamikaze is covered again.

Then it discusses how the Americans were then bombing Japanese cities almost at will.

Then it covers the battle itself.

They try to determine exactly what happened as the Yamato sank.

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