Okinawa is the main island of the Ryukyu archipelago. Reinforced U.S. troops landed an amphibious assault on the western side of Okinawa on 1 April, carried out by the U.S. Army’s newly formed Tenth Army and simultaneous elements of the 3rd Marine Corps.
It was six days after that landing when Admiral Soemu Toyoda, commander of the Japanese First Mobile Fleet, wasted no more time in releasing his massed kamikaze to destroy the Allied fleet anchored offshore of Okinawa and with it, the orders to cancel the invasion of Okinawa. These sorties were all part of Operation Ten-Ichi-go, a plan for the total commitment of the last real resources Japan could spare to air and sea. Also, the mighty battleship Yamato, though damaged at the Battle of Leyte Gulf and surviving, had been planned by the Japanese to ram into the Allied warships screening the landings.
The Yamato class of battleships represented Japanese efforts to offset numerical inferiority vis-à-vis the United States Fleet. Its huge size and heavy armament were elements in a deliberate attempt by the Japanese Navy to produce battleships better than those of the United States. The Yamato-class battleship was the heaviest ever built, at 263 meters in length and 70,527 tons of full-load displacement. It was also equipped with nine guns, Type 94 naval guns of 460mm caliber, which fired military munitions weighing 1,426 kg to an extreme range of 42 km, probably the largest naval artillery ever carried into service.
The Kure Naval Arsenal began the construction of Yamato on November 4, 1937, in the Seto Inland Sea of Hiroshima Prefecture. The Yamato launched on December 16, 1941, just nine days after Japan launched the surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. In the following two years, the huge battleship would spend its time either at Truk in the Caroline Islands or at Kure. On 25 December 1943: Yamato was under attack while on a convoy mission to reinforce Japanese garrisons in New Guinea and the Admiralty Islands. Off Truk to the north, the U.S. submarine Skate struck the convoy with one of her torpedoes into the starboard side toward the stern. A repair ship did temporary repairs before the Yamato could return to Kure for a permanent restoration.
In mid-October 1944, the Yamato and Musashi sortied in company with a major task force to challenge the American invasion force off Leyte. During the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea on 24 October 1944, several waves of U.S. aircraft torpedoed and sank the Musashi. On 25 October, during the Battle of Samar, the Yamato fired its guns against surface targets for the first and last time.
At 6:58 that morning, the Yamato fired both forward turrets. It did not, however, score hits on its first target. Later in the day, she targeted another ship. According to the official report of the battleship, it sank a destroyer that the crew mistook for a cruiser, but the claim is unsubstantiated. Faster than most people run, the Yamato hastily turned tail from the fight after several torpedoes had been let loose at her. Later, the Japanese fleet retreated for want of fuel.
After these engagements, the Yamato returned to dry dock for repairs and modifications. The final captain of the ship was Rear Adm. Kosaku Ariga, who increased the ship’s complement to 3,332 men. Owing to the critical shortage of fuel oil and U.S. air power, the Yamato could not advance out of Japanese territory until April 1945.
Hirohito failed to see the extent of the disaster that was swamping his country and continued to wait for one great military victory that would bring the Americans to the bartering table. That opportunity was presented first at Okinawa to the Fifth Air Fleet. Vice Adm. Matome Ugaki was placed in charge of the air fleet with instructions to oversee waves of attacks by kamikazes. Pilots would fly essentially manned torpedoes and manned rocket bombs against the American forces massed for the invasion of Okinawa, known respectively as Kaiten and Okha. Although Kamikaze aircraft did much damage to hundreds of ships, they did not affect the outcome of the battle.
The Emperor also mobilized the Imperial Navy to participate in the defense of the island. Some high-ranking officers in the navy saw the operation as a potential waste of the last remaining ships that were left for naval warfare. They, in any case, reasoned that the naval force would never reach Okinawa since they would never have any air support. At any rate, the plan went on.
The opportunity for a real sortie came on 6 April. Vice Adm. Seichi Ito commanded the Yamato as part of a fleet that also included the cruiser Yahagi and eight destroyers. The fleet only had enough fuel to go one way to Okinawa, and literally, the Imperial Navy could not afford to return to the Inland Sea for further operations.
Ariga had orders to plow into the American invasion fleet until she could beach herself, every transport she sent sinking, for the great battleship to serve as a gun platform until its destruction. Then Japanese sailors who survived the ordeal would join the island’s defense force.
Having intercepted the Japanese radio transmission, the Americans had previously been informed about the coming naval operation. With such information in hand, he ordered the fleet of subs commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance in the U.S. Fifth Fleet off the southern approaches to Japan’s Inland Sea to intercept the task force, a question of a few hours. However, the Japanese fleet passed without interference through the Bungo Strait on April 6.
The Japanese fleet ran headlong into Admiral Marc Mitscher’s Task Force 58, made up of 16 fast carriers and the escorting battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. As the men prepared themselves for the inevitable air attack at dawn the next morning, Martin PBM-5 Mariner flying boats tailed the ships.
The main guns of the Yamato opened and lobbed 460-millimeter Sanshiki rounds into the sky, with none detonating on the incoming attackers. Late in the morning, a fighter sweep to clear the skies of enemy planes arrived but found none to engage. This left Mitscher’s 386 aircraft of fighters, dive-bombers, and torpedo bombers free to strike forward into the Japanese fleet battle line.
Not long after noon on that Bloody Saturday, the Yamato picked up inbound aircraft. The first wave of Americans closed in at 12:32, and Ariga ordered every one of the numerous anti-aircraft guns into action. The Yahagi drew attention away from the Yamato for some minutes. Nine minutes later, fate did catch up with Japan’s last battleship in the form of a pair of 1,000-pound bombs that struck the starboard side near the aft tower, destroying the aft radar room. Another pair found their targets shortly afterward. Flames that were never doused erupted when one bomb blew up under the flight deck while the other destroyed the aft 155mm turret, the remains of which mounted a magazine fire.
Just before the fall of the second set of bombs, a torpedo struck the port bow of the Yamato. Toward the end of the first attack, two more torpedoes struck the port side hereabouts on her hull, flooding the crude oil outboard port engine room tanks. It seems there was yet another hit of a torpedo in the vicinity of the auxiliary steering room. The whole of the subsequent progressive flooding resulted in a six-degree list to port. Counter-flooding corrected this.
The second attack, at 12:59 pm. The attacking aircraft focused on the port side, but no direct hits were scored. Shock waves from many near-misses crushed the hull’s strength, and overtaxed air crews drove overwhelming numbers of planes home. The main guns fired Sanshiki rounds to small effect until the Yamato listed too severely for her operation to be controlled. Seeing this, the chief gunnery officer reduced the fuse delay to one second, so that the fragmentation shells burst 1,000 feet from the ship.
Amidst a starboard turn at 1330, three torpedoes hit with almost the same timing in the port side amidships area, the most serious damage initially being caused by a blow just aft of the bulkhead separating the outboard engine and machinery spaces. The Yamato heeled 18 degrees to port and its speed was reduced to 18 knots. Again, counter-flooding of all starboard voids was attempted. Only the flooding from a torpedo hit the starboard amidship and brought the list down to 10 degrees.
Any additional list to port, Ariga was warned, could only be offset by flooding the starboard engine rooms. It was not a happy decision to make, for it would cut the battleship’s speed to a crawl.
At 1:42 pm the last wave of American planes assaulted the faltering Yamato. Bombs scored four definite hits. They fell on the port side amidships were they fell on the port side amidships and one at the bow. Power to most of the ship’s guns was cut. More torpedoes hit the port side and fore-and-aft the battleship’s death sentence was pronounced. Two hits amidships flooded the port’s inner engine room. A third hit penetrated and aft, jamming the rudder, and locking the ship in a counterclockwise turn.
A final torpedo slammed into the Yamato’s exposed underbelly on the starboard side. The ship, now down to one engine, slowed to eight knots. With a 22-degree list to port, the order to abandon ship was issued at 2:02 pm. Ariga remained with the ship, as did a few other crew members. A short time later, with the bridge tower practically at sea level, all power failed.
The Yamato was blown apart, the explosion creating fireballs and mushroom clouds so large they were seen as far away as Kagoshima. What caused the final explosion remains a mystery.
In return for 10 aircraft and 12 men, the pilot of the landing vehicle, following the departure of the men it collected, had sunk the Yamato, Yahagi, and five destroyers. The three Japanese destroyers remaining afloat rescued survivors. Of 23 officers and 246 enlisted men, on major units that had sailed on the Yamato, numbers of survivors were known; 3,063 never returned to Japan. The number of main battery hits on the Yamato is 8 confirmed bomb hits and 11 confirmed torpedo hits.
It was very well established that the Yamato and Musashi were the greatest battleships ever built, and the two shuffled off to join naval combat. For it was an era in which surface-to-surface engagements between capital ships rapidly became a thing of the past, the perceived threat from the two massive and very expensive Japanese super battleships vastly outweighed the balance of achievements vis-à-vis the Pacific War.