Sinking the Yamato!

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Before anyone asks, yes, I'm taking advantage of the algorithm boost provided by Sabaton with their new single, Yamato. I personally quite enjoyed it, and playing it led to me having a 300k damage game in the Yamato in World of Warships. So, cheers, you industrious Swedish fellows. But nonetheless, Yamato was one of those big giants of history. It was the biggest battleship ever built. Not the first to put a whopping 18-in gun on it. was HMS Furious, which um yeah, it was it was a vibe. But nonetheless, she was massive, insanely so. But like other great battleships of the period, such as Turpets, her sister Mousashi, HMS Vanguard, and yes, the IAS, they were built at the end at a time when their absence really would not have hurt their nations. In fact, you could argue that Yamato and Mousashi not being built probably would have helped Japan in many ways. They were massive sinks for resources, manpower. In short, they were a waste of fuel and metal. Japan could have built multiple carriers in place of the Amato and Mousashi or cruisers or destroyers or anything and be better off for it.

[00:01:04]But that said, who cares? It's a big battleship and it's cool and it gives me the little fizz in my brain. And unlike Bismar, which I will get to eventually, it was actually the biggest and it was actually cooler.

[00:01:15]But today we're going to be talking about the death of the Amato. Operation 10 Go, her last charge on a suicide mission that was only ever ending in one way.

[00:01:30][music] >> [singing] [music] >> In those final few months of the Pacific War in 1945, the defeat of Japan was a matter of when, not if. American forces advanced from island to island while on land, Chinese forces pushed the Japanese back. All the while, the Royal Navy had made its way back to the Pacific with yet another Armada that outnumbered the remnants of the Imperial Japanese Navy by itself. And even little old Australia was preparing tens of thousands of men for the invasion of the home islands. In response to this situation, Japan had resorted to ever more disturbing tactics. Of course, I'm talking about the kamicazis here. Contrary to the popular narrative, though, kamicazis are not just limited to air assaults. Japan employed naval suicide craft, and of course, there was the infamous bonsai charges on land. The ultimate suicide mission though and the last major attempt by the Japanese military to halt or slow island hopping was operation Kikusai 1. Commonly known more though in our lexicon at English as operation 10 go.

[00:02:51]As the two great pinces of the American island hopping campaign converged, the next major target for the allies was Okinawa, located in the Ryuku Islands between Taiwan and Japan. Control over Okinawa would allow the United States to establish airfields within range of the Japanese home islands and provide a staging base for what everyone would expected would eventually be the final invasion of the home islands. Okinawa though wasn't just some Pacific at it.

[00:03:14]It wasn't Tarowa. It wasn't Pelleu. It was a developed island, the former capital of the Ryuku Kingdom. It mattered to Japan nearly as much as a city on the home islands and it was going to be defended that way. The invasion of Okinawa formally began on April 1st, 1945. The US fifth fleet would lead the operation and American naval forces included 11 fleet carriers, 28 light and escort carriers, 18 battleships, 42 cruisers, 132 destroyers, 45 destroyer escorts, and more other small ships protecting over 100 assault ships, transports, and other small craft.

[00:03:50]If that wasn't enough, the Royal Navy also was a station with the British Pacific Fleet, and that included five armored fleet carriers, two modern battleships, seven cruisers, 14 destroyers, including six destroyers of the Royal Australian Navy. In short, I cannot stress enough just how much pain was at this single island for the Japanese Navy, which by this point was a shadow of its former shadow of its former shadow of its former self.

[00:04:13]Japanese commanders weren't at all blind to this though, and while they recognized that losing Okinawa would bring Allied forces close to Japan, at the same time, they knew this wasn't a battle that they could realistically win. Nevertheless, they decided to launch a massive counteroffensive combining naval and air attacks against the Allied fleet. The Japanese name for the wider operation was Operation Kikusai. Well, I'm getting that wrong, but it roughly translates to floating chrosanthemum, referencing the imperial chrysanthemum symbol, which is associated with the Japanese emperor, aka this thing on the pointy bit of the boats.

[00:04:45]Kikusai the first was the first of 10 assaults carried out during the Okinawa campaign. Generally speaking, though, these attacks relied solely or heavily on kamicazi pilots who deliberately crashed their aircraft into enemy ships to cause the maximum amount of damage.

[00:04:59]Kamicazis were generally effective too, provided they actually hit the ship they were targeting. For example, a kamicazi had effectively knocked USS Bunker Hill out of the war by smashing through its deck and causing a huge fire. Similarly, the cruiser HMS Australia was knocked out by a kamicazi. Both of these ships surviving, yes, but being mission killed.

[00:05:18]This didn't really work when you hit a British carrier though because the decks were armored. So, they kind of just swept the kamicazi off the deck. So, yeah, didn't work very well. But the American carriers with their larger air groups had less armor on their deck at least initially until you start to look in the midways of course that changes.

[00:05:34]But they had larger hangers which necessitated sacrifices and armor which meant they were vulnerable to kamicazi strikes. But if a kamicazi hit a smaller ship like a destroyer such as the USS William D. Porter, it could and would often sink it.

[00:05:50]But here in lies the rub. Because although some in the Japanese military believed that mass suicide attacks might overwhelm the Allied air defenses and destroy enough ships to halt the invasion, anyone with a brain could see that the Armada presented towards them would be able to destroy the majority of the aircraft they sent to attack. This was achieved through deliberately placing destroyers and small ships to be radar pickets to warn of these incoming attacks. Sure, the Allies may lose a destroyer, but by the time that happened, the sky would be so full of Allied aircraft that the kamicazis would be battered out of the sky like a big fly swatter, and to [music] be completely honest, a single destroyer didn't matter at this stage in the war. I mean, yes, it's it's horrible to say that a lot of crew would have died, but in the grand scheme of things, the loss of a destroyer did not matter for the Allies. They could just build another one, and they would.

[00:06:40]During the operation though, Japan deployed hundreds of aircraft from both the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force.

[00:06:48]This numbered approximately 391 naval aircraft and 133 Army aircraft in total participation, majority of which were kamicazi.

[00:06:57]But alongside this air operation, and what you're really here for, was 10 go, the Imperial Japanese Navy's last charge.

[00:07:15]The surface force committed for Tango was a far cry from the old Kiribatai and it consisted of the super battleship Yamato and the woefully outdated light cruisy and just eight destroyers. Now, the reason I highlighted the Australian contribution to the battle beforehand, it should be clear now. It wasn't just cuz I'm Australian and I wanted to shout them out. Even Australia was able to provide comparable support to this battle in the form of destroyers than 1945 Japan could for its flagship. So destroyed was the Imperial Japanese Navy.

[00:07:49]The Japanese fleet, well squadron really, was commanded by Vice Admiral Sichiito. Its mission was suicidal. The ships were to sail to Okinawa, attack Allied forces, and then beach themselves on the island to serve as stationary artillery platforms, acting as giant armored bunkers until they were killed.

[00:08:05]Now, this wouldn't have worked even if they made it to the island. I'll get to why later, but that was their plan. To ram it home just how one way this was, the Japanese Navy lacked sufficient fuel for a return voyage. And the crews understood that the mission was unlikely to succeed. That didn't stop them from taking on extra fuel anyway. Even though they weren't allowed to do it, they still did it. But that was the gist of the operation. It was a one-way trip. On April 6th, 1945, the Japanese task force departed Tokyo Harour and began sailing southward towards Okinawa. It was intended that this operation be carried out in secrecy, but the waters around Japan at this point were infested by submarines. And almost straight away, two American submarines detected the fleet while it passed through the Bongo Channel, and they began shadowing it, transmitting reports of its location to the Amada at Okinawa.

[00:08:53]As Tengo launched and the surface force moved toward Okinawa, the air component of the operation commenced. Hundreds of Japanese aircraft launched from bases in Kyushu and nearby neighboring islands and made for the Allied fleet. Many of these planes carried explosive payloads and were piloted by young aviators trained specifically for suicide missions. Their operational objective was to crash directly into Allied ships.

[00:09:14]And in many cases, they would have lacked enough fuel or experience to make it home even if they tried. Again though, like with 10 Go, the Allied fleet was more than ready. Radar picket destroyers stationed around the island signal the approaching enemy, and they bore the brunt of the attacks, it being nearly impossible to actually get to the fleet of carriers or battleships due to the blanket of AA fire and the combat air patrol. But the Kamagazis, they only needed to be lucky once, and today they got lucky. But it was at an enormous cost. The battleship USS Maryland was hit along with the carrier USS Hancock and destroyer USS Bennett. However, with the exception of the Bennett, these attacks did very little damage for the cost of over 100 Japanese planes. It was very much an uneven trade. The small ships took the brunt of the damage though with the destroyers Koulhern and Bush going down to kamicazi strikes along with a landing ship. Two victory ships and a mind sweeper were also lost.

[00:10:10]Multiple other ships were hit and survived, albeit damaged, such as the Morris, Luter, and Yukem, just to name a few. Despite these attacks, though, the Allied air defenses proved effective.

[00:10:21]Radar detection allowed the ships to prepare for the incoming fight, while anti-aircraft guns and fighter patrols shot down most of the attackers before they could even reach their targets. In many cases, before they could even see them with the combat air patrol. In general, these attacks did next to nothing. barely a pin prick into the invasion force and the day was firmly won by the Allies. Meanwhile, by April 7th, Yamato had entered the open waters south of Kushu.

[00:10:48]American reconnaissance aircraft acting on the information provided by the submarines soon located the fleet as it entered range, and Admiral Mark Mitchell, commander of Task Force 58's fast carrier group, prepared his response. More than 300 Yankee aircraft from the carriers, including fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers were launched for one target. Just to put that in perspective, the entire Japanese attack on the Allied Armada from the day prior, set out to attack one ship. The first wave of American aircraft reached the Japanese fleet at about midday with F6F Hellcats sweeping the area for Japanese air cover. When they realized there was not going to be an appearance in the air by the Japanese fighters, the American bombers, now arriving, took their time positioning themselves to attack the ship in a coordinated manner.

[00:11:35]Having already sunk the Amato's sister ship, Asashi, the Americans had learned to focus their torpedoes on one side of the ship to cause her to capsize rather than linger on. As a contingency plan though, just in case the aircraft failed, six battleships, seven cruisers, 21 destroyers, and more aircraft were tasked from the invasion force to sail north and prepare for action. Back in the air, though, with their positions taken, the attacks began with torpedo and dive bombers from the USS Hornet, USS Intrepid, USS Yorktown, USS Essics, USS Bunker Hill, USS Langanger, USS Cabbat, USS Batan, USS Bennington, and more.

[00:12:11]The destroyer Asashimo at this point was discovered to be trailing due to engine issues and she was swarmmed by aircraft from yet another carrier, the USS Saninto and they sank her as fast as you could blink. Yamato increased her speed to 24 knots and began to maneuver to avoid air attack while Yahagi increased her speed to 35 knots in an attempt to draw American aircraft away from the battleship. It didn't work.

[00:12:34]After just four minutes at 12:41, two bombs struck Yamato, holding the deck and destroying two anti-airs in what was effectively superficial damage. One minute later, literally 1 minute later, a third bomb struck the radar room. Just a few minutes after that, at 12:45, the first torpedo struck the battleship.

[00:12:53]These were like genuinely, it was like hornets around a a target. It there's no other way to describe it. A minute after that first torpedo strike, two more bombs struck the battleship on the port side and then two more torpedoes slammed into the port side just near the engine room after the first impact. By 12:47, the first wave was over and Yamato had developed a list of around 5° to port.

[00:13:16]This wasn't ideal, and the loss of a boiler room had reduced her speed, but she'd survived. She was fine. However, her already ineffective anti-air weapons were torn apart during this attack by strafing runs and bomb hits. And 13 minutes later when the second attack wave arrived, the 25mm AA guns, and even though they were pretty well useless already, they were even more useless now. And then the main battery with its beehive shells, they did absolutely nothing to shoot down the Allied aircraft. Three torpedoes quickly slammed into the battleship's port side and one more to starboard. The torpedoes on the port side hit near the first wave's impacts, worsening the flooding and causing the list to increase of up to 18°. Counter flooding was able to bring this back to around 10° though, and the ship pushed on with a further reduced speed of just 18 knots. She wasn't sinking, she was still going.

[00:14:09]And then at 1340, the executioner would arrive. Four more bombs from the third wave slammed into the superructure and four more torpedoes spiked her side.

[00:14:17]Three on the port side and again one on the starboard, increasing the flooding.

[00:14:22]Within 20 minutes, it was all over. The order was given at 1402 to abandon ship and the battleship was able to slow to 10 knots with fire and flooding now uncontrollable.

[00:14:32]Nearby at 1405 the Yahagi trying to draw off the enemy planes completely failing went down herself taking seven torpedoes and 12 bombs which for a ship her size is it's actually quite impressive that she was able to survive that much for that long.

[00:14:48]Here was the thing though. Yamato was still not sinking. That is until a final wave of torpedo bombers struck the starboard side. Their torpedoes were set to run deep and they actually slammed into the listing hull below the water.

[00:15:02]By 1420, all power was lost and over the next 5 minutes the battleship rolled over. her guns, not actually secured in place, just remaining there by their sheer weight, would actually fall from their mountings, and they sucked in seawater, and all the men floating nearby were sucked straight into the deep hull, right into the blackness with no chance of escape. When the list finally reached a critical point, the ship's magazine exploded in what was likely the biggest, if not one of the biggest non-uclear explosions in human history. The ship dragged down with her over 3,000 of her 3,332man crew, including her commanding officer, Captain Aruga, and Admiral Itito. Just four destroyers survived the attacks.

[00:15:46]They picked up who they could. They turned around and they made for Japan as fast as they possibly could. In total, it took 11 torpedoes and a half dozen bombs to end the most powerful battleship ever built.

[00:15:59]If after Toronto, Pearl Harbor, Bismar, Prince of Wales, Repulse, Masashi, and more, you needed proof that the Age of the Battleship was dead, this was it. In response, just a handful of American planes. Estimates of maybe three were lost directly to Yamato's anti-air, with a handful more due to the violet explosion in her magazine detonation.

[00:16:21]Just a handful. It's that one-sided.

[00:16:30]Tango was the end of large-s scale naval operations by Japan. With the loss of Yamato and other ships, the remaining Japanese fleet was in no position to even try to fight the Allies at sea. To give you an idea, the largest battleship Japan had left was the damaged Nagato.

[00:16:43]And there were just a few brand new carriers, and one of them was actually so bashed together that her engines were just destroyer engines strapped together to try and run and give it some semblance of speed. Tango along with the air assault that preceded it really did nothing and all it did was show just how much Japan now had to rely on suicide tactics. Kamicazi attacks had first appeared in 1944 but they became increasingly common during the Okinawa campaign and also with Emojima overtaking the conventional assaults.

[00:17:13]The thing is though the loss of the Yamato really was nothing important in a grand strategic scheme of things. Even if the ship had made it to Okinawar and beed it wouldn't have worked. It would have been a matter of likely hours before she was mission killed. Yeah, she wouldn't have been able to be sunk because she would be beached, but her position was going to be untenable.

[00:17:33]Either she goes down to air attack on the way, the battleships rapidly approaching a blow out of the water, or say, you know, miracle wise, the Americans all suddenly forget that they have eyes. And the British too, and she somehow beaches herself. How long do you think it's going to take before US Marines ashore, US Army ashore, or even the ships in the harbor just light up her superructure and all of her sights on her guns to the point where she can't see? And once she can't see, well, no one's going to be able to go on the deck. They're going to get picked off by men with rifles and land-based artillery and other ships and strafing runs. And what are they going to do? Just sit in the hole until it's blown apart by bombardment like a shore bunker? Like, it was never going to work. There was no winning here.

[00:18:19]What's more interesting in my opinion though is Yamato's cultural impact so long after a loss. See, in the West, it's always been Bismar, Bismar, Bismar, Bismar. As the song went, the Germans had the biggest ship. They had the biggest guns, which just blatantly is not true. Warp Spite had the same caliber of guns as Bismar, so shut up.

[00:18:35]They were both 15 in. But nonetheless, there was that mythos. When people thought of battleship, they thought of the Bismar or the IAS. Nobody really paid attention to the Yamato. That is outside of Japan, of course. See, in Japan, as soon as the Yamato and Mousashi were built, they carried a particular weight. They were symbols of Japan's engineering might, its power, its readiness to fight. And they were being planned to be joined by sisters such as the Shinano.

[00:19:03]They were true symbols of state. And yes, there was a belief among certain parts of Japanese society, particularly nautical inclined parts of society, that their survival would go handinhand with imperial Japan's future. When we look at how much the Yamato itself was being memorialized in Japan in the postwar period, we can see it even more clearly with the name of the ship becoming known as a metaphor for the end of Imperial Japan. A lot of people talk about how the HMS Hood was such an important symbol of state for the British Empire.

[00:19:31]Yamato was that, but more for Japan. In 1968, a large memorial was erected to the ship. And of course, in 1974, you were all waiting for this space battleship Yamato was released. The very idea that the only way to save the world was to recreate the Yamato in space in a giant version of the ship that was intergalactic was straight from this prophetic affection for the original ship. If you needed even more evidence of just how special Yamato is to Japan, only take a look at the 110 scale model of it at the Yamato Museum in Cure. In 2005, a film released about this particular operation. And of course, in 2026, the Swedish metal band Sabaton released it as a single and singing about how the ship met its end, which you know inspired this video, too.

[00:20:20]I wonder if I could get that 110th scale model if I could get away with keeping that in my backyard. No one to question it, right? Anyway, Yamato means something in Japan and in the West in many ways, too. We see it for what it actually was. Now thankfully that the wereaboos have been sprayed with their greatest enemy a shower and people in the nautical history space have stopped looking at just the bismar the IAS and they are researching and appreciating the other ships of World War II and understanding that each nation had its own pride in its own navy be it HMA Sydney and Australia or the Hood for Britain the Yato for Japan every country had one and this is the point where I tell you that for the most part Germany's was Shanhorse not Bismar I've rambled enough though. I hope you all enjoyed the video. Like, comment, subscribe, and if you want more Japanese content, let me know. Maybe we can do the massa next.