Since Yamato could not get to the landing area before 8 April, there wasnt a big rush and Deyo convened a planning conference on his flagship Eldorado (AGC-11) at 1030 with plans to sortie TF 54 from the bombardment area at 1530. They also mounted numerous smaller guns to . Since Yamatos radios were destroyed, Vice Admiral Ito sent out a signal via flag hoist cancelling the operation and freeing the other ships to try to get back to Japan. This would be carried out in conjunction with a mass aerial kamikaze attack by over 350 airplanes (Kikusui No. Yamato was commanded by Captain Kosaku Aruga (spelled Ariga in some accounts). All these years later I remember each one of those men fondly and with great respect. Design and construction Main article: Yamato-class battleship The fire in the area ofher forward 6.1 inch turret can be clearly seen (L42-09.06.05). At 1017, Yamato opened fire with several of her special main-battery anti-aircraft shells (sanshikidan or beehive shells, somewhat like a giant shotgun shell), at the Mariners, which was equally futile, although the Mariners ducked back in the clouds. Barrett is the world leader in long-range, large-caliber, precision rifle design and manufacturing. (They were right.) Air search reports two groups of aircraft, range 44 miles, closing at high speed. Of the 3,332 crew members aboard the Yamato, only 276 survived the sinking. 2 gun mount. (Video: Reuters) When the Japanese fleet approached Midway, the Americans were lying in wait. At 1014, the Yamato force sighted the two Martin Mariner PBM flying boats, and also noted that Hackleback was still trailing (the Japanese had made so many course changes during the night that the sub was able to cut the corner and maintain contact on the force). Shinano () was an aircraft carrier built by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II, the largest such built up to that time. By 1420, the main deck was vertical and, at 1430, Yamato had rolled over and just gone under when the No.1 forward magazine detonated in a massive explosion that killed almost all of Yamatos crew who had survived to that point and raised a pall of smoke that could be seen for 100 miles. At 14:23, having taken 10 torpedo and 7 bomb hits, Yamatos forward ammunition magazines detonated. As luck would have it, he said, the big ship was turning to port, thereby exposing the full broadside expanse of, PO Box 1077 MURFREESBORO, Tennessee 37133 United States, P.O. Torpedoes dropped from their bellies, slashing through the water toward Yamato. Barrett products are used by civilians, sport shooters, law enforcement agencies, the United States military, and more than 75 State Department-approved countries around the world. The debate up to that point was whether to keep the fleet in home waters as a last-ditch defense or to send it on what everyone knew would be a one-way mission to attack the overwhelming U.S. forces expected to be at Okinawa. The Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Ito, orders the mission cancelled and directs the remaining ships to pick up as many survivors as possible. Mitscher, CTF 58, was embarked on Bunker Hill. They withheld the news from the public. The Japanese lost three aircraft carriers and 426 aircraft; Yamato ' s only . one-third of which were torpedo bombers that hit from low altitudes. How many Japanese submarines were lost in ww2? This Is A Great Article Of An Historic Event. [1], Operation Ten-Go was a deliberate suicide attack against American forces off Okinawa by Yamato and nine escorts, beginning on 6 April 1945. strafe the battleship with bullets and drop 1,000-pound bombs. A Corsair from ESSEX drops a 1000-lb GP bomb that hits the superstructure in the port bow area. 276 men are rescued including Rear Admiral Morishita Nobuei, Chief of Staff, Second Fleet (and former YAMATO skipper). The task force was spotted south of Kyushu by US submarines and aircraft, and on 7 April 1945 she was sunk by American carrier-based bombers and torpedo bombers with the loss of most of her crew. I joined the Navy in 1964. The Musashi and its sister vessel, the Yamato, were two of the largest battleships ever built. On 1 January 1945, Yamato, Haruna and Nagato were all transferred to the newly reactivated 1st Battleship Division; Yamato left drydock two days later. RecPak is a meal replacement for the outdoors that saves you weight, space and time in the most challenging environments, just add water. In the 1980s, shipwreck hunters found the Yamato 180 miles (290 kilometers) southwest of Kyushu, one of the main islands of Japan. Breaking the news to the Emperor, a Japanese admiral was asked, what about the fleet? The admiral had to admit, the Japanese fleet had ceased to exist as a fighting formation. While still a token of national pride, the sinking of Yamato also symbolized the sad end of the once invincible Imperial Japanese Navy. The massive air group circled just out of range of the anti-aircraft guns of the Japanese. Yahagi was commanded by Captain Tameichi Hara (the only Japanese destroyer skipper at the start of the war who was still alive at the end of the war), with Rear Admiral Keizo Komura, commander of Destroyer Squadron 2, embarked. 3s USS ESSEX (CV-9), BUNKER HILL (CV-17), BATAAN (CVL-24) and CABOT (CVL-28). LtCdr (later Captain) Herbert Houck, the leader of 43 TBM Avengers of VT-9 from YORKTOWN, detaches Lt Thomas Stetsons six Avengers in a final torpedo attack from the ships starboard side. I Was At Okinawa At This Time. How many US planes were lost sinking the Yamato? Less than three and half years after Pearl Harbor, American industrial might was on full display. Being young, I took it all for granted. The battleship and its sister, Musashi, were the only battleships ever constructed with 18.1" guns. He had friends wounded and killed, but the small carriers were never given credit for anything that happened. These Living Conditions. One Avenger was shot down, but three torpedoes went into the water. Smoke rises from the vicinity of the mainmast and a bomb explodes in the same area. With this contact information, Spruance ordered Deyo to ready the blocking force. YAMATO starts a sharp turn to port but three torpedoes rip into her port side amidships. seven torpedo hits within two hours of battle. Japanese lookouts spotted the American air armada at 1232 hours and soon opened fire with Yamatos 18-inch guns firing San Shiki anti-aircraft shells that were wildly inaccurate. What sank the Yamato? Yamato Numerous Helldivers from Bennington and Hornet attacked from Yamatos port side and numerous near misses splashed all around the battleship, which was moving at flank speed (27 knots), before she was finally hit by two 1,000-pound armor-piercing bombs at 1240. The first explodes in the crews quarters abaft the Type 13 radar shack. U.S. aircrew claimed additional bomb and torpedo hits in this first wave, but these were mostly near misses. About 1,187 crewmen of Yahagi and the four destroyers were lost. Before getting underway, the Surface Special Attack Force put ashore 67 recently arrived midshipmen of the Etajima Naval Academy Class No. The result was arguably the largest suicide mission in history. Thank you to all the brave men and women of the US armed forces! The Americans lose 10 aircraft and 12 crewmen. The first torpedoes pass by harmlessly, but the remaining two strike her port amidships. After a dozen torpedo hits, even the Yamato's Yamato was still more than 300 nautical miles from Okinawa when she went down. It. Her main armament consisted of three triple 18.1-inch gun turrets that could hurl a 3,200-pound shell (compared to 2,700 pounds for the U.S. 16-inch shells) to a range of just over 22 miles. At 1000 hours he launched a total of 386 aircraft consisting of fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers. They eventually fell in line when informed that this was what the emperor wanted, that the force would serve to support the mass kamikaze air attack, and that it was an order. There were few Japanese survivors. after the Yamato first took to the sea. Eggheads on this subject get "lost in the sauce" going over tables, charts, and math formulas done by researchers after the war shooting rounds into armor plate captured from Japan and Germany,. The destroyers were an assortment of different classes (what was left in operation, since the Japanese would lose 120 destroyers during the war), but all were armed with powerful Type 93 Long Lance 24-inch torpedoes. They would not be needed. Fourteen F4U Chance-Vought Corsairs from BUNKER HILL strafe and rocket YAMATO but cause only minor damage. The attack of hundreds of US air force against Japan made Japan's biggest battleship Yamato sink. The attack lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and more than 300 airplanes. The most powerful battleship in the world was no match for 390 U.S. carrier aircraft. . Two more destroyers were lost: the Asashimo, which was raked by bomb hits as it was returning to Japan and sank killing its entire crew; and the Kasumi that was heavily damaged and later. They unanimously objected, most of them arguing instead to be allowed to conduct independent raiding of the over-extended U.S. supply lines. Five Helldivers are damaged by AA fire. Lieutenant J.G. Photographed from a USS Yorktown (CV-10) plane (NH 62581). American aviators received orders to drop their On April 7, 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato, one of the greatest battleships of its time, is sunk in Japan's first major counteroffensive in the struggle for Okinawa. The Attack Force changes course due south to 180 degrees. I hope you enjoy the video! Of the Japanese destroyers, Asashimo was sunk with all hands (about 330) and Hamakaze sank with a loss of 100 crewmen and 45 wounded (257 were rescued). Yahagi lost 446; Asashimo lost 330; the seven destroyers, 391 officers and men. Captain Aruga lashed himself to the binnacle to do the same. Workers are gathered around the gaping opening that will house main turret #2. At 1417, she took an eighth and ninth torpedo, both to port. With Yamato slowed, U.S. torpedo planes started to deliberately target her stern to knock out her steering, and she became stuck in a starboard turn. Aruga would be posthumously promoted to vice admiral and Ito to full admiral. The largest battleships ever built were Yamato and Musashi of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Both ships cease firing. She didn't even make it close to Okinawa. Box 378 Red Hook, New York 12571 United States, a battle group of eight aircraft carriers, her enormous hull to the converging torpedoes. YAMATO turns hard to port. Twenty Avengers attacked from the port side (concentrating torpedo attacks from the port side was deliberate, with the intent to capsize the ship). miles southwest of Kyushu, Japan. My dad served on the Langley. By this point, Yamato was firing main-battery beehive shells set to detonate after one second (about 3,000 yards) from the ship, which U.S. aircraft just blew through. Her waterline armor belt was 16 inches thick. Not long after the Hellcat sighting, two PBM-3 Martin Mariner flying boats began shadowing Yamato, maintaining discreet contact for the next five hours while mostly hidden in the clouds. producing the blasts that tore the ship in half and sank her. ), named after an ancient Japanese province, was one of two Yamato-class battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy, beginning in the late 1930s. Yamato was hit with three more torpedoes. A Japanese destroyer peeled off three times to keep Hackleback at bay. The Japanese admiral in charge of Operation Ten-Go, Vice-Admiral Seiichi It, disagreed with the plan which essentially was to sail into teeth of the American fleet without the benefit of any air cover and then beach on Okinawa and operate as a static defense in support of the island. By early 1945, the Japanese Empire was shrinking daily and the war had reached its home shores. battleship's aft secondary magazine caused tons of ammunition to ignite almost simultaneously, At 1322, an Essex Corsair hit Yamato in the port bow with a 1,000-pound general-purpose bomb. [1][26] Led by the man who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, Minoru Genda, the appearance of these fighters, which were equal or superior to the F6F Hellcat in performance, surprised the attackers, and several American planes were shot down. This particular image was taken during an earlier battle with American carrier aircraft on October 24, 1944 as Yamato transited the Sibuyan Sea. Read Next: The Ultimate Gunfighters! aircraft's overhead view of its target. The only time Yamato fired her main guns at enemy targets was in October 1944, but was ordered to turn back after attacks by destroyers and aircraft of the Taffy light escort carrier task groups managed to sink three heavy cruisers during the Battle off Samar. TG 58.1 and 58.3 were quickly on station. *Lighting a path to truth* Former Navy JAG Worldwide U.S. Military Defense. FRUPAC had the message that the air cover would end at 1000, which was also known to senior U.S. Navy commanders. Constructed from 1937 1940 and formally commissioned in late 1941, Yamato served as the flagship of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto throughout 1942, first sailing as part of the Combined Fleet during the Battle of Midway in June 1942. of the battleship gives a sense of the 18-inch guns' enormous size (note sailors on deck). So, the admirals concocted what they termed, Operation Ten-Go (Operation Heaven One). How many planes were lost attacking the Yamato? But the mission was approved and the Japanese ships set sail for Okinawa. Only 10. YAMATO, at 27 knots flank speed, heels to starboard in evasive action. Throughout 1943, Yamato continually transferred between Truk, Kure and Brunei in response to American airstrikes on Japanese island bases. This great vessel had a . Posted August 23, 2013. this photo from 1941 shows the construction details of the Yamato's rear aircraft deck, side 6-inch guns that were replaced by AA guns later in the war, as well as the aft superstructure and main turret #3. The Imperial Japanese Navy ceases to exist as a fighting force. The second and third waves of the American attacks pummeled Yamato. began to flood. It's cable. I was a radioman on one of the VT23 Avengers participating in this strike flying off the Langley. Cloud cover precluded accurate firing of the (The Yamato force had a Nisei radio-intelligence operator. Submarine Hackleback (SS-295) then picked up surveillance, issuing four contact reports during the night as Yamato transited southwesterly along the coast of Kyushu. Spruance gave orders to Rear Admiral Morton Deyo, commander of the Bombardment Force, to take his six old battleships and set up a blocking force northwest of Okinawa (as Yamato was circling around in that direction with the intent to stay as far from TF 58 as possible). Yamato was essentially doomed by a question from Emperor Hirohito during a briefing on 29 March about plans for Japanese air opposition to expected landings on Okinawa. With robust designs and vintage classic style, discover the heritage of military timepieces today! Another 110 planes appeared ready for the kill. I am fortunate to be living as long as I have , I know us WWII vets are living on borrowed time, but glad to be of sound mind yet and can remember incidents like this. This was taken as a yet another bad omen. Although 16 warships were hit, Yamato sustained only minor damage from a number of near misses and from one bomb that struck her bridge. Almost all of the nearly 400 American fighters and bombers The U.S. 5th Fleet commander, Admiral Raymond Spruance, ordered Task Force 54, which consisted mostly of the battleships under Rear Admiral Morton Deyo, to move in and engage the Japanese task force. Two other destroyers were heavily damaged, one, the Hamakaze later sank. By noon, the Corsair and Hellcat fighters arrived over the Yamato group, looking for fighters protecting the Japanese, and finding none waited for the dive bombers and torpedo planes to arrive. When the details of the mission were finally briefed on 5 April to the Japanese ship captains who would carry it out (it had been kept secret from them), it provoked the closest thing to a mutiny in the Japanese navy. 1,000 watertight compartments couldn't save her, and her lower decks rapidly The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including sailors, soldiers and civilians. YAMATO opens fire with her two forward main turrets and AA guns. At 1107, Yamatos Type 13 air search radar detected a large aircraft formation inbound at the radars maximum range of 63 nautical miles, and noted the aircraft formation was splitting into two groups. Damage Control counter-floods both starboard engine and boiler rooms and almost entirely corrects the list. With nearly all of her anti-aircraft guns out of action, the Avenger torpedo planes wreaked havoc. An attack of 36 Japanese dive bombers and torpedo planes against the heavily protected USS Hornet with her escorts took down over 20 Japanese planes. Captain Hara on Yahagi reported that the large formations of aircraft circled around the task force just outside anti-aircraft range for a number of minutes, some in clockwise rotation and some in counter-clockwise rotation, as strike leaders organized strikes on particular targets free of interference from Japanese fighters. The force would transit to Okinawa on 7 April (with only a few hours of minimal air cover), to arrive in daylight hours in the U.S. transport area off southwestern Okinawa on 8 April. About a year before he died he told us about this battle against the Yamato and that he was involved in the attack, but no details. WORLD WAR II. Of firing 3,220-lb shells over 26 miles pilots and eight aircrewmen were missing and presumed dead how many planes were lost sinking the yamato. The chief of staff of the Combined Fleet, Vice Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka, flew in from Tokyo to ensure that Ito would comply with Admiral Toyodas orders. Was the Bismarck bigger than the Yamato? They truly were the Greatest Generation. The emperors question clinched it. Yamato would have appeared indestructible. I Served On An LST During This Period Of Time & Locations Mentioned In This Article , But I Still Like Too Hear Of The Actual Events That Took Part That Day In April 1945. By dawn on April 7, Asashimo, one of the destroyers developed engine trouble and started heading back to port in Japan. Hatsushimo suffered only three wounded on 6 April, but, on 20 July, struck a mine and was the last Japanese destroyer sunk in the war. TOKYO -- Seventy-six years ago, on April 7, 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy vessel Yamato, the world's largest battleship, was sunk by U.S. military aircraft. The arresting wire system can stop a 54,000-pound aircraft travelling 150 miles per hour in only two seconds, in a 315-foot landing area (a 24,500-kg aircraft travelling at 241 kph in a 96-meter landing area). At 1210, destroyer Asashimo, lagging behind the force, reported that she was under air attack, and radio transmissions from her ceased. Some of the Japanese survivors reported that U.S. fighter aircraft strafed Japanese survivors floating in the water. She ships about 3,000-tons of seawater. The destroyer Isokaze attempted to come to her aid but was heavily damaged and driven off. This force include battleships Massachusetts (BB-59), Indiana (BB-58), South Dakota (BB-57), New Jersey (BB-62), Wisconsin (BB-64), and Missouri (BB-63) (54 16-inch guns), the battle-cruisers Alaska (CB-1) and Guam (CB-2), five cruisers, and 21 destroyers. The Yamato group cranked up speed to 25 knots. More U.S. aircraft may have been knocked down by the magazine explosion than by Japanese anti-aircraft fire. It had been deployed on a Surface Special Attack Force suicide mission to drive back U.S. forces that had landed on Okinawa. Instead, Yamato was obsolete the day she was launched, as the Japanese themselves proved at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere by sinking Allied battleships with airpower. What is not mentioned above is that this mission was considered a potential suicide mission for the American aviators due the distance they were required to fly. Musashi and her sister ship, Yamato, were by a wide margin the largest battleships ever built. naval action of the war, she took 2,747 men with herall but 269 of her crew. Built in total secrecy and launched just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamato may have been almost twice the size of her American counterparts, with the largest guns ever mounted on a warship. The American invasion fleet had, besides a heavy battleship contingent consisting of six battleships (Massachusetts, Indiana, New Jersey, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Missouri), seven cruisers (including the large cruisers Alaska and Guam) and 21 destroyers. Yamato avoided two, but the third hit her port side at 1245. One Avenger is shot down. Although accounts vary about how many crewmen were on Yamato, the most definitive appears to be that 3,055 of 3,332 crewmen were lost. More than 4,000 Japanese sailors were involved in the operation. photographed the destruction. The pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Yamato was said to be the most powerful warship in history, but it was also beautiful, "like something in a tapestry.". Senior U.S. Navy commanders in the Pacific, including Admiral Raymond Spruance, Commander U.S. Fifth Fleet, knew what the battleship Yamatos mission was before almost anyone on Yamato did. Even before the war, the Japanese understood that they could never match the U.S. Navy for quantity, but were convinced they could build a better battleship. One Helldiver is shot down, another is damaged badly. Suzutsuki suffered 57 dead and 34 wounded, but, despite having her bow blown off, made it back to Sasebo, Japan, steaming in reverse the whole way; she was never repaired. Stetsons crewmen reset their Mark 13 torpedoes running depth to 20 feet.
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