Yamato Battleship

Yamato Battleship is considered as one of the biggest battleship ever built the IJN ever had in WW II. She had 65,000 tonnes weight, had 9 x 460mm cannon main battery guns which fired 1,460 kg's armor piercing shells -The largest cannon ever carried on a battleship-.

She was built in Kure, Japan and commisioned in December 1941 and weeks prior to the WW II in Pacific she was assigned as a Flagship of combined fleet commander Isoroku Yamamoto. Most of her time was spent at Truk -a port not far from Rabaul in Solomon Islands-. She was torpedoes by USS Skate in December 1943 but only suffered light damage -the torpedoes couldn't cracked the armor of that biggest battleship- and was under repair until April 1944. There were some upgrades on her; added new anti-aircraft batteries.

During The Battle of Leyte Gulf on 20th October 1944 under the command of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita she was moved to Brunei in Borneo to refuel and then steamed towards Leyte. Unfortunately, Admiral Kurita's flagship Atago was sunk by torpedoes fired from US submarines Darter (SS-227) and Dace (SS-247). So he moved to Yamato which took part as Flagship since then. On 24th October 1944, her sister ship Musashi was sunk and a heavy cruiser was forced to retire by US warplanes. She was hit but remained battleworthy.

Off Samar in the Phillipines on 25th October 1944 morning, she fired her cannons at US Navy escort carrier group; sinking a US carrier and 3 destroyers which were no match for a big battleship like Yamato. While Kurita lost 3 heavy cruisers. This loss he took forced him to withdraw to Brunei once more. That ended the career of Yamato in Leyte. Finally she was sent home in November 1944 and remained in Japan during winter 1944-1945. In March 1945 she was raided during the attack on Japan mainlands but still .. she was lightly damaged.

During operation "Ten-Go" on April 1945 .. an operation which consisted mainly massive of Kamikaze attacks, she also played role there accompanied by 8 destroyers and a light cruiser Yahagi. She was exhausted; only enough fuel for one-way cruise, no fighter escorts, demoralised men, etc. While on the US side, they prepared 400 warplanes to sunk her and her consorts and 6 battleships ready in case the got past the aerial force. Outnumbered, outmatched, and exhaustion she had to fight the US naval force and they had to steamed South to prevent further invasion made by the Allied force. In the afternoon, the warplanes began to fight scoring hits with bombs and torpedo hits on her. Yahagi rest on the bottom from the attacks followed by 4 destroyers. But due to the Bushido spirit, they somehow still steamed South whereas they've already known they wouldn't survive. She took multiple hits mainly on the port side by torpedoes, got hit from several bombs. The giant had fallen ...

2 hours after she took the hits approximately at 1423, she rolled to port .. exploded and sank with a "mushroom" cloud explosion. About 2,500 men were lost, about 300 others were rescued. While the US only lost 10 aircrafts with 12 airmen.

Yamato ... the pride of IJN, finally sunk.