The Japanese Sailors’ Accounts of the Moment Control Was Lost on the Deck of the Yamato

On April 7, 1945, the battleship Yamato—the ultimate symbol of Imperial Japan’s naval power—departed port on a mission with no return. Operation Ten-Go sent the massive warship and thousands of sailors directly toward Okinawa, at a moment when the balance of the war had already shifted decisively and the skies over the Pacific were firmly controlled by American air power.
This story is told through the memories of Mitsuru Yoshida, one of the very few survivors. From the instant Yamato was detected on radar, wave after wave of American aircraft turned the supposedly invulnerable battleship into a burning mass of steel at sea. Bombs and torpedoes shattered command systems, crippled propulsion, and forced the crew into impossible decisions—including sealing flooded compartments, knowingly trapping wounded men inside, in a final attempt to keep the ship afloat for a few more minutes.
At 2:23 p.m., Yamato capsized and detonated in a catastrophic explosion as her magazines ignited, killing more than 4,000 men in a single moment. Survivors drifted amid burning oil, wreckage, and bodies scattered across the sea. For Yoshida, survival brought no triumph—only a lifelong burden, forcing him to bear witness to a grim truth: Yamato’s destruction was not merely the loss of a warship, but the definitive end of the battleship era and the collapse of faith in steel against the dominance of air power.

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