Ito was posthumously promoted to full admiral. Over the next days, additional messages were intercepted and decrypted by Fleet Radio Unit Pacific (FRUPAC) and also OP-20-G in Washington that provided increasingly detailed information on the operations timing and made specific mention of Yamato on 5 April. Of the 3,332 crew members aboard the Yamato, only 276 survived the sinking. These behemoths were triple the tonnage of some other battleships of their day and each one had three turrets, with three huge 18.1 guns per turret. 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. 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. Combined with Yamato, about 4,242 Japanese sailors gave their lives for the emperor on 7 April. Deyo had just received a cheery send-off from his immediate boss: "We hope you will bring back a nice fish for breakfast." battleship's guns. As soon as the Japanese fleet left port on April 6 at 1600 hours, and proceeded through the Bungo Strait, (many WWII film buffs will recall the strait from Run Silent, Run Deep), they were immediately picked up by two American submarines (Hackleback and Threadfin). He saw four Avengers go in low, dropping their torpedoes in a spread on Yamatos beam. The age of the carrier was now confirmed. H-044-3: Operation Heaven Number One (Ten-ichi-go)the Death of Yamato, 7 April 1945. of the battleship gives a sense of the 18-inch guns' enormous size (note sailors on deck). One of the surviving destroyers did not have a bow. At 0823, a Hellcat fighter off Essex (CV-9) sighted Yamato, a contact that the battleship reported at 0832. This would be carried out in conjunction with a mass aerial kamikaze attack by over 350 airplanes ( Kikusui No. settled on the seafloor 1,200 feet down and about 50 They would not be needed. Box 378 Red Hook, New York 12571 United States, a battle group of eight aircraft carriers, her enormous hull to the converging torpedoes. Almost all of the nearly 400 American fighters and bombers [5] The smoke from the explosionover 4miles (6.4km) highwas seen 100miles (160km) away on Kysh. 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. Also interviewed is an American dive-bomber pilot who took part in the attack. A report that had been delayed for 25 minutes by ransmission and decoding, is received finally. The extremely large number of antiaircraft guns, added during a refit, were meant to keep the ship afloat in the face of American airpower until it could close within striking range of enemy. This image 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. Thanks for your presentation of this event! 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. Flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet, she was lead ship of the Yamato class. On her last morning, before the first American planes intercepted her, They were also given the option of not participating, an option none of them took. Eight Japanese destroyers and one cruiser, the Yahagi (left), tried to assist Yamato in fending off her attackers. My dad served on the Langley. As she came under attack on that April morning, the He suggests the order to abandon ship be given. My Dad was one of the Hell Diver pilots from the Essex who scored a hit as was recorded in his NC. With the steering locked to port and the ship doomed, Admiral Ito at 1402 hours ordered the crew to abandon ship. They would launch the worlds largest battleship, the Yamato with its enormous 18-inch guns, one light cruiser, and eight destroyers against the enormous American fleet. Barrett is the world leader in long-range, large-caliber, precision rifle design and manufacturing. The Japanese battleship Yamato in the late stages of construction alongside of a large fitting out pontoon at the Kure Naval Base, Japan, 20 September 1941.The aircraft carrier Hsh is visible at the extreme right.The store ship Mamiya is anchored in the center distance.Note Yamato's after 460mm main battery gun turret, and superfiring 155mm secondary battery gun turret. 1000 hour The Attack Force sights two large Martin Mariner PBM flying boats. The Yamato sank during a fierce battle for Okinawa on April, 7 1945. Aruga would be posthumously promoted to vice admiral and Ito to full admiral. The Americans bloody island-hopping campaign, which had begun in the southern Solomon Islands in 1942, had grown as the Americans swept across the Gilberts, the Solomons, and, after the battles in Leyte Gulf and the Philippine Sea, were on the cusp of Japan herself. Spruance was informed of it only after the aircraft had taken off. 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,. Two other destroyers were heavily damaged, one, the Hamakaze later sank. At 1430 on 7 April 1945, more than 300 nautical miles north of Okinawa, Yamato blows up after capsizing. However, in order to keep up with Yamato, these forays were short-lived. Jan 6, 2019 Conan White, Guest Author. My father, Donald Lennox, Sr. was an Avenger pilot on the San Jacinto whose torpedo is credited for striking the Asashimo. YAMATO has taken a total of four torpedo hits. most likely to cause flooding and eventual sinking. You must become a subscriber or login to view or post comments on this article. Japans secrecy was due to her inability to match U.S. naval power ship for ship. In viewing cite, this the first time I have seen any mention of the carrier Langley. The fighters attacked first, strafing the anti-aircraft guns on the decks with machine guns and rockets. [27] While navigating the Bungo Strait, Yamato and her escorts were spotted by the American submarines Threadfin and Hackleback, both of which notified Task Force 58 of Yamatos position. Yahagi capsized and sank shortly after 1400. 1200 hour A lookout spots three Japanese troopships on bearing 0250 heading for Amami-Oshima. 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. John Carter, was in a perfect position to watch what unfolded. Instead, military leaders decided to build a secret weapon that could engage many enemy ships at once. This would be carried out in conjunction with a mass aerial kamikaze attack by over 350 airplanes (Kikusui No. The Yahagi was too tempting a target for the hundreds of attacking aircraft. It starts a fire that cannot be extinguished and rips a 60-foot hole in the weather deck. When Yamato sank, marking the last Japanese naval action of the war, she took 2,747 men with herall but 269 of her crew. A lookout spots American planes 25 degrees to port, levation 8, range 4,375 yards, moving to port. Five Helldivers are damaged by AA fire. There were few Japanese survivors. He had friends wounded and killed, but the small carriers were never given credit for anything that happened. 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. Less than three and half years after Pearl Harbor, American industrial might was on full display. It said the wreck was in two main pieces, a bow-to-midships section about 560 feet long, and a 264-foot-long stern section. The Americans lose 10 aircraft and 12 crewmen. *Lighting a path to truth* Former Navy JAG Worldwide U.S. Military Defense. 1s USS HORNET (CV-12), HANCOCK (CV-19), BENNINGTON (CV-20), BELLEAU WOOD (CVL-24) and SAN JACINTO (CVL-30) and from Task Group 58. 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. [25][26] Damage to the battleship, however, was light,[25] due in part to the base being defended by elite veteran Japanese fighter instructors flying Kawanishi N1K Shiden or George fighters. (Based on erroneous San Jacinto report, Samuel Eliot Morison misidentifies this ship as Hamakaze, but a photo shows a Yugumo-class destroyer, which would be Asashimo, and which was also the one lagging behind.). These were 50 aircraft from Essex and Bataan. Below are some of those stories and some links to other web sites with more stories about the ship and its final day, April 7, 1945. . The Japanese naval defense plan was code-named named Sho-I-Go ("Victory"), and its objective was simple: Sink the American invasion fleet, maintain the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, and, by doing this, protect Japan from invasion. 1). The Attack Force resumes zigzagging. 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. In total, the U.S. lost 12 men. The ships were to sink as many troop transports as possible, then beach themselves and continue firing as long as they had ammunition. 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 sinking of the Yamato on April 7 conclusively signaled the end of the "all-big-gun" battleship era of naval warfare. . SUZUTSUKI takes a 500-lb GP bomb hit to starboard, abreast her No. NOVA interviews two survivors of the sinking, who had to meet the most stringent requirements in the Japanese navy to be chosen for the crew. YAMATO starts a sharp turn to port but three torpedoes rip into her port side amidships. battleship's aft secondary magazine caused tons of ammunition to ignite almost simultaneously, About 1,187 crewmen of Yahagi and the four destroyers were lost. Yamato took at least four more bomb hits in the superstructure area, which wiped out many of the remaining 25-mm guns. as she turns to avoid the onslaught from 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. . Itos chief of staff, Rear Admiral Nobuei Morishita, was the senior survivor of Yamato. Quickly spotted by Allied aircraft, Yamato and its consorts were subjected to a series of heavy air attacks that resulted in the loss of the battleship and most of its supporting ships. Legendary Lost Japanese WWII Battleship Found by Billionaire Paul Allen.The search was funded by Paul Allen, the Microsoft co . Aircrews were astonished at the size of the ship, which had seen very little naval action during the war. her bow and stern where her armor was thinnest. Ten minutes later, two more torpedoes strike her port side. Two eyewitness accounts of Yamato's last battle. Survivor Stories He gave the go-ahead for the strike but ordered the battlewagons to proceed in the event the Japanese fleet got through the airstrike. Naval Academy, The Sullivan Brothers and the Assignment of Family Members, Historic Former U.S. Navy Bases and Stations, The African American Experience in the U.S. Navy, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. Navy, Contributions of Native Americans to the U.S. Navy, The World Cruise of the Great White Fleet, Navy Underwater Archaeology Return Program, Annual Navy History and Heritage Awards - Main, Research Permits for Sunken & Terrestrial Military Craft, Scanning, Copyright & Citation Information, Obtain Duplications of Records and Photos, H-003-2 Japanese Offensive and Navy Response, H-010-2 The Battle of the Eastern Solomons, H-010-5 Plaque from Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58), H-011-1 Guadalcanal: Victory at Cape Esperance, H-011-3 Santa Cruz (Japanese Pyrrhic Victory), H-014-1 The Seizure of USS Pueblo (AGER-2), H-017-2: Operation Rolling Thunder Overview, H-019-4 "Black May": Battle of the Atlantic 1943, H-019-5 "Black Sunday": U-Boats off U.S. East Coast 1918, H-020-4: Submarine AL-2 Versus U-Boat UB-65, H-024-1 Bougainville and Victory in the Solomons, H-025-1 Operation GalvanicTarawa and Makin, H-028-1 Vietnam 1969 Navy Medal of Honor Awards, H-032-1 Operation Forager and the Battle of Philippine Sea, H-Gram Special Edition: Passing of Supreme Court Justice Stevens, H-045-3: 50th Anniversary of Apollo 13 Mission, H-046-1: Kamikaze Attack on USS Aaron Ward, H-048-1: Kamikaze Attacks on U.S. Flagships, H-048-2: Naval Battle of Okinawa (Continued), H-049-2: LCDR George Street's Medal of Honor, H-052-1: The U.S. Navy and the Atomic Bomb, H-053-1: The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy, H-053-3: Operation Desert Shield, September 1990, H-054-1: Inchon Landing and Naval Action in the Korean War, September-October 1950, H-054-2: Operation Desert Shield, October 1990, H-055-2: Operation Desert Shield, November 1990, H-055-: Attack on USS Cole (DDG-67) October 2000, H-056-2: Operation Desert Shield, December 1990-January 1991, H-057-1: Operations Downfall and Ketsugo November 1945, H-057-2: Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night, H-058-1: Operation Desert Storm in January 1991, H-058-2: Korean War - Communist China Offensive, H-059-1: Operation Desert Storm in Feb-Mar 1991, H-059-2: 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War, H-061-1 Korea: U.S. Navy Operations, March-July 1951, H-061-3 Desert Storm: Sealift, Seabees, Navy Medicine, H-063-3: The Battle of Shimonoseki Strait, H-064-1: Close Quarters Antisubmarine Warfare (Part 1), H-064-2: Close Quarters Antisubmarine Warfare (Part 2), H-064-3: Close Quarters Antisubmarine Warfare (Part 3), H-069-1: "The Covered Wagon: USS Langley (CV-1), H-070-1: The Vietnam War Easter Offensive, Part 1, H-071-2: U.S. Navy Surface Ship Accidents Since World War II, H-071-3: The Sacrifices of USS Neosho and USS Sims, H-074-1: The Vietnam War Easter Offensive, Part 2, H-075-1: U.S. Navy vs. Soviets Overwater Dogfight, H-075-2: Short History of U.S. Navy Accidents and Non-Combat Losses. 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