There was a great show on the Public Broadcasting Channel here last night about the history and sinking of the battleship Yamato. Did anyone else in the forum see it? I was very pleased by the level of information and the interviews with the surviving crew members. It was a magnificent ship. I am glad it was never able to be used against the American Fleet as intended. It is a shame they sent it to it's destruction in defense of Okinawa. It would have made a great war prize.

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

I wish you had told me 24 hours ago.
Will they re-run it later in the week ? What was the name of the show ?

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Work Harder ! Millions on welfare are depending on you.

It is called Sinking the Supership, Yamato. The local station for DFW, KERA, will be running it again on the seventh at 2 a.m.. The website from PBS is pretty good also. Here is a link.

NOVA, Sinking the Supership

The website doesn't have information about the building of the ship like the show did. It was a great secret and they explore that a lot more in the film. I hope you can watch it. As a NOVA program it will be available at the library eventually.

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

Thank you for the information. I have my VCR set for recording it on the rerun Saturday.

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Work Harder ! Millions on welfare are depending on you.

It's surprising that the japanese kept or tried to keep it's construction a secret during those times. Would it be more effective to announce that they were planning to build the biggest battleship ever ?

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The Two World Wars

That depends on if you want to use it as an instrument of war or diplomacy. If you want it for war, then secrecy is paramount. Suprise and the ability to confront your enemy with something they have no fore-knowledge of it's weaknesses win battles. As an instrument of diplomacy or a show of stature then, yes you tell the world.

The Pacific War had almost no need or strategic use for battleships in ship-to-ship fighting. It was all about the carrier battle groups. The Yamato had tremendous armor all over, but there are just so many torpedos that can hit you before you get a hole in the hull. The armor belt was strong enough for the possibility of one or two ship fired torpedos, but the overwhelming number sent at the ship by the US carrier planes was too many.

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

Caught the tail end of the show. Agreed, ship to ship fighting was obsolete but with sufficient air cover from aircraft carriers, the battleship could do some awesome damage during amphib operations.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

You sure have that right. We used our air superiority in more than one circumstance to allow the battlewagons to come up for shore bombardment. They are an awesome weapons platform for areas along the coast. It would have been a catastrophic disaster if the Yamato had made it to our invasion fleet around Okinawa. Wikipedia says that it was ordered to beach itself and act as a shore battery. They never mentioned the actual orders in the documentary. Interesting idea. I wonder how long she could have lasted when she couldn't be "sunk"?

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

Ouch! That would have been disastrous. The guns would be firing until literally blown up since she could not be sunk. Hmmm.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

I vaugely remembered reading something about the Yamato beaching herself at Okinawa and using her 18.1in guns as shore batteries so I went "in search of". Here is a little of what i have found.

According to Masanori Ito's "The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy";
"On 5 April 1945 Vice Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka, Chief of Staff of the Combined Fleet, came to Vice Admiral Seiichi Ito on board Second Fleet flagship Yamato and personally delivered the Kikusui Operation Order from Commander in Chief Toyoda. He explained the necessity for this extreme tactic and urged Admiral Ito to act promptly. The order read; Second Fleet is to charge into the enemy anchorage of Kadeno, off Okinawa Island, at daybreak of 8 April. Fuel for onlya one-way passage will be supplied. This is a Special Attack operation."
Ito's book goes on to state that when the order was passed to the commanders of the other units in the Second Fleet there was a considerable number of objections raised as to the suicidal nature of ten ships attacking the US fleet at Okinawa especially without any air cover. Captain Tameichi Hara corroborates this in his book "Japanese Destroyer Captain". (He was the Commanding Officer of the light cruiser Yahagi during this battle).
These two books certainly suggest that it was possible the Yamato would be beached at Okinawa but it is the passage from Paul Dull's "Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1941-1945" that comes right out and states it.
"The Japanese were so short of oil at home that the Yamato had only enough to make it to Okinawa. If she made it, the plan was to beach her and use her 18 inch guns in support of the ground fighting."

As for a formidable shore battery her 18 inch guns had in excess of 25in of armour on her turret faces and fired a 3200lb projectile distances of up to 22 miles. Needless to say anything that came into its range would have had a very rough day.

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Bill Murray
Why do we press harder on the remote control when we know the batteries are getting weak?

Ya bim, but it was a battleship. And a huge one. It's main point was that it was big and powerful. Not like a submarine or a spy plane or something small and sneaky.

No way was this battleship going to be launched without someone seeing it.

But maybe I am wrong, the japanese fleet managed to sneak attack the americans in pearl harbour.

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The Two World Wars

Should be changed into an aircraft carrier like some of it's sisters. More effective.

But still an impressive ship this is.

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The Two World Wars

Hands, I am no expert on the Pacific Theater of Operation, but from the documentary it seems that the Japanese did achieve a great deal of success in keeping the construction of the Yamato secret. The state of espionage in the time period relied upon human intelligence gathering and there was no way a non-japanese, or at least non-oriental, was going to be bumbling around in their shipyard areas unnoticed. Japan was a very closed society for many years before the Second World War.

Great picture by-the-way.

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL