Yamato: Flagship of the Japanese Imperial Navy

"…a valuable addition to the library of maritime historians, especially those interested in the design, building, and demise of the largest and most powerful battleship(s) to ever put to sea."―The Northern Mariner

The ‘Yamato’ and her sister ship the ‘Musashi’ represented the ultimate development in the battleship. Together, the two ships were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed. Named after the Yamato Province, Yamato was designed to counter the numerically superior fleet of the US Navy. Built amongst a shroud of secrecy and deception and commissioned shortly after the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, she was present at a number of engagements including the Battle of Midway and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Despite having been designed to engage and sink enemy surface vessels, the Yamato would only fire her unrivaled 18.1 inch guns at an enemy surface target on one occasion, in October 1944 during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. In the final months of the war, as Kamikaze aircraft targeted American landing fleets off Okinawa, the Yamato herself embarked on a one way mission of sacrifice, in a last desperate roll of the dice in an attempt to wreak havoc on the landing forces around Okinawa, the last stepping stone prior to an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. Despite being products of war from the moment of their construction the Yamato and Musashi occupied a unique place which continues to this day.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1 Naval Arms Race; 2 Anatomy of the Yamato-Class; 3 Ships of the Yamato-Class; 4 Battleship Number One; 5 Hotel ‘Yamato’; 6 The Hunter and the Hunted; 7 The Battle of Leyte Gulf; 8 Operation Ten-Gō; 9 ‘Will you take them or shall I?’; 10 Aftermath; 11 Intelligence on the ‘Yamato’; 12 The 1:10 ‘Yamato’; Appendix A; Appendix B; Appendix C; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index.