Each gun was 21.13 metres (69.3 ft) long, weighed 147.3 metric tons (162.4 short tons), and was capable of firing high-explosive or armor-piercing shells 42 kilometres (26 mi). Yamato 's main battery consisted of nine 46 cm (18.1 in) 45 Caliber Type 94 naval guns-the largest caliber of naval artillery ever fitted to a warship, although the shells were not as heavy as those fired by the British 18-inch naval guns of World War I. Yamato near the end of her fitting out, 20 September 1941 A great effort was made in Japan to ensure that the ships were built in extreme secrecy to prevent American intelligence officials from learning of their existence and specifications. Yamato was launched on 8 August 1940, with Captain (later Vice-Admiral) Miyazato Shutoku in command. Extreme secrecy was maintained throughout construction, a canopy even being erected over part of the drydock to screen the ship from view. The dock was deepened by one meter, and gantry cranes capable of lifting up to 350 tonnes were installed. The keel of Yamato, the lead ship of the class, was laid down at the Kure Naval Arsenal, Hiroshima, on 4 November 1937, in a dockyard that had to be adapted to accommodate her enormous hull. naval shipyards should war break out, so the 70,000 ton vessels of the Yamato class were designed to be capable of engaging multiple enemy battleships at the same time. Their planners recognized Japan would be unable to compete with the output of U.S. After withdrawing from the Washington Naval Treaty, which limited the size and power of capital ships, the Imperial Japanese Navy began their design of the new Yamato class of heavy battleships. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1934, renouncing its treaty obligations. 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.ĭuring the 1930s the Japanese government adopted an ultranationalist militancy with a view to greatly expand the Japanese Empire. In a desperate attempt to slow the Allied advance, Yamato was dispatched on a one-way mission to Okinawa in April 1945, with orders to beach herself and fight until destroyed protecting the island. On the verge of success, the Japanese force turned back, believing they were engaging an entire US carrier fleet rather than the light escort carrier group that was all that stood between the battleship and the vulnerable troop transports.ĭuring 1944, the balance of naval power in the Pacific decisively turned against Japan, and by early 1945, its fleet was much depleted and badly hobbled by critical fuel shortages in the home islands. The only time Yamato fired her main guns at enemy surface targets was in October 1944, when she was sent to engage American forces invading the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Although present at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, she played no part in the battle. Musashi took over as the Combined Fleet flagship in early 1943, and Yamato spent the rest of the year, and much of 1944, moving between the major Japanese naval bases of Truk and Kure in response to American threats. Throughout 1942, she served as the flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet, and in June 1942 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto directed the fleet from her bridge during the Battle of Midway, a disastrous defeat for Japan. She was laid down in 1937 and formally commissioned a week after the Pearl Harbor attack in late 1941. Named after the ancient Japanese Yamato Province, Yamato was designed to counter the numerically superior battleship fleet of the United States, Japan's main rival in the Pacific. She and her sister ship, Musashi, were the heaviest battleships ever constructed, displacing 72,800 tonnes at full load and armed with nine 46 cm (18.1 inch) 45 Caliber Type 94 main guns, which were the largest guns ever mounted on a warship. Yamato ( 大和 ?) was the lead ship of the Yamato class of Imperial Japanese Navy World War II battleships. Yamato during sea trials off Japan near Bungo Strait, 20 October 1941.
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