A glorious way to die / By Russell Spurr

A glorious way to die / By Russell Spurr

”The time had come for one last grand gesture. In April 1945, with US forces overrunning neighbouring Okinawa, Japan sent out its ten surviving warships to engage the biggest fleet the world has ever seen. Admittedly, the spearhead of the force, the battleship Yamato, was one of the largest and most powerful fighting ships ever built. Displacing over 70,000 tons, with a main armament of nine giant 46-centimeter guns sheathed in the heaviest armour ever milled, she seemed unbeatable.

            But ironically, the Japanese themselves had rendered the super battleship obsolete. Their carrier borne attack on Pearl Harbour had destroyed forever the dreadnought’s dominant role in war at sea. Now, most of those taking part in the monster ship’s sortie knew that she was being sacrificed to save the Imperial Navy’s face. The army must not be seen to be fighting alone. The navy must do something, no matter how futile. Better for Yamato to die than to be ignobly surrendered.”

            Masanobu Kobayashi, 19-year-old seaman first class and Yamato’s youngest gunner, had received permission to spend the night ashore with his parents. Kneeling together around the table of an upstairs hotel room, the Kobayashis smiled shyly at their sailor son. Like all civilians at this stage of the war—it was late March, 1945—they looked under nourished and threadbare. The train that had brought them from their farm had stopped and started as sirens warned of approaching American bombers, or as work gangs cleared wreckage from the tracks. So far, few bombs had fallen here in Kure, but everyone was preparing for the air raids that had obliterated other major Japanese cities. Sailors, housewives and school children (classes were now held only two days a week) burrowed into the mountainside north of the harbor to create protective galleries for instrument repair shops, lathes and other semi-portable machines.

            Masanobu was licking his fingers appreciatively. “Delicious cake,” he told his mother. They bowed, smiling at each other. He could not tell his parents the shipboard rumours that the Americans had already occupied some islands off Okinawa.

            “Of course,” said his father, “the tide must turn. Our brave kamikaze pilots are sinking the enemy’s ships and striking terror into their hearts. We shall fight on if a hundred million perish.”

            He was parroting the standard nonsense churned out by the state propaganda machine. But Masanobu saw no reason to disagree with his father. The war situation was so desperate that the Japanese high command, indeed, the entire Japanese nation, was retreating into fantasy. People were hoping for a miracle like the heaven-sent typhoons—the Kamikaze, the Divine Wind—that had saved 13^th century Japan from Mongol invasion.

            Whistles shrilled in the street outside. Shore patrols were recalling men on liberty. “I have to go,” said Masanobu, groping for words of farewell. He might never see his parents again. But the stoic rituals of  Japanese family life preluded any display of feeling. All he could stammer out as he bobbed his way backwards through the door was, “I am proud to serve on Yamato.”

            A giant sets forth

            Like a mountain of grey steel, Yamato headed majestically towards the Inland Sea. Two-hundred-and-sixty-two meters of teak weather deck undulated gracefully aft without a break, sloping down from the bow, rising to a crest beyond B turret—the second of her two monstrous forward casemates with their triple 46-centimeter guns—then falling away towards the stern. Her armoured hull was divided into five decks split into 1,147 water tight compartments so complicated that the ship’s eight deck officers took nearly an hour completing their inspection rounds.

            She was not only one of the world’s largest battleships, she was also beautiful. Her 42-meter-high streamlined bridge tower was free of clutter. Her one monster smokestack raked back 25 degrees. Her upper works bristled with guns ranging from the three giant triple turrets—two forward and one—aft and secondary armament of 16-centimeter guns, down to her amidships concentration of six dual-purpose 13-centimeter turrets and 48 closely-packed tubs of triple anti-aircraft machine-guns.

            “Amidships!”

            Yamato’s commanding officer, Rear-Admiral Kosaku Ariga, was conning the ship himself from his open-air command post.

            “Wheel amidships, sir,” answered a petty officer. Ariga hummed when concentrating. He’d had little experience handling this great beast since assuming command four months before. Some naval ministry officers had questioned the appointment of the 48-year-old destroyer skipper to the super-warship. And indeed, the chunky, hyperactive Ariga lacked the polish so dear to the men in the ministry. He was “more like a stout country farmer than a samurai,” said his subordinates. But Ariga had all the warrior’s courage and plenty of the sailor’s savvy.

            Yamato’s top staff officers crowded into her conference room, staring at the ornate charts littering the central table. At one end stood the Second Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Seiichi Ito, a tall, stooping veteran of 54. Ito had opposed Japan’s war with the United States. The US humiliation at Pearl Harbour had been greeted by temptuous Axis cartoons of Uncle Sam uncorking a giant samurai warrior from a magic bottle.

            But it was the Japanese who had pulled the wrong cork and launched on to the world stage a vengeful, self-righteous super-power. And now the US landings on islands off south-western Okinawa had brought the war to the imperial doorstep, although the Japanese people had not yet been informed.

            Combined Fleet was considering a sortie, Ito told his audience. Yamato and whatever escorts could be scraped together would skirt southern Kyushu, then run for shelter in Sasebo naval base. The Americans would be certain to attack the force, and massed kamikaze squadrons would hit the Yankee carriers as they chased Yamato.

           

            Several officers scowled. Fancy using pride of the fleet as a mere decoy! “I must state in all honesty that I have doubts about this plan,” Ito told his listeners.” Still, if these are the orders, we will naturally do our best.”

            “Hiding!”

            So this is what we’ve come down to, thought Captain Tameichi Hara. The task force assembling round Yamato mustered just ten warships, some showing the wear and tear of over the three years of warfare. Hara’s own ship, the light cruiser Yahagi, was a relative new comer that had been tested in only one battle. The 8,500-ton cruiser had a speed of 35 knots, but how much punishment she could take was a question mark.

            Hard on Yahagi’s bow lay the 22-year-old destroyer Hatsushimo, the last survivor of her class. The slightly larger Kasumi was commissioned in 1939. Beyond her lay three destroyers commissioned a year later: Isokaze, Hamakaze and Yukikaze, which had survived so many battles that her crew believed her unsinkable. Three more destroyers rounded out the force—Asashimo, suffering engine trouble after near-misses at Leyte Gulf; Suzutsuki (another veteran with a survivor’s reputation) and her sister ship Fuyutsuki.

            Captain Hara’s old friend and overall commander of the escort force, Rear-Admiral Keizo Komura, was behind him on Yahagi’s exposed bridge. The overhead canopy “just about kept the rain off,” one officer recalled, but there was no question of conning Yahagi from her armoured wheelhouse. Japanese commanders had scorned protection ever since the legendary Togo’s refusal to take cover at Tsushima 40 years before.

            Komura stared contemptuously around the small anchorage, hedged in by fir-covered hills. “Hiding!” he snorted. Hara agreed. Their scraped-together force was doing just that.

            Masanobu Kobayashi was looking forward to his bath after a spell scrubbing Yamato’s decks. The battleship’s designers had provided a score of nine-meter hot tubs for her crew. Bathers washed themselves clean before sinking into the water and quietly unwinding. It was just like the village bathhouse back home, except that there were no women. Sometimes young seamen tied a towel around their heads, stuck a lump soap in it, and swamp around the bath with only the soap above the surface. They called the game “submarines.”

            Ensign Mitsuo Watanabe went to his radar post inside Number One Bridge. Below Watanabe, antlike figures were swabbing the decks, oiling wire ropes, chipping at the first traces of rust. Gun crews were stripping and cleaning their weapons. They were just as busy down in the depths of the ship checking ammunition hoist and electrical circuits, and in the four main engine-rooms where engineers were at work on Yamato’s great turbines.

            Her main after turret swung ponderously to port, its three huge barrels lifting to maximum elevation. This did not give them much anti-aircraft capability, but a new shell, the San-Shiki, nick named “the Beehive,” now supplemented regular ammunition. Packed with layers of shrapnel pellets, the projectiles exploded at set intervals like the blast of a shotgun

            Bald eagle waits

            USS New Mexico’s  35-centimeter guns in their turrets exploded every three minutes, jolting the elderly battleship’s 32,000-tonne hull. Fountains of earth erupted from Okinawa’s scarred slopes as ship after ship in Rear-Admiral Morton Deyo’s Task Force 54 lent its cover to sweating American foot soldiers ashore some 20 kilometers away. Every battleship in Deyo’s battle line was “old enough  to vote.”

            Lack of speed had disqualified these venerable battlewagons from joining the fast carrier force that now dominated the Pacific war. But amphibious operations gave them a last lease on life as mobile artillery platforms in support of troops ashore.

            The massive assault on Okinawa was America’s penultimate act of retribution against Japan, for Okinawa was one of the last stepping stones to Tokyo. US intelligence analysts believed the Japanese were incapable of recognizing the over-whelming force bearing down on them. The few who claimed to understand Japanese psychology believed the samurai spirit would prevail. There would be a fight to the finish.

            “Bald Eagle” hunched in his chair on the island catwalk of the carrier USS Bunker Hill. The ornithological code name suited Rear-Admiral Marc Mitscher. There was a predatory bird-like look about the commander of Task Force 58, the most powerful carrier fleet the world has ever seen—17 carriers with more than 1,000 aircraft protected by eight fast battleships, 15 cruisers, and over 60 destroyers. Wisps of grey hair protruded from under the peaked cap shielding his beaky nose and watery blue eyes.

            What a glorious way to die!

            Half-way between Tokyo and Yokohama, Combined Fleet Headquarters crowned an inconspicuous knoll on the grounds of Keio University at Hiyoshi. The nerve center of Japan’s entire naval war effort was concealed in a series of underground tunnels cut into the hillside beneath a huddle of  camouflaged buildings.

            A creeping paralysis had overtaken Combined Fleet since the Leyte battle in the Philippines had made it apparent that the navy was no match to the Americans. Japan’s naval commander-in-chief, Admiral Soemu Toyada, appeared to have lost all power of decision.

            But plenty of advice was available to him. One faction argued that the navy should husband its last battle worthy ships for the coming battle for Japan. Such a force, with or without air support—and Japan was now trying to scrape together replacement aircraft from as far a fields as Manchuria and Korea—could not possibly abort the Okinawa landings. Even this latest plan for Yamato to act as a decoy by sortieing around Kyushu was crazy.

            But the wisest kept their counsel. They realized the war was lost, but felt it was too dangerous to say so openly. And the vocal, militant majority believed in action, whatever the odds.

            Captain Shigenori Kami was worse than most. Instead of being given a sea command where his aggressiveness would have found a suitable and probably terminal outlet, Kami was kept desk-bound in Hiyoshi as chief of operations, a post for which he was temperamentally unsuited. The war situation, in his view, called for something akin to the soldiers’s banzai charge, aimed straight at the enemy’s jugular.

            “What would we have done in olden times?” he cried. “We would have risked everything in a do-or-die attack! Evoke the spirit of Togo at Tsushima! Of Yamamoto at Pearl Harbour!”

            Combined Fleet held its daily staff meetings at 9am. On the morning of April 5, 1945, the head of the intelligence section began his meager briefing. American strength on Okinawa was growing steadily. Over 100,000 enemy troops were now ashore….

            It was at this point that Captain Kami sprang to his feet: “Second Fleet, re-designated the Special Attack Force, will participate tomorrow in Operation Ten-ichi [Heaven Number One],” he announced. “Flagship Yamato will sail with cruiser Yahagi and eight destroyers on April 6 to attack the Americans off Okinawa. After inflicting maximum punishment on the enemy, Yamato will be beached. Surplus crew members will go ashore to reinforce the Okinawa garrison.”

            Astounded staff officers glanced at Tayoda for confirmation. Chin cupped in his hands, the admiral gravely nodded. A horrified supply officer spoke up. He doubted whether Japan had sufficient oil reserves to fuel the attack force without cutting down elsewhere. But Kami brushed his objection aside: “This is a Tokko (suicide) operation. Fuel supplies will be enough for one way only.”

            So that was it. Yamato and her escorts were doomed to a kamikaze death. It had all been decided that night. Kami and Toyoda had sat talking and drinking for hours in the privacy of the admiral’s office. No record was kept of their conversation. But Tayoda’s subsequent justification was that there seemed an even chance of the Yamato task force surviving the dash to Okinawa. Then they need only burst in on the moored enemy transports and disrupt all landing operations, providing the Okinawa garrison with the ideal opportunity to hurl the invaders back into the sea.

            Operation heaven number one

             The signal was stamped “ TOP SECRET.” Vice-Admiral Seiichi Ito read it twice. “Ask Morishita-san to report to me,” he said.

            The Chief of Staff, Second Fleet, tall, chain-smoking Rear-Admiral Nobuei Morishita, was one of the brilliant few who defied Japanese naval orthodoxy. Clattering down a series of steel ladders, he entered Ito’s cabin and came respectfully to attention.

            Ito mentioned him to a chair and handed him the signal. Ariga arrived while Morishita was still reading. The signal was from Toyoda at Combined Fleet Head quarters:

            OPERATION TEN-ICHI WILL NOW COMMENCE. SECOND FLEET WILL FORM THE FIRST SPECIAL ATTACK FORCE, FLAGSHIP YAMATO, WITH ALL AVAILABLE ESCORTS. THE FORCE WILL SORTIE FROM THE INLAND SEA AT 1500 APRIL 6, AND ATTACK ENEMY INVASION FLEET AT OKINAWA BEFORE DAWN, APRIL 8. FUEL IS AVAILABLE ONLY FOR ONE-WAY PASSAGE. THIS IS A TOKKO OPERATION.

            Ariga sat back, humming to himself. Morishita looked as if he would explode. “Not much in the way of instructions,” he growled. And indeed, when more detailed orders came through, Operation Heaven Number One proved to be less an attack plan than a pyramid of crude assumptions.

            The fleet gunnery officer, Commander Takao Miyamoto, felt it was right that Yamato should go down fighting. But Hara’s friend Rear-Admiral Keizo Komura, overall commander of the destroyer escort, thought that Combined Fleet were out of their minds. Was the attack force really supposed to attack the Americans, was it just a decoy, or was it a bit of both? His face like thunder, Komura requested permission to consult his destroyer commanders.

            Aboard Yahagi, Komura came straight to the point. “This is not even a kamikaze mission,” he told the assembled skippers, “for that implies the chance of striking a worthy target. I am not concerned with my own death, but I shrink from throwing my men to theirs.”

            It was an unprecedented situation. Orders were not questioned in the Japanese navy. Still, Komura had prompted a debate. Now he got one. Every officer present had fought continuously for nearly three and a half years. Now they all voiced agreement over Combined Fleet’s growing irrationality and Japan’s 11^th hour faith in the kamikaze as the “decisive” weapon. To throw away scarce planes and pilots was idiotic enough. To expend the few remaining warships with their seasoned crews was criminal. Better, argued Hara, to head out into the Pacific and attack the enemy’s vulnerable lines of communication.

            But when Komura went back to Yamato to put the destroyer men’s case he was politely overruled. He returned wearily to announced that the mission would go ahead as scheduled. As Hara recalled: “Komura bent his head as if apologizing. I decided to face the reality of this most unreal situation: ‘We appreciate your stand on our behalf, Admiral,’ I said. ‘But we must now make the most of the situation.’”

            Combined Fleet’s “Heaven Number One” signal also electrified US code-breakers in Hawaii. A top-priority signal went out warning that “ the Japs are planning a breakout.”

            Aerial reconnaissance had already revealed that a big enemy battleship was anchored in the Inland Sea. A ship of this size would not try to transit the shallow, heavily-mined Shimonoseki Strait. The sortie would come through the deeper, wider Bungo Strait between Kyusha and Shikoku. Patrolling submarines were instantly alerted.

            Yamato buzzed with rumours. Seeing the flags signaling Operation Heaven Number One, the older hands nodded knowingly. Whenever the top brass mentioned heaven these days, a lot of sailors died.

            Yamato’s executive officer, Captain Jiro Nomura, ordered all hands mustered. Soon the vast foredeck was carpeted with ranks of green uniforms stretching to the bow. Admiral Ariga outlined the operation. A great cheer rose into the blood-red sunset. Tears came into Nomura’s eyes as he watched the sea of upturned heads, each haloed in the dying sun. most of these men’s homelands had been bombed to ashes. Nomura stepped up beside Ariga:

            “Let Yamato strike the enemy like a kamikaze!” he shouted.

            Another great roar, and three banzais for the emperor, before the men doubled away in a hum of animated chatter in defiance of calls for silence. Down in the junior wardroom the younger officers were not optimistic. “What’s the bet we don’t make it half-way?” one junior asked.

            A steward served Scotch, part of the vast liquor loot from Singapore captured more than three years before. As the bottles circulated the sailors laughingly drank to each other’s deaths: “Meet you at Minatogawa!” That was the site in Kobe of heroic Masashige Kusunoki ’s shrine. Their spirits would meet there after they had left this world.

            “Shichisho Hokoku! If only I had seven lives to give for the emperor!”

            Scraping the barrel

            Yamato’s impending sortie was the least of Spruance’s worries. The real threat was the kamikaze. Aerial photographs revealed a build-up of some 750 aircraft at 50 odd cleverly concealed fields on Kyushu. Thus, the Fifth Fleet Commander’s morning conference aboard New Mexico on April 6 emphasized that the long-awaited suicide blitz was imminent.

            The watery sunlight was beginning to wane when crackling head-sets warned that the combat air patrol was locked in a deadly battle somewhere north of Okinawa. Tired gun crews braced themselves for action. Soon the first of Kyushu’s 24-group attack force was bearing down on the Okinawa landing beaches. But ignoring their  explicit instructions to seek out major targets such as battleships and aircraft carriers, the inexperienced Japanese fliers seemed determined to expend themselves on minor vessels. Ten of Spruance’s battleships circled offshore, offering a target no enemy pilot should have been able to resist. In attack after attack, the kamikaze pilots damaged 22 ships, but they succeeded in sinking only four.

            By nightfall the Divine Wind had died of zephyr. That morning, some 372 army and navy kamikaze planes had taken off from Kyushu. Forty-one escorts, 17 bombers and a small handful of kamikaze returned.

            Radio Tokyo hailed the attack as “a blow from which the enemy will never recover,” claiming that two American battleships  and 57 smaller vessels had been sunk. In fact, Japan’s costliest-ever assault had failed to hit one major target.

            A 2 am phone call from Combined Fleet roused the drowsy duty officer at Tokuyama Oil Depot. Tokuyama, Japan’s largest navy oil storage facility, was advised that Yamato and the “Special Attack Force” would soon be arriving and should be given only enough fuel to take them to Okinawa.

            The bleary, unshaven staff at Tokuyama didn’t like it. The huge oil tanks in this closely guarded anchorage contained a mere 15,000 tonnes. The American invasion fleet off Okinawa consumed more than that every 24 hours. Yet Tokyo’s desk-bound admirals were ready to waste precious oil and ships on a no-hope operation to relieve Okinawa. Well, Tokuyama would see that the ships were given a fighting chance. They would tap the  “ secret reserves”: even the empty fuel tanks held a residue of about 200 tonnes beyond the reach of regulation pumps, but men could climb down inside and extract the last drops by hand. It might produce enough to sidestep Combined Fleet’s instructions.

            It did more than that. Tokuyama had been directed to provide only 2,000 tonnes to the entire force—allowing a margin for oil-guzzling high-speed maneuvers, but not enough for the return home. Tokuyama defiantly provided nearly 8,000 tonnes.

            Yamato’s Nomura was in on the secret, willingly signing a false requisition form to keep the Tokyo bureaucrats happy. Meanwhile, his secretary kept glancing at his watch. The mail boat was leaving at 10am. Nomura broadcast the word.

            Heading his camera-equipped B-29 eastwards from Kure, Captain Frank Scheibe had spotted the Yamato attack force. “Excellent coverage,” his commander commented when Scheibe returned to base. The avenging angel was about to swoop. The floating chrysanthemum was about to be torn apart petal by petal….

            Night dash

            Submerged off the east Kyushu coast, USS submarine Threadfin had received the signal warning of Yamato’s sortie. But all US boats lurking in the area were under orders to delay attacking until they got Hawaii’s permission to do so. The brass feared a premature attack might lead to submarines being sunk before the crucial sighting report could be coded and dispatched to Hawaii. Threadfin’s skipper kept his eye on the pale green scope of the sub’s plan position indicator, which provided a moving radar map for kilometers around. At 7.30pm he saw four pips break free of the land clutter of Fukashima island; two minutes later they became two large ships and at least four small ones.

            As the nearest ship, a destroyer, closed to just under six kilometers, the forward torpedo tubes were cleared for action. Threadfin’s skipper cursed his orders. The contact report to Hawaii was taking forever. As Threadfin’s blaspheming operator tapped out his sighting report, her skipper helplessly watched the Japanese destroyer screen pass by. One of the ships they were escorting left such a big blip on the radar it could have been a carrier. As Threadfin’s skipper ruefully reported, the sub’s “chance for the hall of fame had passed.”

            Masanobu Kobayashi drowned off to the throbbing of the engines, wondering how he would acquit himself on the morrow. Mitsuru Yoshida made his way to the radar cabin. Out on the upper deck he paused to adjust his vision. Objects grew slowly visible: the long undulating deck, upper works piled high above him like children’s bricks. On both sides were the dim shapes and white bow waves of the escorting destroyers. Yamato’s hull shuddered: a cold wind whistled through halyards and antennas.

            As the first watery streaks of dawn combed low-lying clouds, Ariga’s steward brought tea, hot water, razor, soap and a hand towel. The admiral completed his toilet, humming absently and gazing aft to the misty mountains of Japan.

            The ship’s loudspeakers crackled to life. It was executive officer Nomura. Combined Fleet had advised that yesterday’s kamikaze attacks had knocked out at least four American carriers. The attack force could therefore expect considerably less air opposition.

            The junior engineers jeered even louder at Koyama. They were just finishing a breakfast of rice and pickles when the bugler sounded general stations. Enemy aircraft were circling overhead.

            When Threadfin’s sighting report reached him, Spruance ordered Rear-Admiral Deyo, who was commanding Task Force 54’s venerable battleships, to deal with the enemy attack force. Perhaps the traditional sailor in Spruance sensed the chance to stage history’s last big-ship encounter. Battleships had seldom squared off during this war in which naval air power had become clincher. Here was the chance of putting decades of naval theory to the glorious, gun blasting test!

            But Mitscher’s carrier were already speeding north to meet Yamato. Bald Eagle was determined to prove what he had been saying all his life—that air power outclassed the battleship. Three of his four task groups would be available for the fight—12 carriers and 986 planes, quite sufficient to blitz the Japanese without reducing the air umbrella over Okinawa. But first he needed an accurate assessment of Japanese intentions.

            “Yamato will probably go to the west of the Okinawa chain,” his senior intelligence man concluded. “She’ll try to make her final run in the dark to hit Okinawa around dawn. But first she’ll probably feint eastward to fool our scout planes.”

            “You take them!”

            At dawn on April 7 three divisions of reconnaissance planes took off through rain and cloud to search a fan-shaped quadrant stretching far out on either side of Kyushu into the Pacific and the China Sea. At 8.06am came the first sighting report—a misleading one. The searchers had caught the Japanese force on a northerly zig-zag. Could they be heading for Sasebo and home? A tense hum filled Bunker Hill’s crowded flag plot. Then, at 8.22, came a much needed correction. No doubt about it now: destination Okinawa.

            It would be an hour and a half before Task Force 58 closed the range sufficiently to launch attacks. Mitscher mulled it over, then turned to his chief of staff, Captain Arleigh Burke: “Order a full strike for 10am,” he said.

            Controlled chaos exploded across carriers decks as fighters, dive bombers, torpedo bombers—more planes than the Japanese had used Pearl Harbour—hurtled into the sky. In all, 132 fighters, 50 bombers and 98 torpedo bombers headed north-east. A further 106 planes followed at 10.45. Then Mitscher turned to Burke:

            “Inform Admiral Spruance that I propose to strike the Yamato sortie group.” Burke sent the message in simpler terms: “Will you take them or shall I?”

            Spruance had attached his own flagship to Deyo’s battle line in order to join the surface firefight he had been looking forward to. There was still a chance that Japanese luck or American miscalculation could carry the enemy through Mitscher’s aerial ambush. Deyo’s elderly battlewagons might yet be needed to bar Yamato’s approach. But there was no question of holding Old Baldy back. Spruance answered Mitscher with one of the shortest operational orders in naval history: “YOU TAKE THEM!”

            First exchanges

            To the big, four-engine Martin Mariner flying boats ducking in and out of the clouds, the Japanese ships looked like little grey models cutting milk-white scars across a lead-topped table. A puff of smoke appeared at Yamato’s main after turret. A great black blob burst beyond one of the two patrol planes, jolting it but causing no damage.

            Aboard Yahagi, Hara’s heart sank. This weather was a disaster. The sharp silver light distorted distances, and the rain squalls were not heavy enough to conceal them from the air. Yahagi zigzagged along in the van, the destroyers crisscrossing astern. Yahagi’s double anti-aircraft turrets and clumps of 25-mm machine-guns swung towards the patrolling enemy planes. The cruiser fairly bristled with firepower, and her crew was eager to use it. But not yer…no sense in wasting ammunition until the enemy came closer.

            Something was wrong with Asashimo: her stubby stacks were spouting gouts of olive-green smoke. Slowly the destroyer fell astern, signaling “AM EXPERIENCING ENGINE TROUBLE.” Hara’s uneasiness increased. He had felt safer with that trusted veteran on his port quarter.

            But aboard Yamato, optimism was growing. Yesterday’s kamikaze strikes must indeed have crippled the Yankee carriers. The Americans were sending out search planes, of course, but could they muster enough air power for a heavy air strike?

            It was an ideal opportunity to try out the new San-Shiki shells. The main after turret fired a massive salvo at the ghostly shapes in the clouds, briefly covering everything abaft the smokestack in clouds of  exploded cordite. “That scared them, “ Ariga chuckled, as the enemy dodged back into the clouds.

            Then the main radar picked up 250 aircraft to the south-west. A small black cloud burst like a swarm of bees through the overcast and began circling to port. Ariga’s voice boomed over the intercom: “Stand by to repel air attacks!”

            First blood

            As task group 58.1’s host of dark-blue aircraft circled counter-clockwise above the enemy force, the air group’s leader, Commander Edmond Konrad of Hornet, sized up the situation. The Japanese had begun independent evasive action, drawing great S-shaped wakes across the waveless water. The lead cruiser, Yahagi, had suddenly shot ahead of the force. Nineteen kilometers to the north lay a lone destroyer, the crippled Asashimo. There was nothing to indicate to the Americans that she had engine trouble. Four destroyers were dancing about Yamato’s beam. Three others were chasing Yahagi.

            If Konrad had any say in the matter, his pilots were not all going to make a beeline for their major target, Yamato. Those escorts were going to the bottom too. Konrad snapped out orders. The fighters would strafe the destroyers while Helldiver dive bombers and Avenger torpedo bombers dealt with Yamato and Yahagi. The attack plan had been refined through three years of Pacific warfare. Dive bombers would swoop with heavy bombs. While the enemy was fighting them off, the torpedo carrying Avengers would begin their hazardous sea-level run, holding course long enough to launch their fish from about 1,200 meters. The idea was to drop a torpedo spread that no maneuvering could possibly evade. Konrad called up Bennington’s Helldivers:

            “Take the big boy,” he said.

            At almost the same moment the follow-up kamikaze wave hit Task Force 58. Most of the raw young Japanese fliers were shot down without ever seeing a target. But one Zero pilot, handling his plane like a veteran, swung expertly across Hancock’s bow and made the carrier his funeral pyre. His 235 bomb exploded in the port hangar, and his Zero cart-wheeled into a group of parked aircraft, which went up in a sea of blazing petrol. For a time Hancock was in deadly danger: earlier in the war a hit like this could have destroyed her. But by 12.50pm the flames were under control. Her frustrated flight group got back at 4.30pm. They had flown to within 112 kilometers of the Kyushu coast without sighting the enemy. It simply wasn’t Hancock’s day.

            Bennington’s Lieutenant-Commander Hugh Wood led four Helldivers into shallow dives from above Yamato’s stern. The great ship heeled to port, her bow scything a semi-circular wave, red flashes winking from her amidships gun clusters. Hits severed two of Wood’s oil lines and damaged his port dive flap. But he held course for the battleship’s stern and hauled away the length of her hull before limping home leaking oil. Looking back, he saw smoke shoot up abaft Yamato’s smokestack.

            Three more of his planes were hit, one exploding in the sea. But the group’s bombs churned up huge puddles around Yamato, and two exploded on the enormous hull. Meanwhile, Bennington fighters followed Konrad’s orders to smother the flak from the elusive Japanese destroyers. One was quickly ablaze. A second exploded soon afterwards.

            But Konrad felt that the results of this initial attack were disappointing. There was no slackening in the Japanese barrage. Hornet’s Helldivers were raked by accurate fire, four of them ending as write-offs, and one crash landing in the sea. In the meantime, though, Bennington’s remaining dive bombers spread destruction through the rest of the Japanese force, claiming three hits on Yahagi and one each on four destroyers.

            Hellcats from the light carrier San Jacinto had already made short work of Asashimo. Helpless Asashimo might be, but her gunners put up a spirited defence. The fighters came down to deck level to strafe them, crossing athwartships, fishtailing to pump in the shells. Still Asashimo fought back.

            Two or three more runs and her deck began burning. Her guns were silenced. Then eight Avengers launched an inescapable torpedo spread.

            Crawling to starboard in a feeble attempt to comb the wakes, the destroyer dodged two of the fish; others passed harmlessly astern. But two struck home, the explosions lifting Asashimo’s bow high in the air. She slid below the surface, until a tremendous under water explosion blew her back up again, leaving a mess of wreckage and a handful of survivors. Asashimo had been destroyed in less than three minutes.

            Torpedoes for  Yamato

            Vice-Admiral. Ito found Ariga in Yamato’s command post studying the approaching planes through binoculars. “Torpedo bombers,” he was saying, “fighters, dive bombers…Those bastards have everything!”

            Trying to draw the attackers off Yamato, Yahagi surged away from the flagship at over 35 knots. As two Helldivers screamed down on her port beam, Hara flung her hard to starboard. Geysers of dirty water crashed over the upper deck from near misses. Hellcat fighters followed, almost at deck level, dropping more bombs. Machinegun bullets ripped through Yamagi’s exposed upper works.

            Hara steered towards the respite of a rain squall 800 meters ahead, but fighters closed in at masthead height and the cruiser barely dodged a clutch of bombs. Then four Avengers launched a spread off Yahagi’s beam. Too late, Hara swung her round to face the oncoming wakes. Half-way through her turn, a torpedo caught her amidships below the waterline. Then there was silence. Yahagi wallowed stricken in the gentle swell, engines dead, electric power gone, and a lengthening oil slick spreading astern. Hara watched helplessly as three more Avengers roared in. the cruiser’s fantail flipped out of the sea, rudders and propellers almost certainly sheared off. Hara looked disbelievingly at his watch. They had been in action for precisely 12 minutes.

            Yamato was taking even more punishment. But she was built for it. The first Helldiver wave had scored at least two hits with 453 kilo bombs. One exploded two decks below, wiping out every member of the after port damage-control team. Another hit the main radar room. Yoshida was ordered to investigate.

            Creeping aft through swirling smoke in the crouching posture men adopt in the hope of offering a minimum target, Yoshida did not see how anyone could survive on open decks. Enemy machine-gunfire threw men around like paper dolls. The radar room was split right open. Lumps of bloody flesh lay among the shattered instruments. Yoshida ran back along the deck, slipping in pools of congealing blood. A bomb blast slammed him against the bridge ladder. Dazedly he climbed it, repeating aloud his report on the radar room: “All personnel killed! Equipment completely destroyed!’

            Ito stood rocklike on the bridge, giving no further orders. Every ship had to fend for herself. Suddenly Morishita let out a croaking cry. He was staring aghast to starboard, pointing a nicotine stained finger at Hamakaze. Explosions were erupting from the veteran destroyer. Her bow and stern snapped out of the water. Then she was gone.

            Nomura crouched over the damaged control panel. Through a doorway in the armoured command post, old Koyama spun the small brass steering wheel as fast as his hands could flick the spokes. A petty officer staggered in to tell Nomura that Number Seven damage-control team were all dead. Nomura wanted to run out on deck to see things for himself. Thus far they had only been bombed. Where were the enemy torpedoes?

            The crash flung him across the room. Yamato’s great bulk seemed to rear from the water, shuddering in agony. Nomura’s unspoken question was answered. Torpedoes had struck home.

            Beginning of the end

            Ariga did his best. The snobs in Tokyo who had wondered whether this pot-bellied little bulldog of a destroyer skipper could handle the super-battleship should have seen him. He had skillfully eluded most of the falling bombs. But while Ariga concentrated on dodging the Helldivers, torpedo bombers had crept in low on his port beam.

            Yamato’s guns pumped shells into the sea to whip up a curtain of fragments and fountaining water as the menacing line approached. But the Avengers held course at 150 meters. One staggered out of formation and exploded in the sea. The others dropped their fish and broke off in all directions.

            Yamato’s only hope was to comb the bubbling wakes by swinging directly at the oncoming torpedoes and steering between them. But a group of torpedoes should, ideally, be fired to catch the target whichever way it turned. And that was what happened. One line of bubbles missed Yamato’s fast-swinging bow. Another passed the stern. A third exploded abaft the bridge, and a forth penetrated the hull alongside the outer port fire room.

            Nomura picked himself up. The engineers reported minor water seepage, but there was no list, and speed remained unchecked. Then more Helldivers screamed in on Yamato from astern. A solitary Avenger came into Kobayashi’s sights. “Keep firing!” he screamed behind his smoking-hot triple barrels. The aircraft staggered upwards as tracer bullets ripped into its pale belly. Then it crashed into the sea, while three yellow parachutes drifted down.

            Men aboard the destroyer Fuyutsuki, gallantly holding station to starboard, were convinced that Yamato was gone. She reappeared majestically from a forest of splashes, guns blazing, but with several more bomb craters on her upper deck. One bomb had exploded in the senior wardroom, which was being used as an emergency dressing room. The messenger was still vomiting when he reported to Nomura.

            The telephones went dead as two more torpedoes slammed into the port side. Nomura activated the valves to correct a developing port list, pumping 8,355 liters of sea water into the empty blisters on Yamato’s starboard side. The ship slowed perceptibly, but gradually righted herself.

            The attacks ceased. Yamato was damaged, but by no means crippled. Ariga grimly ordered his signal yeoman to hoist the Z flag—the historic Nelsonian signal Togo had flown as he closed the Tsarist battle line at Tsushima:

            ON THIS ONE BATTLE RESTS THE FATE OF OUR NATION. LET EVERY MAN DO HIS UTMOST.

            “We’re still afloat and still fighting,” Ariga said. “Now we’ve got a pause for breath.”

            It was 12.59pm. the pause would last less than five minutes.

            Onslaught renewed

            Konrad had handed over control in the air to Commander Harmon Utter of Task Group 58.3 “Bomber pilots pushed over in all sorts of crazy dives,” one of Utter’s lieutenants recalled. “Torpedo pilots delivered their parcels so near the ships that many planes missed the superstructures by centimeters.”

            Yamato sprawled out below the dive bombers, guns spitting, smoke drifting from her hull. Four pilots claimed hits from forecastle to quarterdeck. Seconds later, another torpedo struck Yamato’s starboard bow. Waves of Avengers followed at 15-second intervals as the super-battleship continued a slow wide turn, presenting an increasingly tempting expanse of port side. They claimed a total—probably exaggerated—of eight hits.

            By now Yahagi’s superstructure was a smoking ruin. A near miss lifted her stern clear of the water. It splashed back with shocking force. Only two torpedoes hit Yamato during this attack—a tribute to the efficacy of her anti-aircraft fire. But as he unleashed the 19-strong attack force from the light carrier Cabot to strike the last blow for group 58.3, Utter knew that Yamato was doomed.

            The battleship had slowed, listing slightly to port, as the Avengers came in on her port beam. They claimed four hits, but it is possible that two torpedoes struck Yamato simultaneously.

            The time was 1.30pm. The softening-up process was over. Sixty planes were racing in for the kill.

            Third and last wave

            Bullets had ripped the great silk battle ensign flying from Yamato’s main, but like the ship herself, the flag remained remarkably intact. Yamato still possessed massive firepower, her list was corrected and there had been little loss of speed.

            Humming absently, Ariga bustled about his exposed cockpit.

            The brief lull had almost convinced the Japanese that the Yankees had shot their bolt after two days of pounding by the kamikaze. In a few more hours darkness would cloak the force. Nothing could then avert the surface battle for which Yamato was built.

            Nomura fumed over his useless phones. A messenger ran in to pant that only a few engineers had reached safety from the flooded Number Eight outer post fire room. Nomura ordered another 7,570 liters of seawater pumped into the starboard blisters to correct the reviving list. But any further torpedo hits to port would seriously endanger Yamato’s stability, and soon no amount of pumping would compensate. Nomura begged Ariga to hold the ship in a tight starboard turn to keep her damaged port side high out of the water.

            “Here they come again!” yelled the petty officer in charge of Kobayashi’s gun crew. Kobayashi got in one good burst, seeing a fleeting glimpse of the enemy gunner, lips drawn back in a snarl as he poured tracers into Kobayashi’s open gun tub. His friend Karuma, loading at his elbow, had his right thigh shattered by a bullet. An artery must have been severed: he was rapidly bleeding to death.

             Kobayashi rigged a rough tourniquet and hauled his friend to the crowded casualty station amidships. After the briefest of glances at Karuma, the senior medic glared at Kobayashi.

            “Get back to your gun, sailor,” he said. “This man’s dead. Drop him out there.” He nodded towards the great hot-water pool where Kobayashi and other young gunners had once played “submarines.” Now it was choked with jostling corpses suspended in a steaming bath of blood.

            The gunners in the main turrets had set their San-shiki shells to burst on one-second fused, and a fresh curtain of exploding water leapt up ahead of the enemy. But the Avengers pressed their attack with remorseless professionalism as Yamato maintained her stately starboard turn.

            Nomura noted three, possibly four, hits to port and one to starboard. Speed dropped to 18 knots, and Ariga clung to a stanchion as the deck canted sharply. The big guns stopped firing. The port side radio fell silent. Some men began escaping through an air vent from the fast-filling auxiliary steering compartment. Others stayed put, quietly smoking and drinking.

            A messenger clattered down the ladder to where Katono sat entombed in ghostly isolation. “We’re flooding heavily topside,” he said. “Seventh damage control is to flood all starboard compartments.”

            Katono led the way three decks below into the bilges. He opened a manhole and sent three men down to the sea cocks. He waited five, ten minutes. A torpedo hit boomed like a temple gong. Katono called his men back. Water flooded round his feet, but he went on calling until a petty officer hauled him clear and slammed the manhole cover.

            Morishita dashed to the starboard rail. “This way, little fish!” he yelled. “This way!”

            Chuckling, he slapped Ariga on the shoulder as the torpedo struck amidships. It was a costly way of correcting the list, but Yamato righted herself to a bearable five degrees to port.

            A tremendous explosion flung Yahagi’s stern out of the water. Another torpedo hit the starboard bow. Her upper works seemed to have been hit repeatedly with a giant battle-axe. Yahagi was falling to pieces. Isokaze was racing in to close with the cruiser when more aircraft dived out of the clouds. Engines roaring frantically, the destroyer tried to evade, but repeated explosions wracked her hull and clouds of black smoke hid her from view.

            Rear-Admiral Komura gripped Hara’s arm and pointed. A wave of well over a hundred planes was coming in from the east.

            The death

            The Japanese still packed a punch: a shell from fatally damaged Isokaze killed a Helldiver pilot. But this final attack was more than Yahagi could bear. Komura took a last look at the cruiser’s floundering deck. “Well, Hara,” he asked calmly, “shall we go?”

            Mumbling apologies, Hara bowed and gave the order to abandon ship. It was 2.05pm. waves were lapping the steel deck of the command post as the two friends removed their shoes. Enemy planes racked the submerging decks. A strafing burst cut a lifeboat in two, killing 13 men. Hara had swum five meters when the sinking Yahagi dragged him down. Then he burst back to the surface. When his eyes cleared he saw black heads around him.  A black-faced man shouted, “Hara! Are you all right?” It was Komura, afloat in a sea of oil.

            There had been a long pause before the Americans renewed the attack—or so it seemed to the men on Yamato. Watanabe readied the code books for destruction. Yoshida ate a packet of hard biscuits. Morishita ran up and down, checking instruments and chaffing sailors.

            Ariga was humming quietly when the dive bombers pounced again. Soon Yamato was heeling once more, with 20 degrees of port list. The starboard stabilizing blisters were now too far out of the water for Nomura’s pumps to flood them completely.

            In a choking voice Ariga ordered the starboard outer engine-room flooded. That would help correct the list—but what about the 300 engineers below? Some survivors believe there was no time to get them clear before the water rushed in. Nomura insists that they were given time to escape. The only certain fact is that the engine rooms were flooded and the list partly checked, though speed dropped to a shaky eight knots under the power of Yamato’s last operational propeller.

            Then a random torpedo shot hit her stern. Her rudder jammed hard left, her turrets jammed, and Yamato spun helplessly counter-clockwise, her port side awash, her bridge tower teetering over towards the waves. Ito drew himself slowly to his feet, one white gloved hand gripping the binocular stand for support. Gravely he saluted his staff.

            “Save yourselves,” he told them. “I shall stay with the ship.” He made his way to his sea cabin and locked the door.

            Nomura found Ariga staring at the sea and smoking a cigarette.

            “It is no longer possible to correct the list,” panted the executive officer. Ariga did not seem to hear him.

            “The ship is sinking, sir!” Nomura shouted.

            Ariga nodded vaguely, his eyes full of tears.

            “Please, sir! Give permission to abandon ship!”

            “Very well,” Ariga said at last. “And see you go too, Nomura. Someone has to survive to tell our story.”

            To the bottom

            Nomura instantly ordered all hands up on deck. But more than a thousand men below had no chance of escape. And all over Yamato men refused to desert their posts, drowning in place instead.

            In the command post, old Koyama stood gripping the steering wheel. “Helm is not answering,” he kept repeating. Then his voice pipe fell suddenly silent. Quartermaster Koyama had drowned at his post.

            Some officers started tying themselves to fixtures. Morishita rushed among them flailing with his fists. “Save yourselves!” he shouted. “Get out!” He found Watanabe roping himself to the chartroom table and punched him behind the ear. “Out! Out!” he yelled. Yoshida also fled before the raging rear-admiral.

            Six Yorktown Avengers flew in low towards Yamato. The battleship was still circling helplessly to port, her red-leaded starboard underbelly high above the waterline. At least four torpedo wakes streaked towards the battleship. Several struck home, smashing into the exposed underbelly below the armour belt.

            “Long live the emperor!” cried Ariga. It was a tradition in the Imperial Navy for a commander to go down with his ship. Apologists claimed that they were following Royal Navy practice. But British tradition demanded only that a skipper be the last to leave his vessel. More likely Ariga was following an ancient Japanese tradition that compelled a commanding officer to atone for the loss of his ship.

            Emerging on deck, ensign Katono couldn’t believe his eyes. Their proud ship was sinking fast. An unseen loudspeaker monotonously squawked: “All hands abandon ship. This is an order…” Then it fell silent. The whole world seemed to hold its breath as Yamato’s bridge tower tilted towards the sea like a mountain falling in slow motion. Soon it was almost level with the waves. Dozens of men already in the water were sucked into the huge smokestack.

            Some, like Kobayashi, postponed their swim. Soon the young gunner was scrambling up the canting deck like a goat. A great rumbling from deep within the hold told of bursting bulkheads and heavy fittings tearing adrift. Kobayashi dragged himself up the starboard side as Yamato slowly capsized. He crawled as far as the starboard bilge keel and stared across the upturned red bottom of the ship, heavy with marine growth, swarming with survivors. One of Yamato’s four huge bronze propellers came into view, still slowly revolving. A half-naked officer with a white sweatband screamed “Banzai!” and waved his sword in impotent defiance at the circling aircraft.

            Kobayashi fished the last scrap of combat ration from his pocket—a single biscuit. There was also a crumpled cigarette stamped with the imperial crest. He munched and smoked as a light drizzle curtained the area.

            A tremendous explosion flung him way out into the sea. Underwater explosions killed dozens of men, many of them floating back to the surface, entrails curling from burst stomachs, blood pouring from noses and ears. Executive officer Nomura, found floating in a coma, would suffer for years from internal injuries. Eyes smarting, lungs bursting. Ensign Yoshida kicked his way towards the surface. Around him were groups of swimmers, floating corpses, charred debris—all that was left of one of the world’s biggest battleships after 102 minutes of hopeless combat. As Yamato exploded a huge cloud rose hundreds of meters, clearly visible nearly 160 kilometers away on Kyushu.

            Epilogue

            The surviving Japanese destroyers drifted in the swell, their stunned crews conferring in hushed tones. The senior officer afloat, Fuyutsuki’s Captain Masayoshi Yoshida, sent a signal to headquarters:

            YAMATO YAHAGI HAMAKAZE SUNK. ASASHIMO AND SUZUTSUKI MISSING. ISOKAZE AND KASUMI SEVERELY DAMAGED. ALL OTHER UNITS OPERATIONAL. SUGGEST RESCUE OF SURVIVORS AND CONTINUATION OF MISSION.

            While they waited for a reply the escorts hauled out survivors. They included Yahagi’s captain Hara, Rear-Admiral Komura, Morishita, Nomura, Kobayashi, Katono, Watanabe and Ensign Yoshida. At 4.55pm Fuyutsuki torpedoed the crippled Kasumi and Yukikaze scuttled Isokaze. At final count 269 officers and men were saved from Yamato. Her dead numbered 3,063, including fleet commander Ito and commanding officer Ariga. In the escort force, 1,187 lost their lives.

            American losses were 10 planes and 12 men.

            At 1.23am on April 8 Combined Fleet ordered them to break off the search and head for home. Soon the survivors straggled into Sasebo, Fuyutsuki docking at 8.45am, Hatsushimo and Yukikaze just over an hour later. At 2.30pm the indestructible Suzutsuki, six meters of her bow blown off, eased her way stern first into the bay, still under her own power, still ablaze. Operation Heaven Number One was over.

“Age—Appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read”                                                                                                                                                            Francis Bacon