Yamato was a famous Japanese battleship that participated in several battles during World War II (1939-1945). It was the first of Japan’s “Yamato class” battleships—the biggest battleships ever built. Yamato measured nearly 840 feet (263 meters) long and about 121 feet (37 meters) high. It was launched in 1940 and commissioned (put into service) on Dec. 16, 1941. From February 1942 to February 1943, it served as the flagship (command ship) of Isoroku Yamamoto , a famous Japanese admiral.
In December 1943, a United States Navy submarine torpedoed Yamato, but the ship was repaired. Yamato returned to fight in the 1944 battles in the Philippine Sea and at Leyte Gulf . The ship was again damaged and repaired.
In April 1945, Yamato and nine other Japanese ships were sent on a mission to destroy U.S. naval forces supporting the Allied invasion of Okinawa . The effort was regarded as a “suicide mission” for the ships—that is, a mission with little chance for survival. The ships had no aircraft protection and carried only enough fuel to reach the U.S. fleet. On April 7, while still about 200 miles (322 kilometers) north of Okinawa, a massive force of U.S. planes attacked the Japanese ships. Yamato and five other ships were sunk. Just 269 out of about 3,000 crew members aboard Yamato survived.
Yamato was an ancient name for Japan. The ship has come to symbolize Japan’s rise and fall during the years surrounding World War II. In 1968, the Battleship Yamato Memorial Tower opened on Tokunoshima, an island in southwestern Japan. Deep sea expeditions located and photographed the ship’s remains in 1985 and again in 1999.
