Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ever placed on a warship. The
Yamato
had an extraordinary length of 863 feet (263 meters),
a beam of 128 feet (39 meters) and a draft of 36 feet (11 meters). Originally intended to be
a group of five such ships, these two were the only ones to be built. Neither survived World
War II.
The Glasses' rocks, a twin set of natural arches.
Although the
Yamato
saw action in 1944 at the Battle of the Philippine Sea and was dam-
aged in the Japanese naval disaster of Leyte Gulf, by this stage of World War II the Empire
of Japan was all but vanquished and near desperation. In April of 1945, in what was planned
to be a final “special attack” (
特攻
; tokkō; lit. “suicide”), a euphemism for a suicide mission,
the
Yamato
, along with nine other battleships, was ordered to sail to Okinawa and once there
to beach itself and thereby implant its armory to defend the island. The mission was code-
named Operation “Ten-go” (
天號作戰
or
天号作戦
; Kyūjitai or Shin-jitai) and is usually re-
ferred to as “Ten-gō Sakusen.” Once the ship had exhausted its munitions, or was destroyed,
the crew was to join the island's defenders.
