Battleship Film Revives Japan's Pride In Wartime Generation

The telegraph (UK) ^ | 11-28-2005

[blam]

Battleship film revives Japan's pride in wartime generation

(Filed: 28/11/2005)

Sixty years after the colossal battleship Yamato was sunk, the pride of Japan's wartime navy is once again an object of fascination.

Almost 400,000 visitors have flocked to see a full-scale replica of the deck of the Yamato in Onomichi, western Japan. The ship was reconstructed for the shooting of a film, Men of the Yamato, which will be released next month.

The £3million replica deck, made for the film Men of the Yamato, has attracted 400,000 Japanese visitors

The Yamato, the largest battleship ever built, was considered indestructible by the Japanese. But little more than three years after it was completed it was sunk in the East China Sea in April 1945 on a suicidal mission that cost the lives of almost its entire crew of 3,000 men.

The film does not glorify the sacrifice, graphically portraying the anguish of the crew's families and the bloody end to which the men came as their ship was swarmed by US Navy planes.

But, like other recent Japanese war movies, it glosses over Tokyo's aggression and focuses instead on the bravery and comradeship of the men who fought.

Growing tension in East Asia, particularly since North Korea launched a missile over Japanese airspace in 1998, has led to a rethink of the post-war commitment to pacifism. As Japan's Self Defence Forces have been despatched to provide logistical support for the US-led war in Afghanistan and to Iraq for post-war reconstruction, it has become more acceptable to be interested in military matters.

The true hero of the film is the Yamato itself. The production company Toei spent £3 million building the replica deck to ensure the film gives a powerful sense of the scale of the ship and the awe it inspired in the wartime nation.

The ship displaced 65,000 tons and was 862 feet long but was largely obsolete by the time it was built. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour amply demonstrated the vulnerability of battleships to aerial attack.

The anniversary of the ship's sinking was also marked in April by the opening of a museum dedicated to the Yamato in Kure, near Hiroshima, where the original was built. The museum displays items recovered from the Yamato after it was located on the sea bed in 1985.

Under pressure to take a larger share of the burden of fighting in 1945, the Japanese navy elected to turn the Yamato into a gigantic kamikaze ship. With neither air cover nor enough fuel to return, the Yamato was ordered to sail to Okinawa, where the Americans were fighting their way on to Japanese soil.

It was destroyed the day after setting sail, becoming the epitome of the "smashed jewel", a rallying cry for the entire nation to achieve beauty in defeat by dying without surrendering.

The Yamato continues to loom large in popular consciousness. One of the country's most famous cartoon series is Spaceship Yamato, set in a future when the Yamato is recovered from the sea and flown into space. Yamato model ships are the must-have toy for boys.

The Yamato offers the Japanese a relatively safe outlet for feelings of pride in - and sympathy for - the war generation. Few express admiration for the wartime leaders or for soldiers who fought in China, for example, where massacres were committed.

But the navy's reputation was not sullied by atrocities while its leader, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, opposed the catastrophic war with the United States.

The young sailors of the Yamato are widely seen as victims, who fought bravely to protect their country even as they were betrayed.

The film's director, Junya Sato, has stressed it is an anti-war film. "We need to think about what needs to be done so that Japan doesn't go to war again. Making a film about the Yamato is a step in that direction," he said.

However, others fear a negative reaction from a war movie which focuses only on Japanese suffering.

"Given the strained relations with China I wonder whether this is a good time to make this movie. It could be misunderstood as glorifying the ship and the war," said one visitor to the reconstructed Yamato.

[El Sordo]

Interesting.

[horse_doc]

If they want to glorify the fact that we sank every major surface vessel that the IJN ever produced, then they can knock themselves out.

[LonePalm]

Nothing like a threat to the nation and your family to make you rethink pacifism.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Sam the Sham]

I have a love of the Teikoku Kaigun. My computer passwords are generally Japanese warships.

I would love to see this. The "Battleship Yamato" anime series is an absolute masterpiece with a heartrending ending.

[Non-Sequitur]

bump

[Hexenhammer]

I watched the Americanized version of Space Battleship Yamato, StarBlazers, as a kid.

[BenLurkin]

Here she is...

[labette]

Note to self:
Never sail on an unsinkable ship.

[Incorrigible]

Interesting Japanese Cultural Phenomenon

[jim-x]

Good rule.
The Titanic was unsinkable too, as was (I think) the Bismark.

[blam]

[GonzoGOP]

IS THIS BUSH'S FAULT

No seriously, seeing the Avengers in the picture I was wondering was this really is Bush's fault. Of course I'[m talking about Lt JG G H W Bush. The official bio says he was in the Pacific until November of 1944 but his squadron was pulled out due to heavy losses. He transfered stateside in 45 to train new crews. Does anybody know if he was in on the Yamato raid.

[jim_trent]

From memory, there was a second Japanese hull for another battleship that was that large. It was converted to an aircraft carrier before it was finished. It was the largest (at that time) aircraft carrier in the world. It also set off on a suicide mission (at dusk to keep hidden as long as possible from US airplanes), but did not get even as far as this one. It ran into a US submarine and was sunk before morning. I am sure someone here can fill in the details.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #10

Yamato is what Japanese called their country in ancient times. The battle ship Yamato basically conjures up the image of strong proud fatherland. To Japanese, its sinking symbolically represents the crushing defeat of once mighty Japanese Empire. It is no accident that it looms large in Japanese psyche. Japan and battleship Yamato shared the same tragic fate.

[The Grammarian]

Actually, there was a "second" battleship, the Musashi. And then there were two (I believe) battleship hulls from sisterships to the Yamato class that were converted into aircraft carriers. I think the Akagi was one of them.

[jim_trent]

Not what I was thinking about. So I did a Google search to answer my own question. It was the Shinano.

Shinano large fleet support aircraft carrier

Displacement: 71,890 tons full load
Dimensions: 840 x 119 x 34 feet/256 x 36.3 x 10.3 meters
Extreme Dimensions: 872.5 x 131 x 34 feet/266 x 40 x 10.3 meters
Propulsion: Steam turbines, 12 boilers, 4 shafts, 150,000 shp, 27 knots
Crew: 2400
Armor: 8.1-15.7 inch belt, 7.5 inch armored deck
Armament: 8 dual 5/40 DP, 145 25 mm AA, 12 28-barrel AA rocket launchers
Aircraft: 47 (120 maximum)

Concept/Program: A large battleship hull of the Yamato class taken over for conversion to a carrier. The ship was intended to operate as a support, supply and repair base for the fast fleet carriers. She would have carried a mid-size air group of her own, plus spare aircraft, parts and supplies for the fleet carriers, enabling those ships to resupply without returning to Japan. She was the largest carrier prior to 1960.

Design/Conversion: Single-level hangar built above the main deck, armored flight deck, large island. The battleship hull was unchanged.

Departure from Service/Disposal: Never became fully operational. When lost she had no functional damage control facilities.

[GonzoGOP]

It wasn't a suicide mission they were just moving it out of Tokyo bay to keep it away from the B-29 raids while they finished construction. Unfortunately for the Japanese they had only installed half of the pumps and had not installed the waterproof sealants on the numerous wire conduits. So while the torpedo hits would not normally have taken out so large a ship, the Japanese couldn't get the flooding under control and she sank the next day.

This lead to one of the strangest stories of the war. The commanders back at Pearl Harbor knew the Archerfish had sunk the Japanese carrier because they were reading the Japanese code and saw the carriers SOS and the reports from the escorts of her sinking. So they knew that Captain(?) Enright had just sunk the world's largest and most powerful warship. In addition because he sent almost 60000 tons to the bottom with that one shot (it was the only ship he ever sank) he turned in the single best war patrol of any US submarines during the entire war (more than 7,000 tons more than the second place patrol that sank 5 ships for 52,600). As a result they were waiting on the dock for him with medals for the whole crew.

However Enright's own log read that he had bummed around the Pacific for a month and managed only one shot at a carrier for damage. After all it had steamed over the horizon at 26 knots. He had expected to be relieved of command when he returned. To say he was surprised was an understatement. Of a more serious note anyone who read the log and then read the reasons for the commendations would instantly know that we were reading the Japanese codes. The crypto types almost had kittens.

[blam]

The Failed Suicide Of The Most Powerful Battleship In The World

[tophat9000]

The Yamato her sister battleship MUSASHI and and the Yamato class battleship hull coverted to an aircraft carrier SHINANO all died quick simple death and were all flops...oddly the two battleship were killed exclusively by US carrier aircraft but the aircraft carrier SHINANO was sunk by US sub ....

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/history/marshall/military/wwii/Japanese.navy/jap_yamoto_bat.txt

[Sam Cree]

Why is there a Yamato Road in Boca Raton, I wonder. As a kid I built a plastic model of this ship.

[jim_trent]

Thanks for the additional information. It has been a lot of years since I read about it. I seem to remember something about one of the reasons it went down was because of some kind of a design flaw (I am a structural engineer so it was of interest to me). The torpedo that hit (and I think there was only one) should NOT have caused enough damage to sink it, less pumps or not. I wonder if the Yamato also had the same design flaw?

[SES1066]

That this was an absolute suicide mission could not have been clearer to the Japanese as they had proven themselves in 1941 with their attack on the un-air protected 2 ship 'task force' "HMS Prince of Wales" and "HMS Repulse". As Billy Mitchell demonstrated decades earlier, no air cover in an area of enemy air superiority leads to significant naval loses. Unsinkable merely means that you need to try harder with bigger weapons.

As a story I can see the attraction to the Japanese. The Imperial Japanese Navy was, like its Royal Navy counterpart and frequent mentor, the premier service for an island nation. The "Yamoto" and "Musashi" represented an enormous investment for the Japanese in money, effort and spirit. While little could have been done to stave off the disaster that they had lit the fuse for, it might have been better to build smaller. As Comrade Stalin is reputed to have said, "Quantity has a quality all its own".

[yarddog]

When I was a kid, I had a model of the Yamato. It was really a beautiful ship.

If used earlier with support from carriers etc. it could have a devastating impact on places like Guadalcanal. Those 18 inch guns would have done a little damage I guess.

[yarddog]

I think the Yamato took 19 torpedoes if my memory is right plus a lot of bombs.

[GonzoGOP]

I should have been more clear. When I said it wasn't a suiside mission I was talking about the carrier Shinano. They only put enough fuel in her for a one way trip so it was clear they didn't expect her to return.

[DTogo]

The film does not glorify the sacrifice, graphically portraying the anguish of the crew's families and the bloody end to which the men came as their ship was swarmed by US Navy planes. But, like other recent Japanese war movies, it glosses over Tokyo's aggression and focuses instead on the bravery and comradeship of the men who fought.

As if the crew of the Yamato were spending their last hours holding philosophical discussions about Empirial Japan's aggression.

Japan * ping * (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)

[GonzoGOP]

" it might have been better to build smaller" It certainly appears that the IJN would have been served by 20 or 30 escort carriers and a few squadrons of fighters to protect their merchant fleet from the US Submarines than they were by these two giant battleships. Of course if Admiral Toyoda hadn't lost his nerve at the Battle of the Philippine Sea and had used Yamato's big guns to wipe out MacArthur's entire army on the beach we probably would consider them to be the greatest investment the Japanese made. Its best to say that the big battleships were badly misused by the IJN. The presence of these ships in Iron Bottom sound during Guadalcanal could have tipped the balance. But they were so expensive that the IJN afraid of loosing the and hence didn't use them early in the war when they could have made a difference. Later they sacrificed them when their sacrifice, and that of their 3000 man crews, wouldn't make a difference even if they succeeded in their attack.

[Temple Owl]

The young sailors of the Yamato are widely seen as victims, who fought bravely to protect their country even as they were betrayed.

They probably had a good time raping Korean "Comfort Girls" before getting nailed by the United States Navy.

[Lockbar]

When I was a teenager I met a guy who was one of the air crew of an Avenger that sank the Yamato. I told him I heard that it was a really, really giant ship, and how big was it? His reply: "It was the biggest thing I ever saw in my life!"

He also mentioned that he himself never saw torpedo loaded in his Avenger after he left flight crew school. His plane was a always loaded with conventional bombs.

[skinkinthegrass]

Dommo. :D

[GonzoGOP]

If you want to see what she looks like today visit
http://www.warship.get.net.pl/Japonia/Battleships/1941_Yamato_class/Wreck/_Yamato_wreck_02.html

[Calvin Locke]

The History Channel had the Battle of Leyte Gulf on a couple of weeks ago. A destroyer escort launched it's 3 torpedoes
at the Yamato and took the battleship (and admiral) out of the battle for 10 minutes as it turned away to avoid them.

[COEXERJ145]

The mushroom cloud created by explosion of the Yamato was visible from the Southern Japanese Islands. People who say it said it was the largest explosion they ever saw. Well, at least it was until August 6th, 1945.

[SW6906]

Oh, I'm sure you're gonna wanna go see this one.......

[91B]

Do not forget to give some credit to the suicidally brave task force of destroyer escorts and escort carriers that put up so much of a fight that Toyoda believed he had encountered the main force (foolishly sent north after the Jap carriers).

[kilowhskey]

The ship you are referring to is the Shinano. It was sunk by the USS Archerfish.

[yarddog]

I saw that on the History channel. Simply incredible bravery by the American sailors. They said at first the Japanese shells were not doing much damage to the little destroyers because they were passing right through them because their armor was so thin.

The Japanese figured out what was happening and changed the type shells and began to destroy them. Absolutely suicidal attacks by tiny ships against an entire fleet of capital ships.

[alfa6]

Minor nit picking note.

Admiral Kurita was the on scene commander for the Leyte Gulf battle. Adm Toyada was the IJN C in C

For a good read on the attack by the "Small Boys" see the book "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" it was published in the last year or two.

Also the Yamato was sunk 7 April 1945, about a week after the Okinowa invasion beging so President Bush #41 would not have been there.

http://www.combinedfleet.com has lots of cool stof on the IJN

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[GonzoGOP]

Do not forget to give some credit to the suicidally brave task force of destroyer escorts and escort carriers that put up so much of a fight that Toyoda believed he had encountered the main force (foolishly sent north after the Jap carriers). Absolutely. The men and ships that fought with Adm. Sprague off Samar saved the US from a total disaster. And as an additional correction I identified the Japanese commander as Toyoda. Toyoda was in command at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, it was in fact Kurita was in command at Leyte Gulf and who lost his nerve when attacked by the escort carriers and DEs of Taffy 3.

Some mention should also be made of the fighting spirit sailors on board the escort carriers. The pilots who returned to their carriers to rearm and refuel to attack the battleships again and again instead of flying away towards land. And the sailors of Taffy 2 who steamed TOWARDS Kurita's battle line and who's arrival helped convince Kurita he was up against Halsey. A fighting spirit that can best be demonstrated by a signalman on Sprague's flagship who upon seeing the Japanese turn away declared "damn it, they’re getting away!"

[RichInOC]

"Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end."

--Rudyard Kipling

[91B]

Thanks for the correction, I'll look for the book.

[91B]

I remember reading that story as a kid and I have always been struck by it. The USN should always be proud of the fight by those ships as one of its finest moments.

[Fred Hayek]

You are thinking of the Shinano. Built on a Yamato class hull, it was the largest carrier until the USS Enterprise (CVN 65). It never really had an operational airgroup, since by the time the Shinano was at sea, the IJN lost most of it's experienced pilots. So it was used mostly as an aircraft transport during its short career. The Shinano was sunk in 1944 by the USS Archerfish (mostly due to the IJN ignoring ASW)

The Akagi was a conversion of a WWI era battlecruiser that would have otherwise been scrapped due to the naval treaties of the interwar years. The Akagi (along with the Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu) was sunk at the Battle of Midway.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

When I was a kid, I lived in Japan. My Pop and I built a model of Yamato. It was 5 feet long! My mother made us put it up so she could have the dining room table back for Thanksgiving.

I well remember being outraged at the Japanese celebration of December 7. They had all the old Rising Sun battle flags flying. They probably don't do that anymore.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

[mad_as_he$$]

Don't forget that the Titanic had two sister ships. The Britannic was sunk in the Aegean - I think - during WW1 and the Olympic was damaged in a collision and then went on to a successful career. The Olympic was to be finished first but put behind Titanic for some reason. More than you wanted to know??

[mad_as_he$$]

Holy Cr@p that was a giant ( I will not use hugh or huge here out of respect for the hugh police) explosion!

[mad_as_he$$]

I went to Pearl for the first time in 1994. It was full of old Japanese guys. I asked one why they were there, he told me that they wanted to see where it started. I have been told by others since then that the old guys gloat about the victory at Pearl. I believe that many want to remember the "honorable" part of the war. Oh well they will all be passed on soon and the Memorial will have a drop in attendance, I believe.

[Domangart]

Wrong ship.