Battleship Film Revives Japan's Pride In Wartime Generation

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

[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