Posted on 11/27/2005 4:41:55 PM PST by 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.
Why is there a Yamato Road in Boca Raton, I wonder. As a kid I built a plastic model of this ship.
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?
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".
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.
I think the Yamato took 19 torpedoes if my memory is right plus a lot of bombs.
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.
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)
They probably had a good time raping Korean "Comfort Girls" before getting nailed by the United States Navy.
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.
Oh, I'm sure you're gonna wanna go see this one.......
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).
The ship you are referring to is the Shinano. It was sunk by the USS Archerfish.
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.
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 ;>}
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.