[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

[labette]

Note to self:
Never sail on an unsinkable ship.

[Incorrigible]

Interesting Japanese Cultural Phenomenon

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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)

[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.

[SW6906]

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

[RichInOC]

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

--Rudyard Kipling

[Bender2]

PBS recently did a program on the mighty Yamato, even showing the wreck on the ocean floor. However, the film miscast the Yamato's last ride as its only combat action.

Actually, the Yamato commanded the attack on a small US escort carrier and destroyer force at Leyte Gulf in October of 1944. There, the courage of American destroyers kept the Yamato at bey and allowed the small escort carriers to flee. The Japanese Admiral Kurita had the upper hand and the Leyte Gulf beachhead in his 18-inch guns sites, yet he unexpectedly turned tail, beating a quick retreat back to Nippon.

BTW the Yamato's sister ship, the Musashi was sank ealier in the Leyte Gulf engagement as a preview of what was to come. There was not any mention of the Yamato's sibling in the PBS program. It is akin to the liberal media offering up a glowing bio of Hillary Clinton without mentioning her husband or his antics.

It always gets my goat when the entertainment and news medias rewrite history or in the case of the Yamato, edits it.

In the end, all the Japanese effort and expense of building the Yamato was for naught. American Airpower sunk it as another payment for Pearl Harbor.

[Centurion2000]

Star Blazers ROCKED.

[BigCinBigD]

I thought the Yamato was destroyed by a warp core breach when a computer defect shut down the containment fields?

Oh. Wrong Yamato.