Did Japan’s WWII warship Yamato sail kamikaze mission over misinterpreted emperor question?
The battleship was sunk by US aircraft near Okinawa at the end of WWII as Japan tried to thwart further attacks on its mainland
The Japanese battleship Yamato was underprepared when it embarked on a kamikaze mission against US forces invading Okinawa and sank near the end of World War II due to a naval officer misinterpreting a question by the emperor, according to new evidence that has emerged nearly 80 years ago after the battle.
At 71,000 tons, the Yamato was the largest battleship ever constructed and the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy until it was sunk by bombs and torpedoes from American aircraft on April 7, 1945, as it steamed towards Okinawa to take on the Allied fleet. Of the 3,332 crew on board the Yamato, just 277 survived.
According to previous historical accounts, Emperor Hirohito was in favour of the Yamato carrying out the one-way mission to Okinawa – its task was to steam through the invasion fleet, beach itself on the shore and then use its three turrets of triple 46cm guns to cause havoc among the invaders.
However, a Japanese newspaper says a naval officer’s misunderstanding of the emperor’s question meant that the Yamato left Tokuyama port at very short notice without adequate naval or air support.
Akira Yamada, a professor of history at Tokyo’s Meiji University, said it was clear the emperor was concerned that a US invasion of Okinawa would put all of mainland Japan within range of American heavy bombers that were already devastating the nation’s cities.
“Naval officers interpreted the emperor’s question about ongoing strikes by ‘kamikaze’ aircraft more broadly, assuming that it was an instruction to also attack with naval forces and that Yamato should be dispatched,” Yamada told This Week in Asia.
