how many planes were lost sinking the yamatohow many planes were lost sinking the yamato

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING VETERAN JOURNALISM - JOIN SOFREP+ One Avenger is shot down but her barrage is largely ineffective because each AA battery fires independently without coordination. Yamato would have appeared indestructible. VFA-25 (1983 and continuing). Yamato had been fitted with multiple air and surface search radars, as well as radio-intercept capability. At 0657, destroyer Asashimo, with Captain Kotaki, DESDIV 21, embarked, sent a signal that she was having engine trouble and began to fall behind. She continues to throw up a screen of desperate flak fire. Anatomy of Yamato None of the captains was afraid to diethey just objected to the sheer folly of attacking in daylight without air cover, believing that they wouldnt get anywhere close to Okinawa. miles southwest of Kyushu, Japan. Sieber was officially credited with two bomb hits on the Yamato and received the Navy Cross for his part in helping sink the huge ship that day. Thank you to all the brave men and women of the US armed forces! This was taken by senior Japanese navy leaders as implicit criticism of their services inaction. The Japanese naval defense plan was code-named named Sho-I-Go ("Victory"), and its objective was simple: Sink the American invasion fleet, maintain the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, and, by doing this, protect Japan from invasion. Yamato and her sister ship Musashi, sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, were, at 65,000 tons displacement (72,000 tons fully loaded), the largest battleships ever built. [5] The smoke from the explosionover 4miles (6.4km) highwas seen 100miles (160km) away on Kysh. About a year before he died he told us about this battle against the Yamato and that he was involved in the attack, but no details. (Video: Reuters) When the Japanese fleet approached Midway, the Americans were lying in wait. Barrett products are used by civilians, sport shooters, law enforcement agencies, the United States military, and more than 75 State Department-approved countries around the world. H-044-3: Operation Heaven Number One (Ten-ichi-go)the Death of Yamato, 7 April 1945. More U.S. aircraft may have been knocked down by the magazine explosion than by Japanese anti-aircraft fire. Praesidus brings homage to the military watch tradition. How many ships does a Yamato sink have? The commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, resolved to send what was left of his force out in a blaze of glory. When Yamato sank, marking the last Japanese naval action of the war, she took 2,747 men with herall but 269 of her crew. It's cable. DANFS - Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Permitting Policy and Resource Management, The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks: 20 Years Later, "Ex Scientia Tridens": The U.S. Over the next days, additional messages were intercepted and decrypted by Fleet Radio Unit Pacific (FRUPAC) and also OP-20-G in Washington that provided increasingly detailed information on the operations timing and made specific mention of Yamato on 5 April. Experts believe that a fire raging in the They shadowed the Japanese and relayed their position to the American fleet. The Attack Force turns to course 205, towards Okinawa. At 1430 on 7 April 1945, more than 300 nautical miles north of Okinawa, Yamato blows up after capsizing. as she turns to avoid the onslaught from bombers. Before getting underway, the Surface Special Attack Force put ashore 67 recently arrived midshipmen of the Etajima Naval Academy Class No. The debate up to that point was whether to keep the fleet in home waters as a last-ditch defense or to send it on what everyone knew would be a one-way mission to attack the overwhelming U.S. forces expected to be at Okinawa. A Japanese destroyer peeled off three times to keep Hackleback at bay. 1s USS HORNET (CV-12), HANCOCK (CV-19), BENNINGTON (CV-20), BELLEAU WOOD (CVL-24) and SAN JACINTO (CVL-30) and from Task Group 58. The Japanese admiral in charge of Operation Ten-Go, Vice-Admiral Seiichi It, disagreed with the plan which essentially was to sail into teeth of the American fleet without the benefit of any air cover and then beach on Okinawa and operate as a static defense in support of the island. Everyone of them, enlisted and officers, were a true gentleman. TG 58.1, commanded by Rear Admiral J. J. Japans secrecy was due to her inability to match U.S. naval power ship for ship. AA guns and one hundred fifty-two 25-mm AA guns all open fire. He saw four Avengers go in low, dropping their torpedoes in a spread on Yamatos beam. Far more effective was the extraordinary skill of Japanese ship captains in making evasive maneuvers to throw off aim and avoid numerous bombs and torpedoes. The FIST of the FLEET where it began during WWII. I am fortunate to be living as long as I have , I know us WWII vets are living on borrowed time, but glad to be of sound mind yet and can remember incidents like this. They eventually fell in line when informed that this was what the emperor wanted, that the force would serve to support the mass kamikaze air attack, and that it was an order. In total, the U.S. lost 12 men. (They were right.) On 19 March 1945 Yamato came under heavy attack when American carrier aircraft from Enterprise, Yorktown and Intrepid raided the major naval base of Kure where she was docked. The fire in the area ofher forward 6.1 inch turret can be clearly seen (L42-09.06.05). DesDiv 17s HAMAKAZE takes a near miss on her starboard quarter that disables her starboard shaft. Both Rear Admiral Komura and Captain Hara survived. The Imperial Japanese Navy's super-battleship Yamato, shown here during pre-commission running trials in the Bungo Strait between the Home Islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, 20 October 1941 (NH 73092). Some who were shot down were later picked up by seaplanes or submarines. He gave the go-ahead for the strike but ordered the battlewagons to proceed in the event the Japanese fleet got through the airstrike. Twelve Helldivers claimed several hits in the bridge area in exchange for five Helldivers damaged by anti-aircraft fire. The force would transit to Okinawa on 7 April (with only a few hours of minimal air cover), to arrive in daylight hours in the U.S. transport area off southwestern Okinawa on 8 April. Ten minutes later, two more torpedoes strike her port side. Baka claimed its first victim, the destroyer USS Abele, in the seas off Okinawa on April 12. A Curtiss Helldiver bomber like the one seen at right The big carriers got all the credit. My father, Donald Lennox, Sr. was an Avenger pilot on the San Jacinto whose torpedo is credited for striking the Asashimo. The sky is still overcast and visibility is poor. The morale aboard Yamato was described as not being very good, especially after the crews were informed they were on a one-way mission. [1][5], At 12:32 on 7 April 1945, Yamato was attacked by a first wave of 280 aircraft from Task Force 58, taking three hits (two bombs, one torpedo). settled on the seafloor 1,200 feet down and about 50 Spruance was informed of it only after the aircraft had taken off. Orders to Commit Suicide The Yamato had unbelievable orders. Just after 1240 on 7 April, Yamato maneuvers frantically under the initial attackby USS Bennington (CV-20)and USS Hornet (CV-12) aircraft as a bomb explodes offher port side. A total of 10 U.S. aircraft were shot down by anti-aircraft fire from the Japanese ships; some aircrews were rescued by seaplane or submarine. During the night, this plan morphed into sending six new battleships detached from TF 58 into blocking position. Photographed from a USS Yorktown (CV-10) plane (NH 62581). Of the 3,332 crew members aboard the Yamato, only 276 survived the sinking. this one exploding off Yamato's port bow, it was their air-launched torpedoes Mitscher ordered all four of his carrier task groups to proceed as soon as possible to launch positions northeast of Okinawa with the intent to destroy Yamato before it got anywhere near Okinawa. The visibility was highly variable, but often not very good due to cloud cover. The Americans lose 10 aircraft and 12 crewmen. The explosion was heard over 120 miles away. I was in a ASW squadron that still had many veterans serving and flying. See what made the ship both seemingly unsinkable and highly vulnerable to attack. The attack on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago left a tangled mess of burning and shattered warships. They withheld the news from the public. [1] By 14:00, two of Yamatos escorts had been sunk. TOKYO Seventy-six years ago, on April 7, 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy vessel Yamato, the world's largest battleship, was sunk by U.S. military aircraft. The emperors question clinched it. Sources include: NHHC Dictionary of American Fighting Ships (DANFS) for U.S. ships and combinedfleet.com for Japanese ships. Mitscher correctly assumed that the Japanese were operating without air cover and would be sitting ducks for his huge airwing. Numerous Helldivers from Bennington and Hornet attacked from Yamatos port side and numerous near misses splashed all around the battleship, which was moving at flank speed (27 knots), before she was finally hit by two 1,000-pound armor-piercing bombs at 1240. most of the American pilots returned to their carriers, knowing Hancock for some reason launched her 53-plane strike late, and it never found Yamato in the murk, reducing the overall first strike to 227 aircraft. A near miss on Hamakaze disabled her starboard shaft and then, at 1247, torpedo hits amidships blew her in half. This time, all attacks concentrated on the battleship. WORLD WAR II. >. Five Helldivers are damaged by AA fire. The first attack wave retires. The loss of these ships shocked the British government, and helped change procurement and employment strategies in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Altogether more effective were Japan's aerial suicide weapons. [25][26] Damage to the battleship, however, was light,[25] due in part to the base being defended by elite veteran Japanese fighter instructors flying Kawanishi N1K Shiden or George fighters. Yamato was commanded by Captain Kosaku Aruga (spelled Ariga in some accounts). So, the admirals concocted what they termed, Operation Ten-Go (Operation Heaven One). Yamato's injuries were fatal. At 1302, Yamatos remaining air search radar detected a second inbound wave. With this contact information, Spruance ordered Deyo to ready the blocking force. Operation Ten-Go never should have happened. It says that the Kikaigashima Island lookout station saw 150 carrier planes heading northwest. YAMATO opens fire with her two forward main turrets and AA guns. ), U.S. submarines were already waiting for Yamato, with orders to report rather than attack, although with the force transiting at 22 knots and frequently zig-zagging, successful attack in all but the luckiest circumstances was unlikely. At 1333, another 110 aircraft from TG 58.4 (Yorktown, Intrepid, and Langley), which had launched after the first wave of 280 aircraft, commenced their attack on Yamato. On her last morning, before the first American planes intercepted her, Eggheads on this subject get "lost in the sauce" going over tables, charts, and math formulas done by researchers after the war shooting rounds into armor plate captured from Japan and Germany,. The Americans bloody island-hopping campaign, which had begun in the southern Solomon Islands in 1942, had grown as the Americans swept across the Gilberts, the Solomons, and, after the battles in Leyte Gulf and the Philippine Sea, were on the cusp of Japan herself. Throughout 1943, Yamato continually transferred between Truk, Kure and Brunei in response to American airstrikes on Japanese island bases. Thirty-four Hellcats, 22 Helldivers and one Corsair attack YAMATOs escorts. In 1945 Carrier Air Group 17 consisted of VF-17, VBF-17, VB-17, and VT-17. At 1000 hours he launched a total of 386 aircraft consisting of fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers. Now I know a little bit. [1] When the 1st Battleship Division was deactivated once again on 10 February, Yamato was reassigned to the 1st Carrier Division. She quickly shipped 2,235 tons of water, but the list was soon corrected with effective counter-flooding. Yahagi lost 446 of about 1,000 crewmen. But the mission was approved and the Japanese ships set sail for Okinawa. 1000 hour - The Attack Force sights two large Martin "Mariner" PBM flying boats. Mitscher, CTF 58, was embarked on Bunker Hill. One Helldiver is shot down, another is damaged badly. World War II would see the aircraft carrier emerge as the key to naval supremacy, supplanting the battleship. burning just prior to disappearing beneath the waves. Less than three and half years after Pearl Harbor, American industrial might was on full display. Japanese lookouts spotted the American air armada at 1232 hours and soon opened fire with Yamatos 18-inch guns firing San Shiki anti-aircraft shells that were wildly inaccurate. two Japanese aircraft carriers Deep sea explorers have found two Japanese aircraft carriers that were sunk in battle in World War Two. At this point, after just a few hours of battle, As a Minnesota teenager when the war started,. At 1246, she took a direct torpedo hit in the engine room that killed the entire engine room crew and left her dead in the water, unable to avoid further hits. The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including sailors, soldiers and civilians. These behemoths were triple the tonnage of some other battleships of their day and each one had three turrets, with three huge 18.1 guns per turret. She takes on a heavy list to port and her speed drops to 18 knots. Asashimo went down with all 330 hands. Her nine 18.1-inch guns firing Sanshikidan beehive shells, twenty-four 127-mm. You must become a subscriber or login to view or post comments on this article. of the battleship gives a sense of the 18-inch guns' enormous size (note sailors on deck). TG 58.4 had just finished refueling and would arrive just in time. The first U.S. attack wave ended about 1250. They pounced on her like sharks in the water. On May 6, 1945, a twin-engine kamikaze plane's bomb exploded beside the destroyer Luce, part of the radar picket ship screen surrounding Okinawa, and ripped her starboard side "like a sardine. Updated on July 03, 2019. Two other destroyers were heavily damaged, one, the Hamakaze later sank. Half of the dead at . after the Yamato first took to the sea. The American planes release their bombs and torpedoes and strafe the bridge with machine-gun fire. Jan 6, 2019 Conan White, Guest Author. Taffy 2 and Taffy 3 aircraft contributed to the sinking of the heavy cruisers Chokai, Chikuma, and Suzuya, all of which had received some degree of damage from surface action. Not long after the Hellcat sighting, two PBM-3 Martin Mariner flying boats began shadowing Yamato, maintaining discreet contact for the next five hours while mostly hidden in the clouds. Vice Admiral Ito initially objected to the mission, viewing it as futile and wasteful. 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