YAMATO !        

Yamato received comparatively light damage during the Leyte Gulf battle, and was sent home in November 1944. Fitted with additional anti-aircraft machine guns, she was based in Japan during the winter of 1944-45. Attacked by U.S. Navy carrier planes in March 1945, during raids on the Japanese home islands, she was again only lightly damaged. The following month, she was assigned to take part in the suicidal "Ten-Go" Operation, a combined air and sea effort to destroy American naval forces supporting the invasion of Okinawa.

Early on the morning of 7 April 1945, Essex search planes located a Japanese task force consisting of the super battleship Yamato, one Agano class cruiser, and eight destroyers steaming in the East China Sea off the southern tip of Kyushu.  

Essex fighters of, VF83, maintained contact until deck load after deck load of Task Force 58 planes arrived to deliver the attack that destroyed the first and last of Japans great battleships, the cruiser, and three destroyers.  Airgroup 83  planes scored four sure and four probable torpedo hits on the Yamato, two 1000 lb bomb hits on the cruiser, and sank one destroyer with a single torpedo.

 

"Ten-Go" Operation, April 1945

Japanese battleship Yamato (top) and a destroyer in action with U.S. Navy carrier planes north of Okinawa on 7 April 1945. Yamato appears to be down at the bow and moving slowly after being hit by multiple air attacks.

The destroyer is either Fuyuzuki or Suzutsuki, and appears to have fired her after 10cm guns at the instant this photo was taken.

After the war, the great battleship became an object of intense fascination in Japan, as well as in foreign countries. Yamato's remains were located and examined in 1985 and again examined more precisely in 1999.  She lies in two main parts in some 1000 feet of water.  Her bow portion, severed from the rest of the ship in the vicinity of the second main battery turret, is upright. The midships and stern section is upside down nearby, with a large hole in the lower starboard side close to the after magazines. 

( Photos from US Navy Archives, the Nimitz collection )