The behemoth battleship Yamato was dispatched on its suicidal mission to Okinawa in 1945 because of a naval officer's misunderstanding of a question posed by the emperor, according to a newly disclosed document.
The Yamato was sunk by U.S. carrier-borne aircraft on April 7, 1945, as it sailed toward Okinawa where its commanders were ordered to beach the vessel and use its mighty arsenal as a gun battery.
More than 4,000 sailors, equivalent to the total fatalities linked to kamikaze suicide air attacks, were killed in the desperate maritime operation toward the end of World War II.
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The latest finding reinforces the possibility that the Yamato’s one-way mission to Okinawa was abruptly hatched on April 4, 1945, as Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, “asked” a naval executive officer about the status of available surface vessels.
The operation was finalized on the next day, April 5, 1945. [...]
“Such a large-scale mission was developed too hastily, indicating how grave the impact of the emperor’s comment on the navy was,” said Kazushige Todaka, director of the Yamato Museum in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, who studies historical facts about the Imperial Japanese Navy.
He continued, “Excessively concerned with doing what they thought the emperor wanted and upholding the navy’s honor, officers seemingly rushed to reach the decision. This could also explain the shoddy implementation of the plan.”
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