Battleship Yamato

The Yamato and its sister ship the Musashi were the largest battleships ever created. Fully loaded, each ship displaced over 72,800 tons of water! Because the Yamato was designed to engage multiple battleships at once, it was heavily armed, with guns capable of shooting 18 inch shells weighing 3000 pounds with accuracy up to a range of 25 miles away. Each of the turrets weighed more than a typical heavy destroyer of the time. At some points, the armor was over two feet of steel thick. All of this extra armor and firepower came at a cost, however. The Yamato was significantly slower than its fellow Kongo-class battleships, with a top speed of only 27 knots. This left it at a disadvantage when it came to pursuit and maneuvering,

In spite of its fearsome outfit, the Yamato, much like the German Bismarck before it saw little actual combat. Following a series of close encounters with torpedo bombers and submarines, and a widespread fuel and ammunition shortage, the Yamato became a "hotel ship" for a span of nearly 9 months. During this time it served as the fleet headquarters but never left port to participate in battle.

Ultimately, the Yamato was sunk while en route to its final destination at Okinawa, where it was to beach itself and act as a gun emplacement. American planes and submarines tracked it down and managed to sink it before it could reach its final destination. The explosion caused from the ship's main magazine could be seen as far as 100 miles away.

However, the story of the Yamato does not end with it sinking. In 1974, an animated film called Space Battleship Yamato was made about raising the Yamato as a spaceship that goes on a quest to save the Earth. The series was a major success, leading to five feature films and two television series. There is even a proposal in the Japanese Parliament currently to research the viability of raising part of the Yamato as a memorial or museum.