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By Root 922 0

slam into Yamato’s hull, causing massive damage below. Soon a stream of men were emerging onto the upper deck. Those above were reluctant to slam hatches on the “black gang” still trapped in the engine rooms, but the order was given to flood some compartments anyway. Turrets were traversed by hand when power failed. Exposed light AA-gun positions were strewn with dead and wounded. Yoshida remembered reading a training manual which stated that “a poor ratio of hits is due to human error768 and inadequate training.” An officer had scrawled beside those words: “This is nonsense. Lt. Usubuchi.” The upper decks were deluged with water from near misses, and blood from shattered bodies. Half Yamato’s bridge crew was dead. Yoshida found most of the survivors, some crudely bandaged with towelling, lying prone at their posts as a third wave of American attackers struck.

Belowdecks, the wardroom crowded with wounded suffered a direct hit from a bomb which wiped out its occupants. The upper works were reduced to twisted wreckage. Wide-eyed men stumbled in the midst of the steel shambles, helpless to aid the maimed and dying. Yoshida slapped the face of a seventeen-year-old rating, to stop his convulsive shaking. Far belowdecks, storeroom clerks gorged themselves on sake. What else could they do, and what was the liquor to be saved for? Ito, the admiral, remained in his chair on the bridge even as a fresh explosion hurled flying bodies against him. At the helm was Chief Quartermaster Koyama, an elderly prodigy. Koyama had served as a sailor at Japan’s great victory of Tsushima, against the Russians more than forty years earlier. Now, in the last minutes of his life, he witnessed a historic Japanese defeat. Ito’s chief of staff, Rear-Admiral Nobii Morishita, a famously brilliant staff officer and poker player, said sardonically of the American assault: “Beautifully done, isn’t it?”

The torpedo-carrying Avengers pressed their attacks with great courage. They customarily attacked at three hundred feet, but that afternoon many crews flew much lower, braving the ships’ fire to release torpedoes well inside the usual fifteen hundred yards. One of the pilots, Lt. John Davis of Bunker Hill, said afterwards: “On the way in I was working for the navy, and on the way out I was working for myself and the crew.” Later waves of American attackers were poorly directed and coordinated, because radio communication became confused. Pilots simply chose their own targets, with the Avengers concentrating torpedoes on the biggest. Yamato pumped thousands of gallons of seawater into a hull bulge to correct a list. The ship maintained way, and continued to fire her main armament, but was drastically slowed. Four destroyers and the cruiser Yahagi were already wrecked or sunk, while those American pilots with fuel to spare machine-gunned survivors in the water. At 1410, a bomb jammed Yamato’s rudder and all power failed. The huge ship swung impotent, listing steeply, her port side awash.

Yoshida noticed a man-sized strip of human flesh hanging from a range finder. Another procession of American planes swung in to attack. On Yamato’s bridge Ariga kept repeating monotonously: “Don’t lose heart. Don’t lose heart.” Ito said abruptly, gratuitously: “Halt the operation.” His chief of staff saluted. Ito returned the compliment, then shook hands with several officers before leaving the bridge for his quarters, never to be seen again. His adjutant began to follow, only to be restrained by others who said: “Don’t be a fool. You don’t have to go.” The captain ordered all hands on deck, then lashed himself to the chart table. Two navigating officers did likewise. The survivors on the bridge cried “Banzai!” thrice. Then Yoshida and several others left the bridge for the last time. Hundreds of men began to seek safety from the foundering ruin of their great ship, still subjected to strafing. No vessel of the Japanese navy carried rafts or lifebelts, for such accessories might suggest that it was desirable to survive defeat.

Dazed, shocked, blackened figures thronged Yamato